A day or two after this conversation, Ernest came in late to dinner,
exclaiming: "Father, the white sow and all her thirteen pigs are out."

"The Dickens, have you any idea where she's gone?" Dr. Morton looked
decidedly annoyed. "I told Jim Bart that pen wasn't strong enough to
hold her--she's the meanest animal on the place."

"One of the harvest hands said he thought he saw her down along the
slough. I am sorry for the porkers if she is--they aren't a week old
yet."

"Go down right after dinner and see if you can see anything of her. The
old fool will lose them all in that marshy ground. And I don't see how
we can spare a man to look after them. It looks like rain and that wheat
must be in the barns by night."

Ernest came back from his search to report that the sow and one lone pig
had wandered back to the barnyard and Jim Bart had got them into the
pen.

"One pig! You don't mean she has lost the other twelve? That's costly
business!"

"Looks that way. They're such little fellows--I suppose they're
squealing down there in the slough in that swamp grass--it's a regular
jungle three or four feet high."

Dr. Morton studied a moment, perplexed. "Well, the grain is worth more
than the pigs. I guess they'll have to go until evening and then we'll
all go down and see how many we can find. They won't suffer greatly
before night unless they find enough water to drown themselves in."

"Oh, the poor piggies!" exclaimed Chicken Little. "Why, they'll be most
starved and maybe the bull snakes might get them."

"I hardly think they could manage a pig. But I can't help it, unless you
think you could rescue them, daughter." Dr. Morton said this last in
fun, but Chicken Little took it seriously.

"What could I put them in, Father?"

"Oh, you might take a small chicken coop," replied her father
carelessly. The wagons coming from the barn were already rattling into
the road and he was in a hurry to catch one and save himself the hot
walk to the fields.

Chicken Little was thinking. She sat twisting a corner of her apron into
a tight roll. "I believe we could do it," she said presently, "and the
bull snakes are perfectly harmless if they are big, ugly-looking things.
Will you help me, Katie?"

"Ugh, are there really snakes there, Jane?"

"Yes, but we've never seen any poisonous ones along there, though I saw
a water moccasin once right down by the spring, so you never can tell.
But snakes sound a lot worse than they rea