supposed that
he could go on eating forever, if he were only lucky enough to have the
chance. But to his surprise he found that there was a limit to the
amount he could consume with comfort. He began to have a _tight_ feeling
about his waistband. At first he dared hope it would go away. But the
more he ate, the worse he felt. And at last he gave a grunt of
disappointment.

"I can't eat any more," he whined. "Here's a whole world full of food
just going to waste. And I can't even hold one half of it!"

Still, there were other pleasures to be had besides eating. Grunty
crawled through the fence into the lane. And near the barn, where the
cows had trampled, he beheld such beautiful, sticky, deep mud as he had
never dreamed could be found anywhere.

Grunty Pig gave a deep sigh of happiness as he wallowed in the mire. He
lay on his stomach, he turned upon each side. He even squirmed through a
puddle and rolled over in it, so that there wasn't a clean patch on him,
anywhere. Little did he care that his silvery bristles were smeared with
black. The mud felt delightfully cool upon his piggy, pinkish skin.

"This is almost better than eating," Grunty squealed.

At last his gurgles and grunts attracted the notice of a proud creature
known as Henrietta Hen. She had been scratching for worms in the
farmyard. And now she came running around a corner of the barn and
peered through the fence at Grunty.

"You careless child!" she squawked. "Stop playing in that mud! Don't you
know that it's very dangerous to get your feet wet?"

Grunty Pig stood up and looked at her.

"Goodness! You're a sight!" Henrietta Hen exclaimed. "Does your mother
know you're here?"

Now, Grunty Pig didn't answer a single one of Henrietta's questions. He
merely stared at her and said nothing. So it was no wonder that she
thought him stupid.

"Poor Mrs. Pig!" thought Henrietta Hen. "It's bad enough to have a child
so untidy as this youngster. But it's far worse to have a dull-witted
one."

Then to Grunty she said sharply, "You'd better get out of that mudhole
and go dry yourself in the sun."

He actually obeyed her. And as soon as Henrietta Hen saw that he was
sunning himself she walked out of sight around the barn, stopping now
and then to pick up some tidbit or other.

"Good!" Grunty Pig grunted. "She's gone. This was the easiest way to get
rid of her."

V

SIXES AND SEVENS

Not until feeding time came did anyone discover that Gru