flies. And even such a thick-skinned animal as a rhinoceros
likes to plaster himself with mud to keep away the insects.

But after Squinty and his brothers and sisters had rolled in the mud,
they were always glad when the farmer came with the garden hose and
washed them clean again, so their pink skins showed beneath their white,
hairy bristles.

Squinty and the other pigs grew until they were a nice size. They had
nothing to do but eat and sleep, and of course that will make anyone
grow.

Now Squinty, though he was not the largest of the family of pig
children, was by far the smartest. He learned more quickly than did his
brothers and sisters, how to run to the trough to eat, when his mother
called him, and he learned how to stand up against one side of the pen
and rub himself back and forth to scratch his side when a mosquito had
bitten him in a place he could not reach with his foot.

In fact Squinty was a little too smart. He wanted to do many things his
brothers and sisters never thought of. One day when Squinty and the
others had eaten their dinner, Squinty told his brother Wuff-Wuff that
he thought it would be a nice thing to have some fun.

Wuff-Wuff said he thought so, too, but he didn't just know what to do.
In fact there was not much one could do in a pig pen.

"If we could only get out of here!" grunted Squinty, as he looked out
through a crack in the boards and saw the green garden, where pig weed
was growing thickly.

"Yes, but we can't," said Wuff-Wuff.

Squinty was not so sure about this. In fact he was a very inquisitive
little pig--that is, he always wanted to find out about things, and why
this and that was so, and what made the wheels go around, and all like
that.

"I think I can get out through that place," said Squinty to himself, a
little later. He had found another crack between two boards of the
pen--a large crack, and one edge of the board was loose. Squinty began
to push with his rubbery nose.

A pig's nose is pretty strong, you know, for it is made for digging, or
rooting in the earth, to turn up acorns, and other good things to eat.

Squinty pushed and pushed on the board until he had made it very loose.
The crack was getting wider.

"Oh, I can surely get out!" he thought. He looked around; his mother and
father and all the little pigs were asleep in the shady part of the pen.

"I'm going!" said Squinty to himself.

He gave one extra hard push, and there he was through the