go back, before I have had any fun. It will be time enough to go back to
the pen when it is dark. Yes, that will be time enough," for of course
Squinty did not think of staying out after the sun had gone down. Or, at
least, he did not imagine he would.

But you just wait and see what happens.

Squinty looked carefully about him. Even if one eye did droop a little,
he could still see out of it very well, and he saw no signs of Don, the
big dog. Nor could Squinty hear him.

Don must be far away, the little pig thought, far away, perhaps taking a
swim in the brook, where the dog often went to cool off in hot weather.

"I think I'll go and have a swim myself," thought Squinty. He knew there
was a brook somewhere on the farm, for he could hear the tinkle and fall
of the water even in the pig pen. But where the brook was he did not
know exactly.

"But it will be an adventure to hunt for it," Squinty thought. "I guess
I can easily find it. Here I go!" and with that he started to walk
between the rows of potatoes.

Squinty made up his little mind that he was going to be very careful.
Now that he was safely out of the pen again he did not want to be caught
the second time. He did not want Don, or the farmer, to see him, so he
crawled along, keeping as much out of sight as he could.

"I wish my brothers, Wuff-Wuff or Squealer were with me," said Squinty
softly to himself, in pig language. "But if I had awakened them, and
asked them to run away with me, mamma or papa might have heard, and
stopped us."

Squinty did not feel at all sorry about running away and leaving his
father and mother, and brothers and sisters. You see he thought he would
be back with them again in a few hours, for he did not intend to stay
away from the pen longer than that. But many things can happen in a few
hours, as you shall see.

"I won't eat any pig weed just yet," thought Squinty, as he went softly
on between the rows of potato vines. "To pull up any of it, and eat it
now, would make it wiggle. Then Don or the farmer might see it wiggling,
and run over to find out what it was all about. Then I'd be caught. I'll
wait a bit."

So, though he was very hungry, he would not eat a bit of the pig weed
that grew near the pen. And he never so much as dreamed of taking any of
the farmer's potatoes. He did not yet know the taste of them. But, let
me tell you, pigs who have eaten potatoes, even the little ones the
farmer cannot sell, are very fond of