and began
rooting in the ground.

"Perhaps I may find some potatoes, or some pig weed, here," thought
Squinty. "Who knows?"

But all he could root up, with his queer, rubbery nose, was some round
stones. Some of these were brown, and looked so much like the little
potatoes, that Squinty tried to chew one. But when he felt the hard
stone on his little white teeth he cried out in pain.

"Ouch!" squealed Squinty. "That hurt! Those are funny potatoes! I never
knew they could be so hard."

Later on he learned that what he supposed were potatoes were only
stones. You see it takes a little pig some time to learn all the things
he needs to know.

Squinty let the stone roll out of his mouth, and he looked at it with
such an odd look on his face, peering at it with his squinty eye, and
with one ear cocked up sort of sideways, that, if you had seen him, you
could not have helped laughing. No one could, if they had seen Squinty
then, but there was no one in the field to watch him.

"Well," thought Squinty, after a bit, "this will never do. I can't stay
here. I must try to find my way back home. Let me see; what had I better
do? I guess the first thing is to find that field of real potatoes, and
not the make-believe ones like this," and he pushed the stone away with
his nose.

"When I find the potato field," he went on, still talking to himself, "I
am sure I can find the brook where I had a swim. And when I find the
brook I will know my way home, for there is a straight path from there
to our pen."

So Squinty started off once more to walk through the rows of corn. As he
walked along on his little short legs he grunted, and rooted in the
earth with his nose. Sometimes he stumbled over a big stone, or a clod
of dirt, and fell down.

"Oh dear!" exclaimed poor Squinty, when he got up after falling down
about six times, "Oh dear! This is no fun. I wish I had stayed in the
pen with my brothers and sisters. I wonder what they are doing now?"

Just then Squinty felt more hungry than ever, and he thought it must be
feeding-time back in the pen.

"Oh, they must be having some nice sour milk just now!" thought Squinty.
"How I wish I were back with them!"

And then, as he fancied he could smell the nice sour milk, which the
farmer or his wife was pouring into the eating trough of the pen,
Squinty just howled and squealed with hunger. Oh, what a noise he made!

Then this gave him an idea.

"Ha!" he exclaimed to himself, in a