PIGGY'S SPOON.
IGGY had a little house close by the barn. There were two rooms in his house. In one room he had his bed; in the other he had a trough.
On one side of his house there was a door that opened into a pen. The pen was in the orchard where the sweet apples grew. Sometimes in summer the apples would fall down from the trees into the pen; then piggy would pick them up and eat them. Sometimes they would strike him on his back when they fell; but he did not mind that; he was always glad to get them.
He had his bed of warm straw to sleep in at night, and every day he had as much as he wanted to eat. He had all a pig could wish for: so he was contented. One morning farmer Jackson brought a pailful of milk for piggy's breakfast. He poured the milk into the trough, and piggy made haste to come and eat it.
While he was eating, something hard and cold came into his mouth. He bit it, but found that it was not good: so he left it. He ate up all the milk. When it was gone, he saw a bright silver spoon in the bottom of the trough.
"Oh!" said piggy, "I see how it is. They would like to have me eat with a spoon; but they would never make me fat in that way. I should be hungry all the time. Now I can eat fast and grow fast, and I like my own way best."
So piggy turned up his nose at the spoon. Then he went out into the pen, and began to root in the dirt to find bits of apple. "Fine work I should make using a spoon," said piggy, and he laughed whenever he thought of it.
At night farmer Jackson came to bring his supper. He saw the spoon in the trough, took it out and carried it into the house. When his wife saw it, she said somebody had been very careless, and dropped the spoon into piggy's pail. She could not find out who had done it, though she asked everybody. Then she thought that perhaps she had done it herself. She was glad to get her spoon back again, and piggy was glad to have it taken from the trough.
He had left the print of his teeth on it: so it was afterwards called "Piggy's spoon."
MARY E. N. HATHAWAY.
