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 Grunty Pig was gone from the pen. It may seem strange that neither his mother nor any of his brothers and sisters missed him. But when there are seven children in a family it is no wonder that one of them could slip away without having his absence noticed. It is specially easy, in such a large family, to overlook the littlest.
If Mrs. Pig had known there was a loose board on the pen she would certainly have counted noses to find out whether her children were all safe at home. But nobody knew about that loose board except Grunty himself.
It was lucky that Farmer Green had made the lid for Mrs. Pig's children's feeding trough—the lid with the seven holes in it. When he poured the children's supper into the trough and slammed down the lid he stood and watched Mrs. Pig's youngsters as they scrambled to the trough and stuck—each of them—a nose into a hole.