Not far from the barn Grunty left the lane and hurried toward the little yard outside the piggery, where he had run away from his mother and his brothers and his sisters.
When he reached the fence through which he had crept while Mrs. Pig was enjoying a nap, he met with a great surprise. The hole in the fence was no more! Somebody had mended it. And there he was, outside the yard!
Grunty Pig squealed for his mother. But no one answered. The fence was too high for him to look over it. It was too tight for him to peep through.
"I want to get in!" Grunty cried. "Why doesn't somebody answer?"
The silence from the other side of the fence was dreadful. Grunty Pig would have been glad to have his mother scold him then, just for the comfort of hearing her voice.
"Oh! Oh!" he wailed. "What shall I do? Whatever shall I do? Farmer Green must have put the family back in the pen. And I'll have to spend the night out here alone!"