The brush cracked again, sending cold shivers up the Dutch boy’s back, and a lean sow, followed by three or four thin, sharp-backed pigs, came into view.
Hans scrambled up, with a screech of fear.
“Vilt hocks!” he squawked. “Shimminy Ghristmas! I vos deat alretty yet!”
The sow ridged the rough bristles along her spine and made a sound which Hans thought her battle cry.
He gave another squawk and dived for the nearest tree. Into its low branches he scrambled, throwing his feet across a bough and pulling himself by his hands.
As it chanced, the tree was in the direct line of the sow’s flight. She dashed toward it, bringing another squeal of fear from Hans, and the pigs scampered at her heels.
While hanging in this inverted position, with his cap gone and his pockets upside down, some peanuts that Hans had thrust into a pocket to munch on the mountain climb, dropped out to the ground.
One of the pigs saw and scented them. Its chronic hunger overcame its fright, and, while its mother and the other members of the porcine family bounded on into the depths of the laurel it stopped and began to munch the peanuts.
“I vos a deat mans!” gurgled Hans, fairly paralyzed by terror. “He vos going to ead up dose beanuds und my gap, und den he vill glimb dese dree ub und I vill ead heem! Hel-lup! hel-lup!”
Now and then a peanut spilled out of the pocket, and when the pig had devoured all, it looked up at the peanut fountain for more, placing itself directly under Hans with its mouth expectantly open.