“It shore was.”
She turned back to the hawgs. “I can almost see these little pigs grow,” she says, “and I’m right fond of ’em a’ready. I–I hope nothin’ bad’ll happen to ’em. I’m a little nervous, though. ’Cause–have you noticed, Mister Lloyd?–they’s just thirteen pigs in that pen.”
“Aw, thirteen ain’t never hurt nobody in Oklahomaw,” I says. And I whistled, and knocked on wood.
“Anyhow, I’m happy,” she goes on, “I’m better fixed than I been fer a coon’s age.”
“The eatin’-house ’ll buy ev’ry one of these pigs at a good price,” I says, leanin’ on the pen till I was well nigh broke in two, “they bein’ pen-fed, and not just common razor-backs. That’ll mean fifty dollars–mebbe more. Why, it’s like findin’ it!”
“These and the chickens,” she says, “’ll pay that balance, and” (her voice broke, kinda, and she looked over to where pore little Willie was tryin’ to play injine all by hisself) “without the help of no man.”
I looked up at the Butte. Was that black speck the sheriff? And wasn’t his heart a-bustin’ fer her? Wal, it shore was a fool sittywaytion!
“The section-hands is turrible tickled about these pigs,” continues Mrs. Bridger. “They come over this mornin’ t’ see how the fambly was doin’, and they named the hull litter, beginnin’ with Carmelita, and ending’ with Polky Dot.”
You couldn’t ’a’ blamed nobody fer bein’ proud of them little pigs. They was smarter ’n the dickens, playin’ ’round, and kickin’ up they heels, and squee-ee-eelin’. All black and white they was, too, and favoured they maw strong. Ev’ry blamed one had a pink snoot and a kink in its tail, and reg’lar rolly buckshot eyes. And fat!–say, no josh, them little pigs was so fat they had double chins–just one chin right after another–from they noses plumb back to they hind laigs!
But you never can gamble on t’-morra. And the widda, countin’ as she did on them pigs, had to find that out. A-course, if she’d been a’ Irish lady, she’d ’a’ just natu’lly took to ownin’ a bunch of hawgs, and she’d ’a’ likely penned ’em closter to the house. Then nothin’ would ’a’ hurt ’em. Again, mebbe it would–if the hull thing that happened next was accidentally a-purpose. And I reckon that shore was the truth of it.