Bo-bo was dreadfully frightened when he saw what he had done. He knew his father would beat him, and he began to cry. He also poked round among the ruins of the hut, though he did not hope to find anything. As he was turning over the embers, he found one of the little burnt pigs, and tried to pull it out. It was very hot, and burnt his hands, and he did just what you or I would have done—put his burnt fingers in his mouth.
The instant his hands reached his mouth, Bo-bo forgot all about being burned. He licked his fingers, but not because they hurt him. He did not know why he did lick them, but he kept on. Neither he nor any one else in the world had ever tasted such a wonderful taste.
Pretty soon, it came to him that it was the pig which tasted so delicious, and no sooner had he thought this, than he sat down in the ruins of the hut and began to eat great pieces of the little burnt pig. While he was making the best meal he had ever had in his life, his father came home, and when he saw that the hut was burnt down and that his son was eating some horrible food that no one else had ever eaten before, he began to beat Bo-bo with the stick he had in his hand. But Bo-bo did not seem to feel it. He hunted in the ashes for another pig and thrust it into his father's hands. Then the same thing happened which had happened to him. The pig burned Ho-ti's fingers and he put them in his mouth, and after that he had no time to think of beating any one, but sat down with his son in the ashes and made a good dinner.
From that time on, whenever they had little pigs, they burned down their hut to roast them. When the neighbours found it out, they thought it very wicked of Ho-ti and Bo-bo to eat burnt pig, but as soon as they were persuaded to taste it, they changed their minds, and then everybody was burning down his house in order to roast his pigs. After a long while, some one found out that one could cook without burning one's house down, which I am sure you will agree was a great discovery.
—Some day, when you go to school, you will have this story given to you to read—for a lesson!
THE KING'S KITCHEN
When King Arthur was King of England, a boy named Gareth, was growing up in a castle far away from Camelot, the King's city. But he had two brothers who were at Court, and who were Knights of the Order of the Round Table, and when they came home, now and then, Gareth asked them more questions than you could count about the King and his knights, and the Court, and tournaments, and battles. Every day, he rode and practised with lance and sword, and exercised in all ways that would make him strong and skilful with arms. And always he tried to be brave and to be gentle toward weak things and to tell the truth. And the reason for all this was that, more than anything else in the world, he longed to be in the service of the King, and to be a Knight of the Round Table.
As Gareth grew older, and more and more worthy to be made a knight, his mother, Bellicent, sorrowed and grieved. Her husband was very, very old, and her two elder sons had gone away to the Court, and she could not bear to have Gareth leave her, for he was the youngest and last. Though she saw that his heart's desire was to be with the King, yet she felt as if her heart would break if he went. She tried to make him especially happy at home; she tried to persuade him that he was not skilful or brave enough to be a knight; she told him of dangers and wounds, and besought him not to go. Again and again he asked her permission to go away and earn his knighthood; again and again she refused.
One day when he had spoken so bravely and truly that she knew not how to resist him longer, the thought came to her to test his great desire to be with the King, and she said to him: "If you desire so greatly to serve the King, give the proof of it which I shall ask of you. Go to the King and ask him to let you serve him in his kitchen for a year and a day, and tell no one your name and rank until the time is over."
She thought he would refuse to do it, but he kissed and thanked her, and quickly made ready to go to Camelot. For he wanted to serve the King, and this was a way of doing it, though not the one he had hoped for.