The Adventures of a Suburbanite

by Ellis Parker Butler

I had noticed that Mr. Rolfs and Mr. Millington had never urged me to get a pig. Whenever I mentioned pig they mentioned various deadly and popular pig diseases. They had urged me to garden, and to keep chickens, and a horse, and a cow, and even an automobile—Millington urged me to keep his—but never a pig! I would not hint that Rolfs and Millington were selfish, or that they hoped to receive, now and then, milk from my cow, eggs from my chickens, or radishes from my garden, but a neighbour may profit in that way. On the other hand, the neighbour never profits from the suburban pig. I believe now, however, that Rolfs and Millington wished me to have things that would pay as they went.

But the moment Isobel saw the pig she said we must have him, because he was so cute. I had never thought of buying a pig because it was cute any more than I would have thought of buying a spring bonnet because it would fatten well for winter killing, but I yielded to Isobel.

Isobel said the idea of a pig being a nuisance was all nonsense, for she had been reading a magazine that was largely devoted to pigs and similar objects loved by country gentlemen, and that modern science proved beyond a doubt that the cleaner the pig the happier it was. She said a pig could not be too clean, and that if a pig was kept perfectly tidy no one could object to it.

“John,” she said, “there is no reason in the world why a pig should not be as clean as a new pin. The magazine says that if a pig is usually of a coarse, disgruntled nature, it is only because it is kept in coarse, brutalizing surroundings, and treated like a pig. If a pig is put amidst sweetness and light, the pig's nature will be sweet and light, and the pig will be sweet and light.”

I suggested gently that a pig, all things considered, was usually counted a failure if it was a light pig, and that experts had decided in favour of the pig that became heavy and soggy.

“What I mean,” said Isobel, “is light in spirit, not light in weight.”

We were looking over the fence of a farm when we held this little conversation, and Chesterfield Whiting was sporting on the clean, green clover, amidst his brothers, quite unconscious that he was so soon to be separated from them and lose their companionship. We had been attracted to him by a very hand-made sign that announced “Pigs for Sale.” Chesterfield was an extremely clean pig, and I must admit that I was rather taken by his looks myself, and when we drove around to the farm house I was surprised to learn how inexpensive a pig of tender years is, and I bought the pig. It is hard for me to deny Isobel these little pleasures.

On our way home Isobel and I talked of the future of Chesterfield, and we resolved that his life should be one grand, sweet song, as the poet says, and we had hardly started homeward than it appeared as if Chesterfield meant to attend to the song feature of his life himself. I never imagined a pig would feel his separation from his native place so keenly. He began to mourn in a keen treble key the moment the farmer grabbed him, uttering long, sharp wails of sorrow, and he kept it up. Automobiles with siren horns stopped in the road as we passed, and the chauffeurs took off their goggles and stared at us. It was very hard for Isobel to sit up straight in the carriage and look dignified and cool with Chesterfield wailing out his little soul sorrows under the seat.

As we neared the outskirts of Westcote, I began to keep an eye out for pig houses. It seemed to me that in these days of uplift the pig keepers of a suburb such as ours, peopled by intelligent men and women, would have the most modern improvements in pig dwellings, and I desired to make a few mental notes of them as I passed by. If I saw a very modern pig palace I meant to get out of the carriage and examine minutely the conveniences installed for the pig's comfort, so that I might reproduce them.

Isobel had mentioned casually that a pig dwelling with tile floors and walls and a shower bath would be quite sanitary, provided the tiles of the wall met the tiles of the floor in a concave curve, leaving no sharp angles; but as we journeyed into the village we saw no pig houses of this kind. In fact we saw no pig houses of any kind. At first this only annoyed me, then it surprised me, and by the time we were well into the village it worried me.