Well, hedgehogs are the best-natured pets in the world, and so full of confidence, and are not afraid of any other creature when once fairly tame. You know, I daresay, that one hedgehog will keep the house clear of black beetles. But nastier things than beetles come into country kitchens and cellars sometimes—newts, for instance. Well, hoggie will eat these; indeed, hoggie would eat a snake. I saw a hedgehog one evening in the dusk crossing the road with a snake trailing behind her. It was in summer, and I daresay that the snake was being taken home to feed the young ones.
The young are born blind and white and naked, but the bristles soon come, and by-and-by they begin to run about; then the mother hoggie takes them all out for a run in the cool, dewy evenings of May or June. The father hoggie looks very proud on these occasions, and runs on in front for fear of danger, and to guide his little family to spots and places where plenty of food is to be found.
In the domesticated state, a hedgehog will pick up its food in summer out in the garden; but if kept indoors it must have food gathered for it—worms, slugs, a little green food, and roots, chiefly those of the plantain. Besides this, it should have bread and milk, and perhaps a little cabbage and greens, which it may or may not eat.
I may tell my little readers that tame hedgehogs are very cleanly, and of course they do not bite, nor do they put their bristles out when being petted by those they love.
The hedgehog is the gardener’s best friend, and any man or boy who destroys one, is really guilty not only of cruelty, but of folly.
Now to complete my sketch of our Hoggie. I have a wigwam, although I am not a wild Indian. My wigwam is a very beautiful house indeed, built of wood and surrounded with creepers. It stands in the orchard, on the top of a square green mound, with steps leading up to it.
Well, one day in spring, when the gardener was busy cutting the grass around this wigwam, he told the children something that caused them to come whooping up the path, all in a row, just like American savages.
“Oh, pa!” they shouted, emphatically, “Hoggie’s come back. He is underneath the floor of the wigwam!”
I was as glad as any of them, because I am very much of a boy at heart.
I got a candle, though it was broad daylight, and peeped into a hole beneath my wigwam, and there was Hoggie sure enough, smooth little brow, black little eyes, bristles and fur and all.