We had a pig when we was down on the little Chantay Seeche. The Doctor begged him off a rancher, to eat up the scraps around camp. A neat person was the Doctor and a durned good cook.
We called him the Doctor because he wore specs—that's as good a claim as many has to the title. His idee was that when the pig got fat he would sell him for lots of money, but long before Foxey Bill (which was piggy) had reached the market stage money couldn't buy him. He was a great pig. My notion of hogs, previous to my acquaintance with him, was that they were dirty, stupid critters, without any respectable feelings. Perhaps it's because animals get man-like, when you associate with 'em a great deal, or perhaps Foxey Bill was an unusual proposition; but, anyhow, he was the funniest, smartest brute I ever see, and we thought a slew of him.
Clean was no name for his personal appearance. Every Sunday the Doctor took a scrub-brush and piggy down to the creek and combined 'em with the kind assistance of a cake of soap. Then Foxey just shone white as ivory, and he'd trot around in front of us, gruntin' to attract our attention, till everybody'd said, "What a beautiful, clean pig—ain't he just right?" Then he'd grunt his thanks to the company and retire behind the shack for a nap. We used to fair kill ourselves laughing at that darned pig. He had the most wheedlin' squeal, so soft and pleadin'; and he'd look up at you with them skim-milk eyes of his so pitiful, when he wanted a chunk of sugar, that you couldn't refuse him.
[Illustration: "Clean was no name for his personal appearance.">[
And knowing! Honest, he knew more'n some men. One day old Wind River was tellin' some things (that might have happened to him) in his usual way, bein' most careful to get the dates and all dead right, you know—"Now, was his name Peter, after all? Comes to my mind it was Willyam—Willyam Perkins—Well—But, anyhow, him and me, we saw that Injun," and so forth. This was a Sunday, and the gang of us sittin' in a circle, fixing leathers and one thing and another and misstatin' history faster than a horse could trot, with Foxey Bill in the middle, cocking his head from one speaker to another, takin' it all in.
At last Wind River wound up the most startlin' and unlikely collections of facts he'd favoured us with for some time. Up gets Foxey with a shriek and gallops around the house. Any man with the rudiments of intelligence would know he was hollerin': "Well, that's just too much for me; ta-ra-rum!"
