“You can not!” declared her brother.
“I can so! I’ll show you!”
Toward the tree ran the Curlytops, and while they were climbing it Trouble was doing something else. He had wandered off by himself, though Mrs. Martin had told Jan and Ted to look after him. Going down a path that led away from the orchard, he came to a field in which was pastured an old boar, a savage pig with long, curving tusks—teeth that stuck out like the tusks of an elephant.
The sight of these tusks, small as they were, made Trouble think the boar might be a small animal of the kind he was so interested in.
“Oh, it’s a little nellifunt! It’s a little nellifunt!” cried Trouble. “I’m going in an’ give him a peanut!” for he had asked his mother to buy him some nuts just before reaching Dawson’s Farm and he had a few of the goobers left. “I give you peanut, little nellifunt!” cried Trouble, as he crawled in between two strands of the prickly wire fence. His waist caught and was torn a little, but he didn’t mind that.
The boar gave a grunt as he saw Trouble enter the field. The boar wasn’t used to this. He didn’t very often have company, especially small boys. And the boar was savage—he didn’t like company of any kind! The only things he was afraid of were dogs and a man with a sharp pitchfork or a big stick.
So, as soon as Trouble crawled through the fence, the savage boar, with loud grunts, made a rush for the little fellow.
CHAPTER XI
FUNNY FISH
When the boar, with deep grunts, started toward Trouble, the little boy saw that he had made a mistake. It wasn’t a little “nellifunt” at all.
“’Cause he didn’t have any trunk—that’s how I knew he wasn’t a nellifunt,” Trouble explained to his mother afterward. “He had big teeth, like a little nellifunt, but he didn’t have any trunk.”