“Goof—goof!” replied the White Pig. “What would you have? I am alone. You are yonder. I am here. How do I know that the Son of Ben Ali remains the same? Humph! let me see for myself. Once you would go far to scratch my back till I fell asleep in the shade. Once you would shake down the scalybarks in the woods. Now you fling corn here and there and go your way. And sometimes many suns and moons come between the baskets of corn. Do I complain? Goof! I go into the cool swamp and tell the red squirrels that the Son of Ben Ali is sick, or away on a journey. And they say ‘Come,’ and we go into the woods beyond the swamp, and then the red squirrels shake down the scalybarks and the hickory nuts. Goof! goof!”
Aaron laid his hand on the White Pig’s back and passed it gently through the thick bristles.
“That is so,” said Aaron, “but you forget about the yams that are left buried in the field for you. You forget the goobers, the turnips, and the bank of sugar-cane. You forget the corn that is scattered here and there for you every day when the weather is cold.”
“Goof! Why should I think of them, Son of Ben Ali? Hot or cold, the long swamp is a feed trough for me. I need never come out of it. What is it to me if you come empty-handed, so you come? Do you think I have forgotten the long nights when I trotted through the woods with you? Or when I ran to the sound of your whistling? Or when I charged the hounds that were trailing you and drove them away? I was thinking only of the Son of Ben Ali. I am getting very old. My tusks are yellow, and one of them is broken. I can run, but not so swiftly as when I carried you the news of the great fire one night. No, my legs fail me.”
“You are old,” said Aaron. “Of all your kind, you are the oldest I have ever seen.”
“Goof—humph! Why not? All the rest are glad to run into the pen when they hear corn falling from the basket. They go in and eat and sleep until they are fat, and then some cold night you see the fires lit, and then, one after another you hear the fat fools in the pen squeal. Then in the morning you can see them hanging by their heels in a row. Goof! I have seen it. Hanging by their heels, their hair off, and their throats cut. Oof! It makes me shiver. I saw it when I was running about with my mother, and though I have gone hungry many a night, never did I go through a gap in the fence that was left for me, and never did I follow the rest when they went to be fed in the pen.”
GRUNTER ASKING THE RED SQUIRRELS FOR NUTS
All this time the White Pig, using his forefeet as pivots, turned his body first one way and then the other, watching every open space, and often pausing to listen. There was an air of wildness about him that kept the children quiet and subdued.