“Let’s go across the gully,” said Buster John. He ran down the bank, through the thick weeds, and out on the other side, followed by Sweetest Susan. Drusilla would have followed, too, but just as she had reached the bottom of the gully and started through the weeds, the White Pig rose by her side with a loud grunt. Drusilla was so terrified that she sank in the weeds, unable to utter a sound. Sweetest Susan screamed and Buster John was so taken by surprise and so confused, that for an instant he was undecided whether to take to his heels, dragging his sister after him, or whether to stand his ground.
“Gooft—ooft!” grunted the White Pig. “What is the matter here?”
With this he walked out of the gully, went past Buster John and Drusilla, and lay down where the shade was thickest. Drusilla recovered almost immediately, and, as sometimes happens with older and more enlightened people, anger took the place of fear. To the surprise of her companions, she came out of the gully, walked straight to the White Pig, and sat down by him, so close that she might have touched him with her hand without unbending her arm.
“Humph!” grunted the White Pig, in a friendly way. “That is better. The Son of Ben Ali brought some roasting ears before the sun came out. They were very fine—sweet and juicy. Gooft!” The White Pig smacked his mouth and blinked his eyes as if to show how he had enjoyed the feast. Buster John and Sweetest Susan seated themselves near Drusilla.
“The first time I saw the Son of Ben Ali,” said the White Pig, “I was just big enough to hide in the grass and run about without squealing for my mammy. I used to slip out of the swamp and run into the woods after the acorns. The red squirrel was my friend then, and his great-grand-children are my friends now. He used to climb the big turkey oak, and run about on the limbs pretending to be playing, but all the time he would be shaking down the sweet little acorns. He barked at me and I grunted at him, and we used to have a very nice time all by ourselves.
“One day, while I was out in the open woods cracking acorns, I heard some one call, ‘Run here little Pig! run quick!’ I didn’t have any better sense than to do as I was told, so I ran as hard as I could toward the call. Then I heard a zooning sound in the air, a loud squall, and a noise as of a tree falling. I ran right into the hands of a big man. I was terribly frightened, and I suppose I must have squealed as loud as I could. The big man was the Son of Ben Ali, and he hushed me up by telling me that he called me because a wildcat had been watching me from the lowest limb of the turkey oak.
“Humph—ooft!” grunted the White Pig, “the only reason he didn’t get me was because the Son of Ben Ali struck him with a stone just as he started to jump. The wildcat fell out of the tree dead. His skull was shivered. You have never seen the Son of Ben Ali throw a stone? Well that is between you and him. I have seen him.
“He killed the wildcat that my mammy had often told me about, and after that I came to know the Son of Ben Ali well. Whenever I could find him, night or day, I trotted around with him, and that is how it happened that when my brothers and sisters were shot by men and caught by dogs I was not with them to be shot or caught. I was trotting about with the Son of Ben Ali.
“It was the same thing day after day and night after night, the Son of Ben Ali coming and going, and I trotting at his heels or running in the bushes close by. One day, when the sun had gone down, we were slipping along behind the orchard here. The Son of Ben Ali said he was going to see the Little Master, and I was to wait for him. I heard a dog bark, and this made me stop. And then, while I was listening, a man came upon us—a white man. He seemed to rise out of a dark place in the road. I dodged into a fence corner before he saw me, and stood there, listening.
“‘Who are you?’ said the Son of Ben Ali. His voice shook a little.