O
NCE upon a time, when pigs could talk and no one had ever heard of bacon, there lived an old piggy mother with her three little sons.
They had a very pleasant home in the middle of an oak forest, and were all just as happy as the day was long, until one sad year the acorn crop failed; then, indeed, poor Mrs. Piggy-wiggy often had hard work to make both ends meet.
One day she called her sons to her, and, with tears in her eyes, told them that she must send them out into the wide world to seek their fortune.
She kissed them all round, and the three little pigs set out upon their travels, each taking a different road, and carrying a bundle slung on a stick across his shoulder.
The first little pig had not gone far before he met a man carrying a bundle of straw; so he said to him: "Please, man, give me that straw to build me a house?" The man was very good-natured, so he gave him the bundle of straw, and the little pig built a pretty little house with it.
No sooner was it finished, and the little pig thinking of going to bed, than a wolf came along, knocked at the door, and said: "Little pig, little pig, let me come in."
But the little pig laughed softly, and answered: "No, no, by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin."
Then said the wolf sternly: "I will make you let me in; for I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in!"
So he huffed and he puffed, and he blew his house in, because, you see, it was only of straw and too light; and when he had [page 72] blown the house in, he ate up the little pig, and did not leave so much as the tip of his tail.