One day a travelling showman passed that way, and was so pleased with the pig that he invited him to join his menagerie. A beautiful sky-blue cage with gold trimmings was placed at his disposal, and he pricked up his ears and tossed his head with pride as he strutted behind the gilded bars, and thought of his brothers and sisters squealing and scrambling over their trough of swill. But a hideous hyena lived in the cage next to his, and snarled and yowled till poor piggy was in a perfect chill from fright. On the other side an idiotic five-footed calf blaated from morning till night. Indeed, one could not blame the poor thing, for he had to stand very straight and still, or his many feet would get themselves so tangled he could never tell which ones to use first if he wanted to go to the right or to the left.
But piggy's life was not a happy one. He longed for the open barn-yard and his bed of fresh sweet hay. He studied hard and learned his lessons well, but the wiser he grew the more he felt that a circus was no place for a pig to live. So, at the very first chance, under the tent slipped piggy, and across the fields he trotted as fast as he could go. Along a dusty country road he went till a most delicious odor of ripe June apples tickled his nostrils. Under and over and between the cruel barbed wires he tried in vain to squeeze his plump little body.
But soon he spied a spreading plum-tree right in the middle of his path. Its branches hung heavy with ripe yellow fruit, and eagerly he rooted in the tall wet grass. But was ever such a thoughtless tree? Not a plum had it dropped in the night for hungry, homeless pigs. Sweeter smelled the fruit and hungrier grew the pig. His little bias eyes blinked with tears as he looked up at the luscious yellow load. Softly he rubbed himself against the trunk and asked so gently, so humbly, for just a taste, that nothing but a hard-hearted scaly barked tree could have refused. But never a leaf stirred. Every plum clung selfishly to its twig, and piggy could have cried with vexation. Surely plums were made for pigs! Why could he not have his share? Angrily he flung himself at the base of the tree, but he was not as heavy as before he became a circus pig, and nothing was hurt but his back. This was too much. Was he to be lamed and bruised by a scrubby old tree just because he admired its fruit? In a rage he took a running start, and struck the tree head first a fearful blow. But, blinded, he staggered back, and nothing but stars came floating down. Hurt, angry, he threw himself upon the ground. Sharp keen darts of hunger stabbed him in the side. He drooped his ears, and thought to himself of what use were his training and education if he were now more helpless than the monkeys of the show or the squirrels of the forest? He looked at his bony little hoofs and wished they were claws; at his short stiff legs, and remembered the nimble little barn-yard kitties. Sorrowfully he glanced at the tree. An ugly gnarly knot grinned at him like a hideous face. Its ear and mouth seemed twisted into one. A thought came to the pig, and creeping close to the side of the tree, he said softly to himself, "I wonder if this orchard belongs to yonder farm?" The tree kept very still. "For," said the pig, "it seems a shame, but I heard the farmer say to the hired man, 'John, go over to-morrow and cut down that scrubby old plum-tree in the path. It is no good; chop it up for fire-wood. The plums are not fit for a pig to eat.'" A mighty fear seized the tree as it heard the dreadful words. It quivered and shook in every limb, and plums pelted poor piggy till he squealed and squirmed with the pain. In vain he dodged and cried "Enough!" but the plums continued to fall till nothing was left on the tree but the joke.
Governess. "Now, if I should take ten apples and put them in the basket, and then take three more, and then five more, and put them in—what would that be?"
Madge. "Addition!"
Governess. "Well, if I should give Madge eight apples, and Tom six apples, and Jack two apples—what would that be?"
Jack. "That would not be fair!"