"Look dar now, boy! Wasn't ole Horace right—aint dey de purtiest little tings y'ebber did see?" Right down under me lay the old sow, and rollicking and rooting, and butting and squealing around her were eight of the prettiest, darlingest, cutest little pigs that ever saw the sunshine. One little fellow, black all over, was lying by himself, with his head lifted up a little, so that he could see me. This one did not seem so glad and spry, and fat and saucy as the others, and there was something in his look that brought a warm feeling to my heart, and made me pity him. "Well, Mass' L——, which one's ye gwine for to choose for your'n?" said Horace, after I had sat there some minutes. I looked at them all, except the little black one, again, and finally decided upon a pert,[24] head-over-heels sort of a fellow, that was racing up and down the pen as furiously as though he had had a coal of fire fast to his tail, and was trying to run away from it. Every once in a while he would stop short, as if he had forgotten something, and suddenly remembered it—then he would look up at me in the most quizzical way imaginable, with his little impudent eyes, give a snort, a quick jerk of the head, and away again. He was as white as snow all over, except his tail and one ear, which were black. He seemed to understand that I was going to make a choice, and to be determined that I should choose him; and this frolicking and frisking were his ways of "showing his paces," I suppose; or else his funny little black tail was twisted up so tightly that he couldn't keep still. [24] Just as I was turning around to say to Horace that I chose that one, something, I did not know what, made me look down at[25] the little black ugly one again. He was still looking up at me, with a sick, sad, hopeless, yet patient look, and at once it seemed to me that I heard that little voice again—heard it with the ears of my heart, as it were—"Choose him!" [25] I turned around to Horace, who seemed to be getting impatient at my taking so long to choose, and said very quietly, and somewhat sadly, perhaps, for I remember that my voice and the way I spoke seemed to astonish him as much as my choice—"I'd like to have that one for mine, Horace." "What! Mass' L——! y'ain't gwine for to take dat ar little pigininny! Why he ain't o' no 'count, no how!—an' he look sick too—mebby he die. Let ole Horry
Prev.
Back
Top