Page:Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son.djvu/364

Rh due they're never paid, but just renewed for another thirty days.

I was clerking in a general store at that time, but I had a little weakness for livestock, even then; and while I couldn't afford to plunge in it exactly, I managed to buy a likely little shoat that I reckoned on carrying through the Summer on credit and presenting with a bill for board in the Fall. He was just a plain pig when he came to us, and we kept him in a little sty, but we weren't long in finding out that he wasn't any ordinary root-and-grunt pig. The first I knew your Ma was calling him Toby, and had turned him loose. Answered to his name like a dog. Never saw such a sociable pig. Wanted to sit on the porch with us. Tried to come into the house evenings. Used to run down the road squealing for joy when he saw me coming home from work.

Well, it got on towards November and Toby had been making the most of his opportunities. I never saw a pig that turned