Page:Story of the robins.djvu/157



farmer's wife next proposed (but with many apologies for offering to take them to such a place) to show them her pigsty. The name of a pigsty generally conveys an idea of nastiness; but whoever had seen those of Farmer Wilson would have had a very different one. They were neatly paved, and washed down every day; the troughs in which the pigs fed were scoured, and the water they drank was always sweet and wholesome. The pigs themselves had an appearance of neatness which no one could have expected in such kind of animals; and though they had not the ingenuity of the Learned Pig, there was really something intelligent in their gruntings, and a very droll expression in the eyes of some of them. They knew their benefactors, and found