At first Squinty’s brothers and sisters were paying so much attention to drinking their sour milk, that they did not notice what the farmer said, even though they missed Squinty at the trough.  But when they heard the dog barking, they wondered what had happened.  Then they saw their mamma and papa looking anxious, and talking together in their grunting language, and Wuff-Wuff asked: 

“Has anything happened?”

“Squinty is lost!” said Mrs. Pig, rubbing her nose up against that of Curly Tail, the littlest girl pig of them all.  “He must have run out of the pen when we were asleep.”

“Oh dear!” cried all the little pigs, and they felt very badly.

“Never mind,” said Mr. Pig, “I heard the farmer call Don, the dog, to go off and find Squinty.  I think he’ll bring him back.”

“Oh, but maybe Don will bite Squinty,” said Wuff-Wuff.

“I guess not,” answered Mr. Pig.  “Don is a gentle dog.  But, anyhow, we want Squinty back, and the only way we can get him is to have the farmer and his dog go after him.”

The other little pigs finished their supper of sour milk, with some small potatoes which the farmer’s wife threw in to them.  Mr. and Mrs. Pig ate a little, and then the farmer, after stopping up the hole where Squinty got out, so no more of the pigs could run away, started off over the fields, calling to his dog.

“Bow wow!  Bow wow!  Bow wow!” barked Don.  That meant, in dog language, “I’ll find Squinty and bring him back.”

Meanwhile Squinty had tried his best to find a way out of the cornfield.  But all he did was to walk up one row, and down another.  If he had been tall enough to stand up and look over the tops of the corn stalks, he might have seen which way to go, but he was not yet large enough for that.

Pretty soon Squinty looked up, and he saw that the sun was not as bright as it had been.  Squinty knew what this meant.  The sun was going down, and it would soon be night.

“Oh dear!  I wonder if I shall have to stay out all alone in the dark night,” thought poor Squinty.  “Oh, I’ll never run away again; never!”

Just then he heard, off through the rows of corn, a dog barking.

“Bow wow!  Bow wow!  Bow wow!” went the dog.

“Oh, what shall I do?  Where shall I hide?” thought Squinty.  “A bad dog is after me.”

He ran this way and that, stumbling and falling down.  The barking of the dog sounded nearer.  Then Squinty heard a man’s voice saying: 

“Get after him, Don!  Find him!  Find that pig!”

“Bow wow!” was the barking answer.

“Ha!” thought Squinty.  “Don!  That’s the name of the good dog on our farm!  I wonder if he is coming after me?”

Just then the farmer, who had been following the tracks left in the soft ground by Squinty’s feet, came to the cornfield.  The farmer saw where the pig had been walking between the green rows of corn.