Jan’s opportunities for studying pigs were good.  As the smallest and swiftest of the flock, his tail tightly curled, and indescribable jauntiness in his whole demeanor, came bounding to the river’s brink, followed by his fellows, driving, pushing, snuffing, winking, and gobbling, and lastly by a small boy in a large coat, with a long switch, Jan was witness of the whole scene from Dame Datchett’s door.  And, as he sat with his slate and pencil before him, he naturally took to drawing the quaint comic faces and expressive eyes of the herd, and their hardly less expressive backs and tails; and to depicting the scenes which took place when the pigs had enjoyed their refreshment, and with renewed vigor led their keeper in twenty different directions, instead of going home.  Back, up the road, where he could hardly drive them at the point of the switch a few hours before; by sharp turns into Squire Ammaby’s grounds, or the churchyard; and helter-skelter through the water-meadows.

The fame of Jan’s “pitcher-making” had gone before him to Dame Datchett’s school by the mouths of his foster-brothers and sisters, and he found a dozen little voices ready to dictate subjects for his pencil.

“Make a ’ouse, Janny Lake.”  “Make thee vather’s mill, Janny Lake.”  “Make a man.  Make Dame Datchett.  Make the parson.  Make the Cheap Jack.  Make Daddy Angel.  Make Master Chuter.  Make a oss—­cow—­ ship—­pig!”

But the popularity obtained by Jan’s pigs soon surpassed that of all his other performances.

“Make pigs for I, Janny Lake!” and “Make pigs for I, too!” was a sort of whispering chorus that went on perpetually under the Dame’s nose.  But when she found that it led to no disturbance, that the children only huddled round the child Jan and his slate like eager scholars round a teacher, Dame Datchett was wise enough to be thankful that Jan possessed a power she had never been able to acquire,—­that he could “keep the young varments quiet.”

“He be most’s good’s a monitor,” thought the Dame; and she took a nap, and Jan’s genius held the school together.

The children tried other influences besides persuasion.

“Jan Lake, I’ve brought thee an apple.  Draa out a pig for I on a’s slate.”

Jan had a spirit of the most upright and honorable kind.  He never took an unfair advantage, and to the petty cunning which was “Willum’s” only idea of wisdom he seemed by nature incapable of stooping.  But in addition to, and alongside of, his artistic temperament, there appeared to be in him no small share of the spirit of a trader.  The capricious, artistic spirit made him fitful in his use even of the beloved slate; but, when he was least inclined to draw, the offer of something he very much wanted would spur him to work; and in the spirit of a true trader, he worked well.

He would himself have made a charming study for a painter, as he sat surrounded by his patrons, who watched him with gaping mouths of wonderment, as his black eyes moved rapidly to and fro between the river’s brink and his slate, and his tiny fingers steered the pencil into cunning lines which “made pigs.”  “The very moral!” as William declared, smacking his corduroy breeches with delight.