said.
Poll counted the hours. Not just that day, but the next and the next, the thought of the baby pig, waiting at home, distracted her attention so she had no time left to be naughty: by the end of the first week, she had not once been rapped over the knuckles or stood in the corner. She made a best friend called Annie Dowsett who was older than she was and who told her how babies were born. ‘The butcher comes and cuts you up the stomach with his carving knife,’Annie said. ‘But don’t tell your mother I told you.’ Poll didn’t really believe this, because if it were true, women would never have more than one baby but it was an interesting idea all the same and she began to feel she quite liked this new school. She even liked her teacher, Miss Armstrong, who had a long, mild sheep’s face, and was proud that her aunt was Headmistress with her name on a brass plate on the outside of the building. Everyone was a little scared of Aunt Sarah but not of Aunt Harriet, who was called Miss Harry to her face and Old Harry behind her back, who romped in the playground with the little ones until her wispy hair came down under her hat, and always brought potatoes to school to bake in the stove for the children who lived too far away to go home for their dinner.
Even Theo was happier because of the pig. The excitement of its arrival carried him through the first day, and although after that the horrible shame of the pink, girlish vest hidden under his clothes still haunted him sleeping and waking, especially when he caught Noah Bugg’s rolling, gooseberry eye in the classroom, he managed to live with it. No one, he told himself, was likely to fall upon him and tear his clothes off, and even if he was sometimes tormented because of his size, he was used to that, and it was a comfort to run home and pick up the pig and whisper in his floppy ear, ‘Peppermint pig, peppermint pig, I’m a peppermint boy , so there’s two of us, runts in this family.’
Mother called the pig Johnnie, saying (rather oddly, the children thought) that he reminded her of her grandfather, and it wasn’t long before he answered to his name, grunting and running whenever they called him. At night, he slept in the copper hole on a straw bed; during the day he trotted busily round behind Mother or sat on the hearth rug staring thoughtfully into the fire.
Lily said, ‘You can’t keep a pig indoors, Mother!’
‘Oh, we had all sorts of animals in the house when I was young,’ Mother said. ‘Jackdaws, hedgehogs, newly hatched chicks. I remember times you couldn’t get near our fire.’
‘But not pigs ,’ Lily said.
‘I can’t see why not. You’d keep a dog and a pig has more brains than a dog, let me tell you. If you mean pigs are dirty, that’s just a matter of giving a pig a bad name to my mind. Why, our Johnnie was housetrained in a matter of days and with a good deal less trouble than you gave me, my girl!’
Poll giggled and Lily went pink.
Mother said, ‘Give a pig a chance to keep clean and he’ll take it, which is more than you can say of some humans. You tell me now, does Johnnie smell?’
If he did, it was only a mixture of bran and sweet milk, which was all he ate to begin with, although as he grew older, Mother boiled up small potatoes and added scraps from the table. She said there was no waste in a house with a pig and when the summercame they would go round the hedgerows and collect dandelions and sow thistle so he would have plenty of fresh food and grow strong and healthy ‘What he eats is important,’ she said. ‘Pigs are a poor person’s investment.’
‘What’s investment?’ Poll asked.
‘Oh, nothing,’ Mother said quickly. ‘Never you mind.’ Poll said, ‘We aren’t poor.’ She thought of Annie Dowsett who wore a woman’s cut-down dress and cracked boots and was one of the children Aunt Harriet baked a potato for every day. She wondered if she should tell Mother what Annie had said about how
Poll counted the hours. Not just that day, but the next and the next, the thought of the baby pig, waiting at home, distracted her attention so she had no time left to be naughty: by the end of the first week, she had not once been rapped over the knuckles or stood in the corner. She made a best friend called Annie Dowsett who was older than she was and who told her how babies were born. ‘The butcher comes and cuts you up the stomach with his carving knife,’Annie said. ‘But don’t tell your mother I told you.’ Poll didn’t really believe this, because if it were true, women would never have more than one baby but it was an interesting idea all the same and she began to feel she quite liked this new school. She even liked her teacher, Miss Armstrong, who had a long, mild sheep’s face, and was proud that her aunt was Headmistress with her name on a brass plate on the outside of the building. Everyone was a little scared of Aunt Sarah but not of Aunt Harriet, who was called Miss Harry to her face and Old Harry behind her back, who romped in the playground with the little ones until her wispy hair came down under her hat, and always brought potatoes to school to bake in the stove for the children who lived too far away to go home for their dinner.
Even Theo was happier because of the pig. The excitement of its arrival carried him through the first day, and although after that the horrible shame of the pink, girlish vest hidden under his clothes still haunted him sleeping and waking, especially when he caught Noah Bugg’s rolling, gooseberry eye in the classroom, he managed to live with it. No one, he told himself, was likely to fall upon him and tear his clothes off, and even if he was sometimes tormented because of his size, he was used to that, and it was a comfort to run home and pick up the pig and whisper in his floppy ear, ‘Peppermint pig, peppermint pig, I’m a peppermint boy , so there’s two of us, runts in this family.’
Mother called the pig Johnnie, saying (rather oddly, the children thought) that he reminded her of her grandfather, and it wasn’t long before he answered to his name, grunting and running whenever they called him. At night, he slept in the copper hole on a straw bed; during the day he trotted busily round behind Mother or sat on the hearth rug staring thoughtfully into the fire.
Lily said, ‘You can’t keep a pig indoors, Mother!’
‘Oh, we had all sorts of animals in the house when I was young,’ Mother said. ‘Jackdaws, hedgehogs, newly hatched chicks. I remember times you couldn’t get near our fire.’
‘But not pigs ,’ Lily said.
‘I can’t see why not. You’d keep a dog and a pig has more brains than a dog, let me tell you. If you mean pigs are dirty, that’s just a matter of giving a pig a bad name to my mind. Why, our Johnnie was housetrained in a matter of days and with a good deal less trouble than you gave me, my girl!’
Poll giggled and Lily went pink.
Mother said, ‘Give a pig a chance to keep clean and he’ll take it, which is more than you can say of some humans. You tell me now, does Johnnie smell?’
If he did, it was only a mixture of bran and sweet milk, which was all he ate to begin with, although as he grew older, Mother boiled up small potatoes and added scraps from the table. She said there was no waste in a house with a pig and when the summercame they would go round the hedgerows and collect dandelions and sow thistle so he would have plenty of fresh food and grow strong and healthy ‘What he eats is important,’ she said. ‘Pigs are a poor person’s investment.’
‘What’s investment?’ Poll asked.
‘Oh, nothing,’ Mother said quickly. ‘Never you mind.’ Poll said, ‘We aren’t poor.’ She thought of Annie Dowsett who wore a woman’s cut-down dress and cracked boots and was one of the children Aunt Harriet baked a potato for every day. She wondered if she should tell Mother what Annie had said about how
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