Arnold Escapes and Is Rescued: Pig Tales Part 2

    For Christmas one year, I wrote my kids a little book called Pig Tales, which chronicled all of their adventures with their pet pigs: Arnold and Tillie. I realized the stories were too much fun not to share, so I thought I would share them here in a blog series. If you would like to follow along, please subscribe!

 

Arnold loved people, but he didn’t know what to think of the fence around his new pen. He walked all around the fence, pushing at the bottom with his snout to see if he could get out. To keep him safe, we decided to leave him in his harness and attached it to a lead wire and a stake in the ground.

 

The next day, the kids had invited some of their friends over to watch Mary Poppins. I went up to the pen to check on Arnold, but when I got there, I could only see his little black harness lying EMPTY on the ground. As I was trying to process all this, I heard our neighbor Ben, the farmer, yelling, “Is Arnold out? The police stopped and said a pig was loose on the road, and it’s not ours.” I panicked thinking of such a tiny orange pig lost in the great forests of western Massachusetts. 

 

Ben and I started running down the hill toward the main road. I yelled for the kids to grab some carrots and follow. We saw an orange blur crossing the road, heading up a gravel road on the other side. Ben and I ran faster, with all the kids chasing behind. We spotted him in the underbrush off of the gravel road. I offered some carrots, and he inched closer, but I had never picked up a pig in my life. I didn’t have the faintest idea how to grab him.

 

 Ben, being a farmer, knew exactly what to do. He snuck up close, grabbed Arnold by the legs, and flipped him into his arms. Arnold let out a series of ear-piercing squeals. Ben carried that wriggling, squealing pig all the way back to the house. I will always be grateful to him for rescuing our piglet. 

 

Arnold was finally safe in his pen again, in his harness and under careful supervision until Brent came home with sturdy boards to attach to his fence. After nailing the wooden planks all along the bottom of the fence, Arnold finally calmed down and was content to stay in his new home.

 

 

*Pig Tales Part 2*