Cheery and the Chum/Chapter 4

by Katherine Merritte Snyder Yates

Chapter IV

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Winkie Baby

HE sun had scarcely got his nightcap off, the next morning, before Cheery and The Chum popped out of the hall door and crowded their small heads together over the mouse-cage.

"We ought to name them," said Cheery.

"Why, I thought they were named," said The Chum. "Don't you like the names you called them yesterday?"

"What did I call them?" asked Cheery in surprise.

"You called them Mr. Mouse and Brother, when you told me about the cheese, didn't you?"

"Did I?" exclaimed Cheery. "I didn't notice,—I just had to call them something, so as to tell you about it; but those make good names, don't they? Come, Brother, run into your wheel now and turn it for us as fast as ever you can," and with her finger she chased the little white fellow about the cage and at last through the opening and into the wire wheel; and in a moment the wheel was spinning around and around as fast as the little pink feet could make it fly.

Just then Mamma and Aunt Beth came out and sat down on the steps in the sunshine, to wait until breakfast was ready; and Cheery and The Chum sat on the step below them to listen to Aunt Beth telling about the ducks and the new duck-pond; when around the corner of the house came Mr. Cann, carrying, very carefully, something wrapped up in a red bandanna handkerchief. He came straight to Cheery, and stopping in front of her, held out the bundle. "I've got something for you," he said; and leaning over, he unrolled into her lap the littlest, tiniest white pig that anybody ever saw.

"We ought to name them," said Cheery.

"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Cheery. "Look at the darling little winkie baby! Isn't he the meentiest, weentiest little thing that ever was?"

Mamma and Aunt Beth bent over. "Goodness!" said Aunt Beth, "I didn't know a pig could be so little! Why he isn't bigger than a baby kitten,—look here—" and she took from the step beside her, a one-pound baking-powder can which The Chum had brought to go with his fishing outfit; and lifting the little pig gently in her hands, she let him down, bodily, into the can. In he went all over, tail, nose and all, and Cheery put her hand over the top of the can, to show that he was all in.

The Chum was standing anxiously on first one foot and then the other. "Are you—" he began, and then he stopped and rubbed his fore-finger hard on the railing of the porch.

"What is it, dear?" asked Aunt Beth, looking up from piggy.

"Are you—was you—was you going to keep him in that? 'Cause—'cause I've got a handkerchief box up stairs that he can have just as well as not."

"Would it fit him better than this?" asked Aunt Beth.

"Well,—I—I was going fishing this afternoon, an'—" Aunt Beth laughed and tipped the little pig gently into Cheery's lap. "No, honey," she said, "we don't want to keep him in that. I just put him in to show how tiny he really is. Here's your can."

"An' don't you want the handkerchief box?"

"No, dear."

"But I'd rather you'd have it. I'd rather you'd have it as—as not, 'cause—'cause I—I—. Was I being selfish, Aunt Beth?" and The Chum's lip began to quiver.

"No, no, dearie!" said Aunt Beth. "Of course you weren't selfish. The can was yours, and you offered something else just as good; but the little pig is going back to the pen with the other pigs. Mr. Cann only brought it to show to us."

But Mr. Cann shook his head. "No," he said, "it's no use to put it back with the others,—it's too little. Why, it's nearly three weeks old now, and only that big! It hasn't any chance. It's too little to live."

Mamma reached over and took the little pig into her lap. "May we have it?" she asked.

"Of course you may," said Mr. Cann. "It's no good to me, and I thought it might amuse Cheery for a day or two."

"Thank you ever so much, Mr. Cann," said Cheery, gravely; and then, as he turned away, she crept close to Mamma and laid her hand on the tiny piggy. "Really wont it live, Mamma?" she asked.

Mamma smiled down into her eyes. "Can't you answer that question for yourself, dearie?" she asked.

Cheery's face brightened. "Of course it will," she said, the dimples coming at the corners of her mouth again, "and we know why, don't we? Shall I go and get a basket or something, for it to stay in?"

"Yes, please do," said Mamma. "Get your little Indian basket and put some cotton in it, and we'll have the winkie baby comfortable right away."

Cheery laughed. "That's what I called him, is'nt it!" she said. "I don't know why I did it, only he just looked that way."

When Cheery returned with the basket, Aunt Beth was coming out of the dining-room with a little butter-plate upon which was just one teaspoonful of oatmeal and cream. She held it in front of the winkie baby's nose, and suddenly he seemed to remember that he was a pig, and though he was so tiny that the meal was a very large one for him, yet no great big pig at a great big trough, ever got his fore-feet into his breakfast more eagerly, or grunted finer grunts—for his size. When he had finished, Mamma wrapped him in a bit of cloth and put him on the cotton-wool in the basket and set the basket in the sunshine, and she and Cheery each gave him a little loving pat and a little loving thought, as they turned to answer the breakfast bell.