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Farmer Fred walked to the barn to
get some hay. He’d just had his breakfast – a huge plate of crispy fried
bacon and eggs. He loved bacon and eggs. He had them for breakfast, for
lunch and for dinner. Farmer Fred raised pigs and chickens so that he
could have bacon and eggs any time he wanted.
Running around in the barn were five
piglets. Farmer Fred had just bought them. He was going to raise them to
be big, fat pigs. The fatter they got, the more bacon he could have. They
squealed and ran about, tossing hay into the air. "Ah, there you are. Come
and have some corn. It will make you grow quickly," he called to the
piglets.
The five of them ran up to Farmer
Fred. They were oinking and grunting with glee. He put a huge bowl of corn
down on the hay for them to gobble and then went back to his farmhouse.
"If you eat all that corn and get
fat, Farmer Fred will eat YOU!" a white-feathered chicken clucked. It flew
up to the rafters of the barn. The piglets stopped eating and looked up.
"You’d better hide, and if you know what’s goof for you, you wont eat any
more corn," the chicken added.
Later that day when Farmer Fred went
back to the barn, he saw that the piglets hadn’t eaten any of the corn.
They weren’t running around in the barn any more either. "Where are my
piglets?" he wondered. He sat down on a rock. SQUEAL! SQUEAL! SQUEAL!
"What was that?" he said and jumped
up. It wasn’t a rock he was sitting on. It was one of the piglets. SQUEAL!
SQUEAL! SQUEAL! He quickly tied a rope around its neck and put it in a
mesh wire cage. "Stay in here while I find the others," he said.
Farmer Fred looked all around his
farm but couldn’t see the piglets. He climbed to the top of a hill to get
a better look. UP at the top was a hollow log. Farmer Fred sat down on it
and the log began to move. He fell backwards as it began to roll down the
hill. SQUEAL! SQUEAL! SQUEAL! One of the piglets went flying out of the
log. It lay on the grass, dazed and dizzy. Farmer Fred shouted, "There’s
another one of my piglets." He ran down the hill and tied a rope around
the piglet’s neck. He took it to the cage and put it with the other
piglet.
"I think I’ll go fishing now,"
Farmer Fred said after searching for an hour for the three other piglets.
He sat in the grass at the edge of the pond and started to put a wriggling
worm on the hook. It accidentally slipped off and fell into the water.
Farmer Fred looked all around for it. "Ah, there you are," he said,
reaching in the pond to grab the worm. He pulled it out, but it wasn’t a
worm after all. It was a piglet’s tail! SQUEAL! SQUEAL! SQUEAL! He held
the piglet up in the air. "I’ve found my third piglet," he smiled,
carrying it by the tail to the cage. He dropped it in with the other two.
"Now, I’ve only got two more piglets to find."
Farmer Fred noticed that his flower
garden was filled with beautiful flowers. There were fragrant pink roses,
white daisies with yellow centers, purple pansies touched with gold, and
bright red poppies. He also noticed that there were a lot of weeds. "I
think I need to do some weeding," he sighed. He knelt in the dirt and
started to pull them, tossing them into a pile. "It’s going to take me
hours to weed my flowers." He reached over and pulled a big pinkish weed.
SQUEAL! SQUEAL! SQUEAL! It wasn’t a weed! It was another piglet! "Aha!
I’ve found the fourth piglet. You’re going to join the others," Farmer
Fred said, carrying the piglet to the cage and putting him inside with the
other three. "Now I have four of the piglets. Only one more to find."
Farmer Fred searched, and searched,
and searched. The sun was beginning to set and he still hadn’t found the
fifth piglet. "I’m feeling hungry. I think I’ll go inside and fix myself
some bacon and eggs. I’ll find the piglet after supper," he said, rubbing
his tummy. He walked towards the farmhouse, looking at the trees as he
walked past them. "I think I’ll have some big, juicy apples this fall," he
said. "The pears look good too. My peaches are doing well and so are my
plums. What’s this growing in the apricot tree?" Farmer Fred wondered,
looking up into the branches. "It’s a very odd shaped apricot." He looked
closer. "I don’t think that’s an apricot at all." He pulled the last
piglet from the tree. It fell down on top of him, knocking him to the
ground. "My last piglet! I’ve found you all." SQUEAL! SQUEAL! SQUEAL! The
piglet wiggled around and tried to get out of Farmer Fred’s arms, but he
wasn’t strong enough. Farmer Fred carried him to the cage and put him in
it with the other four. "There now! I’ve found all my piglets. I’m going
to the house to have some bacon and eggs and then I’ll be back out with
your supper."
The piglets could smell the bacon
cooking. They could hear it sizzling in the pan. Their snouts twitched as
the aroma of the bacon surrounded them. A while later Farmer Fred came out
with a huge bowl of corn. "Here’s your supper," he said, putting the bowl
into the cage with the piglets. They were starving and gobbled the corn
all up. Every day Farmer Fred gave them more corn and the bigger they got,
the more corn they were given to eat.
Every day the chicken flew to the
cage. "I’m warning you not to eat the corn," the chicken said, but the
piglets ignored her. Soon the piglets were huge, fat pigs.
One morning when the chicken flew
over to the cage, she saw that the pigs weren’t there. As she stood on the
side of the cage clucking, the aroma of bacon came floating out of Farmer
Fred’s house. She heard it sizzling in the pan. "I warned them," she said
and flew back to the henhouse. |
