Grunty Pig found that being the smallest of the family wasn't all fun. Not only could his brothers and sisters crowd him at the feeding trough. Even when they were playing in the pen they often knocked him down and walked right over him. And if he objected—as he usually did—they were sure to laugh and call him "Runt."  
Try as she would, Mrs. Pig couldn't rid her children of these ways. But she shouldn't be blamed for that. It must be remembered that she had seven youngsters, all of the same age.
 
At least, Mrs. Pig did what she could to make Grunty's lot easier.
 
"Don't feel unhappy!" she said to him one day as he picked himself up, whimpering, after a hard knock. "Don't feel unhappy because you are the littlest of the family. In one way you are the luckiest of all my children."
 
Grunty Pig didn't stop weeping. He saw no reason—yet—to feel more cheerful.
 
"Did you know—" his mother asked him—"did you know that in one respect you are the handsomest one of the whole litter? You have the curliest tail of them all!"
 
Grunty Pig gazed, open-mouthed, at his mother. He stopped snivelling. Up to that time he had scarcely given his tail a thought. So long as it followed him wherever he went he had been satisfied with it.
 
 
Grunty Pig Stuck Fast in the Fence.
From that moment Grunty began to think a great deal about his ............