The big sow that has been added to the farm live stock is making herself quite at home. She doesn't expect us to make company of her. She is willing to help herself and seems to feel hurt when we insist on superintending her helpings. The children have named her Beatrice, though I can't figure out just why. Beatrice suggests to me something slim and gracile rather than two hundred pounds of hump-backed and enterprising pork. They couldn't have picked up the name from anything they have heard me calling her since her arrival on the farm. I have called her many names, but I am quite certain that none of them sounded anything like Beatrice. It must have been an inspiration on their part, and we shall see how it works out. As Beatrice is not being fed up for pork but just being given a ration calculated to keep her in good health, she has a wide margin of unappeased appetite. Whenever she hears any one stirring she is up and about at once, and to cross the barnyard with a pail of anything is quite a feat. Occasionally I take a pail of swill to the granary to add a few handfuls of chop-feed before giving it to Beatrice and I find the experience rather exciting. She makes a squealing rush at me as soon as I open the gate and tries to get her nose into the pail. I kick her out of my way and then cross the yard to the granary door, kicking back like a horse at every few steps. I have heard at different times about educated pigs, but I seriously doubt if any trainer has been able to teach a pig table manners. You can teach a dog or a cat or a horse to beg for a dainty morsel, but I don't believe any one could teach a pig to wait when food is in sight. Beatrice wants what she wants when she wants it, and she doesn't care who hears her asking for it.

When Beatrice arrived she was put in the pen in which we kept the two pigs that we fattened for home-cured pickled pork and bacon, but it didn't seem to give her a chance for sufficient exercise, so we decided to shift around the pigpen so that it would give her an entrance to the barnyard. Since that has been done there has been nothing but trouble. Not a door or gate can be left open for a moment, or the marauding Beatrice will be in mischief. As a matter of fact, she no sooner got access to the barnyard than she deserted the pigpen altogether. Although her sleeping room was filled with nice clean straw, she wouldn't look at it. Instead, she began to root around the strawstack and to gather a big pile of loose straw on the south side. She chose the side that was sheltered from the prevailing northwest wind, and constructed a nest that is entirely to her own taste. When she gives up hope of getting any more food each day she burrows her way into her pile of straw and tucks it around her like a blanket. When I go to the barnyard after night I can hear her grunting rhythmically under about four feet of straw.

As long as I do not bang a pail or make a noise like something eatable she remains at rest, but if anything happens that conveys to her the idea that something to eat is about, there is an instant earthquake in the pile of straw, and Beatrice emerges with open mouth and complaining lungs. Then the business of kicking and name-calling is resumed. We are hopeful that Beatrice will do her part in the urgent business of meeting the pork shortage, and for that reason are willing to put up with her bad manners, but we do not expect to learn to love her very much.