· stories · tales · hearsay · hypotheses ·
Helen's mother came to her early one morning.
"Get dressed, Helen," she said, pulling Helen gently out of bed.
"Mrs. Huey isn't feeling very well today so she can't come and take care of you," she explained to a drowsy Helen. "So I'm going to take you to Mrs. Piggifit before I go to work."
"Who's Mrs. Piggifit?"
"She's very nice and she lives in The Woods."
"Where?"
"The Woods. Brush your teeth and wash your face. Hurry, Helen. We don't have much time."
"I don't want to go to a wood," Helen complained. "I want Mrs. Huey."
"Hurry, Helen, hurry," her mother said.
Helen was soooo sleepy. She hardly remembered brushing her teeth or washing her face. Or even being taken to Mrs. Piggifit's door.
"Helen, this is Mrs. Piggifit. Be a very good girl. I'll pick you up on my way home from work."
Helen's mother kissed her cheek and rushed off.
"What a pretty girl you are, Helen," Mrs. Piggifit said, stooping down until she was on all fours. "Oh, I do love hair! And you have so much!"
Mrs. Piggifit clapped, delighted.
"I'm sure you'll have lots of fun here," she said. "I have three sons you can play with. And there's so much fun and adventure in The Woods."
Helen opened her eyes wide.
"You're a pig!" she exclaimed to Mrs. Piggifit.
"Well, of course I am, sweetheart," Mrs. Piggifit said. She was laughing and her round nose jumped up and down.
"Are you hungry, dear?" Mrs. Piggifit asked. "Your mother said you didn't have time to eat breakfast this morning. Everything was so rush, rush, wasn't it, dear? Poor Mrs. Huey, becoming so ill like that. I told her not to each so many peaches. But she'll be better in no time. I sent her a lovely tonic. Come and sit down. I'll get you a nice bowl of corn mush and cream. Mrs. Juniper just had her calf and she's filled with the loveliest of milk right now. So sweet. She never forgets to send some milk over. Quite the best neighbor. I mustn't forget to send her some straw to store away for winter. Strange creatures, cows. They never seem to realize that winter is just around the corner. Completely lose themselves sunning in the meadow. Just goes to show you how dangerous too much sun is. Addles the mind. So much to do in summer! So much to do! One's head just whirls!"
Mrs. Piggifit had a very nice voice. A warm and happy song. Her curly tail echoed in circles.
"How do you like your corn mush, dear?" Mrs. Piggifit asked.
"I like it very much, thank you," Helen said.
"How wonderfully polite you are!" Mrs. Piggifit said, laughing heartily.
Mrs. Piggift's house was unlike anything Helen had seen before. The walls were big blocks of rough stone and the roof was made out of straw! Even the carpets were straw. Inside the kitchen there was a large wooden table and a hot iron stove which Mrs. Piggifit was constantly dancing around. She showed Helen inside the stove, which was hot with white coals. She even let Helen feed the stove. As soon as the coal went in, the stove roared with fire.
"Now that you have a hearty breakfast tucked inside your lovely tummy, you can run outside and find my sons to play with. Their names are Spau, Tickels, and Pooch. Run along!"
Helen found Pooch right away.
He was the youngest and a little shy. But his eyes shined with friendliness and curiosity.
Hand in hand they walked deeper into The Woods and hunted for fallen apples and wild chestnuts. They picked blackberries and smeared each other with fruit. The sun was hot, so they jumped into a mud pool and rolled around. In the afternoon the rains came and washed them sparkling clean.
"It'll be night time soon and we'll need a house," Pooch said. "Gather up as much sticks and twigs as you can. We'll build a snug little house for two."
While Helen gathered, Pooch built. He took the twigs and tied them up into bundles with long blades of grass. When they had enough bound twigs, Pooch and Helen stacked them together until they had a small round hut.
"It's a beautiful house," Helen said, proudly.
Pooch agreed. The doorway was a little small and they had to crawl on their hands and knees to get in, but inside, the hut was sweet and pleasant, the living grass their carpet. There was just enough room for them to lie down if they put their knees up and their feet on the ground.
"What do we have here?" a voice called from outside.
It was Pooch's brother Spau. Tickels was with him too.
"Go away!" Pooch yelled.
"Come on out!" Tickels yelled. "This hut is dangerous. It is condemned! Come on out before it falls on you!"
The hut began to shake and sway. Spau and Tickels laughed as they pushed the hut around.
"The slightest wind will knock it down," Spau warned.
"I hear a wind coming!" Tickels said.
"Timber!" yelled Spau.
The hut disintegrated and the twigs fell all over Pooch and Helen.
Pooch was crying.
"This is why we won't play with you," Spau said. "You're always crying."
"You ruined our house!" Pooch cried.
"It wasn't a house," Spau taunted. "It was a pile of sticks."
"Sticks won't keep the rain out," Tickels said. He had an engineer's head and thought about such things.
"And what if the wolf comes?" Spau asked. "All he'd have to do is light a match and it'd be roast pig."
Pooch squealed and squealed.
"You're mean!" Helen cried.
Spau and Tickels stared at Helen.
"Ma said we are to be nice to the girl," Tickels said.
"Yes, we'd better," Spau said, reflecting. No one really liked the talk of roast pig.
"We could build them another house," Tickels said.
"A real house," Spau agreed.
They quickly gathered some straw and bound it all together to make a sturdy little hut. They even put down a straw floor inside because they said the ground would get too cold in the night.
"You need some insulation," Tickels explained. "Won't do to sleep on frozen ground."
Spau and Tickels were very happy building things. But they wouldn't let Pooch and Helen help. This made Helen mad. But Pooch was very content eating wild apples and taking naps.
Spau and Tickels had just finished putting the last touches on the hut and were admiring their work when the wolf appeared. He'd been there all along, hiding on the other side of some brambles while watching for his grand-entry moment.
"Give me all your apples and all your chestnuts or I'll huff and I'll puff and blow your house down!" he threatened gleefully.
"You can't blow our house down," Tickels said. "It's too well built."
"This pile of straw?" the wolf asked. He giggled. "I'll blow it to kingdom come!"
He roared with so much force, the piglets trembled.
"I've had enough!" Helen screamed, stamping her foot. She was sooooo angry. First Spau and Tickels, now this stupid wolf. Turbulent hot air had been raging inside Helen for some time now and it all came howling out like a cyclone. The wolf catapulted clear across to the other side of The Woods. The little straw hut followed. Spau and Tickels too. Half The Woods tore the air. Helen didn't come to her senses until she saw Pooch flying past her. There was nothing more inside her, really. She grabbed Pooch out of the air.
"It's been a long day," Helen said to Pooch. "I'm tired."
"Let's go home," Pooch said.
They climbed the hill and walked past the mud pool, hand in hand. At home, they told Mrs. Piggifit everything that had happened.
She laughed and laughed and fed them a feast of candied yams and stuffed kohlrabi. There were plump escargots too. Helen fell asleep at the table, having eaten a great deal of food. She didn't notice she was back home again. And then morning came and she was awakened for more, if different, adventures.
Spau, Tickels and Pooch were astonished. They'd come home and found another baby.
"Ma, you promised!" Spau reprimanded.
"But my dears!" Mrs. Piggifit said. "You know how I can't resist a human baby! All that lovely hair!"
"No more babies! No more babies!" her piglets chanted.
"But my dears!" Mrs. Piggifit exclaimed. "They just throw them away. Especially the girl babies. What am I to do when I find one wailing in the rubbish heap?"
"Ma, you go to the rubbish heaps to find them!" Tickels said.
"That's not perfectly true," Mrs. Piggifit said. "I was taking a nice stroll in the market place with Mrs. Tamiworth and what do we find? Why this precious one. Aren't you precious, sweet thing! I hope this one doesn't disappear like the other ones. I simply don't understand where they run off to."
Of course the baby was going to disappear. Spau, Tickels and Pooch saw to that. They let their ma have fun with the baby for a month. And then they took the baby deep into The Woods for a nice wolf or fairy to find.
Only now the Good Fairy was watching them as they dragged yet another baby into The Woods. She'd been very suspicious of all these human babies crawling around.
"Those naughty piggies!" the Good Fairy exclaimed after the pigs had gone.
She took the baby directly to Mrs. Piggifit and told her what her piglets had been up to.
"Next time we'll have to fine you," the Good Fairy said. "This simply cannot go on. You really need to control those piglets of yours. Who knows where this kind of behavior will lead!"
"But aren't you going to leave the baby?" Mrs. Piggifit asked, distressed.
"Certainly not. Cross species adoption just isn't fair on the baby," the Good Fairy said. "One simply must provide the correct cultural support. You can't have human babies thinking they're pigs! Or pigs thinking they're human! No, no."
"But I can give it lots of love," Mrs. Piggifit pleaded.
"That's simply not the point, Mrs. Piggifit," the Good Fairy said. "There, there, Mrs. Piggifit. I'll send you a lovely brochure explaining the Fairy Social Policy on Changelings. It'll explain everything. We have years and years of social and psychological research. I presented a paper on it myself just last month. Very well received."
Mrs. Piggifit was in a terrible state when Spau, Tickels and Pooch came home.
"You've all been so, soo, sooo naughty!" she wailed. "Now I can't have my babies! My lovely, lovely babies!"
Mrs. Piggifit was too distraught to make dinner. Spau, Tickels and Pooch went to bed hungry.
"I'm going to get that busybody," Spau swore.
"Who does she think she is?" Tickels fumed.
"She turned Little Bunny Foo Foo into a goon," Pooch said. "She's scary."
"I'll fix that Good Fairy if it's the last thing I do," Spau swore.
"You have a plan?" Tickels asked. He liked plans.
"No," Spau admitted. "I'm too hungry. I can't even sleep. But after breakfast. Sure, I'll have a plan. You'd better be scared, Good Fairy. Very scared."
After breakfast Spau, Tickels and Pooch went rummaging around for human babies. They found a quiet one in the rubbish heaps and fed it some milk. Then they carried it deep into The Woods. This time, they had a large glass jar and a cork, too. They put the baby inside the jar and waited for the Good Fairy to come.
The Good Fairy was livid when she saw the baby.
"Another baby! You naughty, naughty piggies!" she scolded.
The Good Fairy swooped into the jar to salvage the baby.
The piglets jumped on the jar and corked it tightly.
The Good Fairy was trapped.
"Let me out! Let me out!" the Good Fairy screamed, her face redder than candied apples.
"Well, what do we do with her?" Tickels asked.
"Give her to the Goon?" Spau suggested.
"Okay," Tickels said.
They weren't sure where the Goon was. So they decided to keep the Good Fairy with them until they found the Goon.
Mrs. Piggifit was so glad when her children finally returned home.
"Look who's come!" she said, clapping her hands. "Mr. Chow!"
Mr. Chow was a noodle chef from China. The Piggies loved noodles. And they especially loved Mr. Chow's noodles and how he liked to make just one noodle, miles and miles long, that wrapped around and around the big black pot as it cooked in boiling water.
Excited, the piggies sang their noodle song.
Noodles! Noodles! Noodles!
We love noodles!
Noodles! Noodles! Noodles!
We love noodles!
Slurp them up!
Slurp them down!
Slurp em all around!
Noodles! Noodles! Noodles!
We love noodles!
Noodles!
Noodles!
Noodles!
Yay, noodles!
Noodles!
What a feast they had!
In winter The Woods sleeps and the Woodsman comes.
He collects the dead wood and makes coal.
He nurses the injured animals and prepares the dying.
He distributes the snow and regulates the temperature.
In his fur hat and coat he's too busy tidying The Woods to feel lonely.
Spring comes quickly.
In the evenings, after supper, he repairs magic, taking the large wooden needle in and out of the ragged bits, the firelight making the net burn gold so that it's hard on the eyes.
When Spau runs away he meets the Woodsman and they spend the day together making coal. The fire is so hot yet Spau is still so cold. When he is frozen, the Woodsman covers him with fallen leaves and lets the snow fall so that the powder flakes are like white sugar upon his eyes.
Some of you might recognize this land of godless beauty. We're here in the southern part of The Woods, better known as The Downs, a land of calm and tranquilizing beauty. It is here where the pigs, the goats, and occasional cows make their simple homes. It is here we'll find that grand old pig, Mrs. Piggifit.
We'll have to walk down this lane, past this thicket — ah, here we are. What a sweet cottage with its rambling roses and climbing ivy! The thatched roof and cozy fire. If we look in the window, we'll see Mrs. Piggifit sitting comfortably in her chair, knitting, a cup of hot tea steaming away beside her. Ah, she's seen us! And here she is, welcoming us at the door.
"Come in! Come in! Wipe your feet! Come in! Into the parlor! Make yourselves cozy. Let me pour you some tea! I'll be mother!"
How she laughs and laughs at her little joke. Why, we'll laugh along with her. What a jovial soul!
"Mrs. Piggifit, you've led a long life and it's marvelous to see you looking so fit."
"Thank you! Thank you! I hope you're comfortable. Tell me if there's anything I can get you."
"Marvelously comfortable, Mrs. Piggift, thank you. This is a very cozy little sitting room indeed. And what a marvelous collection of things! Please tell us about this curiosity. What, pray tell, is this?"
"Oh, that's a present some of my children gave me years and years ago. Most people have a gold fish. Well, I have a good fairy! I know she's looking a little tatty, but you know how it is! When you get a present from your children, you just don't have the heart to ever throw it away, no matter how sad it's getting."
"And how many children do you have, Mrs. Piggifit?"
"Oh, good heavens! I've lost track. Hundreds I imagine."
"And you're also a foster mother?"
"Yes. I've fostered and raised many a human baby through the years. Lovely, lovely creatures. Here's a picture of my latest human baby. Dorian. He's a boy, of course, but I so love long curly human hair, and laces and ribbons, and I just can't help dressing him up like this! He plays the piano beautifully. Aren't human hands a marvel! The way they race up and down the keyboard. My, what would it be like to have such things instead of hooves!"
"One hundred is a considerable landmark in a life. How will you commemorate your birthday today?"
"To make a confession, I'm not big on birthdays myself. To me, it's just another day. But of course the children make a great deal of it. So tonight, around six, my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will come. Friends, too, old and new. And we'll have noodles and stuffed kohlrabi and cake. Chocolate for those who like it, strawberry for those who don't. We'll sing and dance. And, of course, we'll remember those who are no longer with us. Sadly, I've lost many children through the years. So many go away with Mr. Chow and for some reason, I never hear from them again. Some I lose — I really don't know how. And there was one child who actually ran away. Many, many years ago. How I do go on! But you see, that's how I will commemorate my birthday. With friends, family and dear memories."
It's evening now, and her children are knocking on the door. Shall we leave quietly lest we intrude on this most remarkable family occasion? Quietly now, quietly, back through the thicket, past the farm houses, back to our own busy lives.
Good night, good night, Viewers, good night.
