That's So Sad

Claire Nathan used to teach high school students to teach little children. So when three-year-old Clara Wembley and her older brother, Marp, came down the street, accompanying Eleanor and Franklin, Jake and Jenny Newland’s pot-bellied pigs, on a trip to the “Slop’s On Us” Café and Worming Center,” she thought of a little rhyme she used to teach the children.

So when Clara and Marp and Franklin and Eleanor stopped to say “Hello,” she recited it to them.

I had a little pig
I fed him in a trough
He ate so much that his tail popped off
So I got me a hammer and I got me a nail
And I made that pig a wooden tail.

Marp teared up and said, “That’s so sad.”

Claire was quite embarrassed. “Oh, I never thought of it like that before,” she said.

“If you never talked to people, you wouldn’t have these problems,” said her husband, Randall, the well-known hermudgeon [hermit + curmudgeon].

Clara is not quite as tender-hearted as Marp, however. Later that afternoon, Claire saw Clara chasing Shingles the Dog, whom she still has not forgiven for stealing her blankie on Christmas eve, while brandishing a hammer, a nail, and a piece of wood.