Free The Pig Did It by Joseph Caldwell Page A

of.”
    â€œIt’s still not my pig.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œJust look at it.” “I’m looking at it.” “Well?”
    â€œIt looks like your pig and no one else’s.” “What a terrible thing to say.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with it?” Kitty took a deep breath and held it. Lolly was being warned. Kitty would hear no words against this pig.
    â€œThat low-slung belly, it’s not meat, it’s not fat. It’s just there. What have you been feeding it?”
    â€œI gave it nothing I wouldn’t eat myself.”
    â€œPoor thing.”
    â€œIt’s a fine and healthy beast and it doesn’t need your criticizing.”
    â€œI wasn’t criticizing. I was evaluating.”
    â€œOf course. A pig person like you knows everything.”
    â€œI know my own and my own know me.”
    â€œThen come and let it have a look at you.” Kitty marched toward the pasture. “Come on. We’ll see who it recognizes and who it doesn’t.”
    Lolly was looking not toward the pig but toward the cabbage patch. “What’s that big hole for in the garden? Is it a swimming pool on its way or what?”
    â€œWhat hole?”
    â€œThat one there.”
    â€œA strange thing you should ask, Lolly McKeever.”
    Lolly shrugged. “Just being neighborly.” With that she turned again toward Aaron. She used a small smile to suppress another laugh. “You’re the nephew.”
    Aaron nodded, the movement renewing the shivers he had just managed to control. Lolly McKeever leaned toward him, trying, he supposed, to trace the smell now rising in full force from his shirt and pants. “You fell into the sea.” Now the laughter came, greater in its delight than before.
    â€œI—I—I was walking.”
    â€œI see.” Her eyes became even brighter.
    â€œBut I—I had to swim.”
    â€œHow interesting.” The smile forced the laugh to cease. She searched his face, first his eyes, then his lips, then his forehead, his chin, his ears, looking for a clue to his presentation. After she had given the eyes another try, she settled on his right ear and searched no more. “You look nothing like your aunt.” And then the laughter came again.
    â€œI—I was born in America.” He gave a quick shiver and brought his elbows closer to his sides.
    â€œAh! Of course.” She looked down at his feet. He moved first one foot, then the other, shuffling them in place as if trying to offer some entertainment, some demonstration of their capabilities. With another burst of laughter, Lolly seemed to approve, even applaud the display, to show her gratitude and pleasure at having been treated to this manifestation of his cunning.
    If he hadn’t been wet, if he weren’t shivering and stuttering, he would never have submitted to this scrutiny, this hurtful gaiety, but his psyche had already subscribed to the helplessness of his body, a kind of solidarity, a mutual sympathy he was unable to sever. He surrendered to his imbecilic state and stood quietly before her, his head tilted slightly to the right, a further abjection confirming his idiocy. She could now laugh her eyes right out of her head. He gave her full permission. He looked directly at her. The laughter had ceased.
    She was still looking at his bare feet. She seemed thoughtful, even troubled. Aaron considered wiggling his toes, an added performance, an encore to the shuffling he’d already executed for her amusement, but he decided to continue the silent offering of himself and try not to shiver or to twitch. He would also subject the woman to the process of examination she’d been practicing on him.
    She had, to begin with, big ears, but she also had a good-size head and the ears didn’t look particularly disproportionate. Just big. Capable. No delicacy, no nonsense. He liked that. Ears like hers could listen to