Read animal stories for Free Online

searched around in the trunk, listening to my teeth chattering, until I came on a jar of antiseptic lubricating cream.
    Back in the pen, I smeared the cream on my arm, knelt behind the pig and gently inserted my hand inside her. I was forced to roll over on my side. The stones were cold and wet but I forgot my discomfort when my fingers touched something; it was a tiny tail. Almost a transverse presentation, biggish piglet stuck like a cork in a bottle.
    Using one finger, I worked the hind legs back until I was able to grasp them and draw the piglet out. “This is the one that’s been causing the trouble. He’s dead, I’m afraid—been squashed in there too long. But there could be some live ones still inside. I’ll have another feel.”
    I greased my arm and got down again. Almost at arm’s length, I found another piglet and I was feeling at the face when a set of minute but very sharp teeth sank into my finger.
    I yelped and looked up at the farmer from my stony bed. “This one’s alive, anyway. I’ll soon have him out.”
    But the piglet had other ideas. He showed no desire to leave his warm haven and every time I got hold of his slippery little foot between my fingers he jerked it away. After a minute or two of this game I felt a cramping in my arm. I relaxed and lay back, my head resting on the cobbles, my arm still inside the pig. I closed my eyes and immediately I was back in the ballroom, in the warmth and the brilliant light. I was holding out my immense glass while Fran@cois poured from the magnum; then I was dancing, close to the orchestra this time and the leader, beating time with one hand, turned round and smiled into my face; smiled and bowed as though he had been looking for me all his life.
    I smiled back but the bandleader’s face dissolved and there was only Mr. Atkinson looking down at me expressionlessly, his unshaven jaw and shaggy eyebrows thrown into sinister relief by the light striking up from the bicycle lamp.
    I shook myself and raised my cheek from the floor. This wouldn’t do. Falling asleep on the job; either I was very tired or there was still some champagne in me. I reached again and grasped the foot firmly between two fingers and this time, despite his struggles, the piglet was hauled out into the world. Once arrived, he seemed to accept the situation and tottered round philosophically to his mother’s udder.
    “She’s not helping at all,” I said. “Been on so long that she’s exhausted. I’m going to give her an injection.”
    Another numbing expedition through the mud to the car, a shot of pituitrin into the gilt’s thigh and within minutes the action began with powerful contractions of the uterus. There was no obstruction now and soon a wriggling pink piglet was deposited in the straw; then quite quickly another and another.
    “Coming off the assembly line now, all right,” I said. Mr. Atkinson grunted.
    Eight piglets were born and the light from the lamp was almost giving out.
    I rubbed my cold arms. “Well, I should say that’s the lot now.” I felt suddenly chilled; I couldn’t say how long I had been standing there looking at the wonder that never grew stale; the little pigs struggling onto their legs and making their way unguided to the long double row of teats; the mother with her first family easing herself over to expose as much as possible of her udder to the hungry mouths.
    Better get dressed quickly. I had another try at the marblelike soap but it defeated me as easily as the first time. I wondered how long it had been in the family. Down my right side my cheek and ribs were caked with dirt and mucus. I did my best to scrape some off with my fingernails, then I swilled myself down with the cold water from the bucket.
    “Have you a towel there?” I gasped.
    Mr. Atkinson wordlessly handed me a sack. Its edges were stiff with old manure and it smelled musty from the meal it had long since contained. I took it and began to rub my chest and as the sour