The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-01-30
BURGESS BED-
 TIME STORIES
PRICKLY PoRKY IS ENTIRELY
 SATISFIED
By THoRNroN Vi. RuRaraa

SATISFIED
 Why want more than what you needf Inat to me seems much like greed
 -Prlckly Porky.
 Prickly Porky was very well satis- fled with things as they were. With the melting of the fee on the traes he could and should have gone back to the Green Forest where he be- longed, and this is what Farmer Browns Boy expected he would do. But Prickly Porky was of another mind. In the first place. 1t was a long walk back to the Green Forest. At least 1t was long for Prickly Porky. You know he Is a slow trav- eler and not at all fond of moving about much
 Then. too. he liked that snug place under the barn. It was dry and quite as warm as he cared to have 1t. Rough Brother North Wind could not get at him there. No storm could make him uncomfortable. He could sleep there as long as he pleased and when he pleased. It was only a little way to the Old Orchard and there was all the food hungry Porcupine Icould ask for. Prickly Porky wasn't thinking of the hemlock branches with which Farmer Browns Boy had kept him supplied all the time the trees were locked in ice, but of the apple trees of the Old Orchard. He had tasted the bark and found 1t good.
 "Ill stay right here," muttsred Priokly Porky to himself when. late in the afternoon, he came from un- der the barn and discovered that while he had slept that day all the ice had melted from the trees. T know enough to know when I am well off and I am quite satisfied. I have plenty to eat and comfortable place to sleep, and that Is enough for anybody. Now that the ice is gone I think Il will try the bark of one of these trees for a change"
 So he shuffled over to the nearest apple tree and slowly climbed 1t un- til he was well up in the top, where the branches wore young and the bark and twigs tender. There he made himself comfortable and started in to fill his stomach. Yes. indeed, Prickly Porky was very well satis- fled.
 Farmer Browns Boy. on his way from the barn to the house, looked over to the place where for several days he had put food for Prickly Porky. He was not there.
 T wonder If he Is still under the barn or If he has gone back to the Green Forest" thought Farmer Browns Boy "If he hasn't gone he probably will tonight, when he finds that the ice has melted. He's a queer fellow with all those little spears, but he minds his own business and if no one bcthers him he bothers no one. Of course he does ruin a few trees over in the Green Forest, but I don't know that 1t Is any worse to kill them by eating all the bark from them than 1t is to do it by cutting them down. He kills them for food while Dad and I cut them down to burn so as to keep us warm. I guess he has as much right to few trees as we have. So, altogether, he is a harmless, stupid old fellow, and for one am glad to have him around be- cause he is so queer and interesting.
 Had Farmer Browns Boy looked up in the apple tree he might not have been so sure that Prickly Porky was harmless old fellow, for Prickly Porky was hard at work doing there just what he had so often done in the Green Forest. But Farmer Brown $ Boy didn't look up and Prickly Porky ate tender twigs and stripped off bark and was very well satisfied in deed.
 Copyright, 1922. by T. W. Burgess