Just as I was turning around to say to Horace that I chose that one, something, I did not know what, made me look down at the little black ugly one again. He was still looking up at me, with a sick, sad, hopeless, yet patient look, and at once it seemed to me that I heard that little voice again--heard it with the ears of my heart, as it were--"Choose him!"
I turned around to Horace, who seemed to be getting impatient at my taking so long to choose, and said very quietly, and somewhat sadly, perhaps, for I remember that my voice and the way I spoke seemed to astonish him as much as my choice--"I'd like to have that one for mine, Horace."
"What! Mass' L----! y'ain't gwine for to take dat ar little pigininny! Why he ain't o' no 'count, no how!--an' he look sick too--mebby he die. Let ole Horry choose for ye. I'd take de little feller wid de black tail and ear,"--pointing to the one I had fixed upon at first--"he's as peert as a jack-knife; and den, white's a mighty sight purtier color dan black--dat is, for _pigs_," added he, catching himself, for one of Horace's hobbies was the notion that black was "de best color in de world for folks."
But all Horace said about the little pig looking sick, and that "mebby he die," only made the little voice beg the more earnestly--"Take him! take him!" and I said to it, softly--"I will," and to Horace, aloud--
"Please let me take the little black one, Horace. I want to nurse him and make him well, like the others."
Horace looked a little displeased at what he thought was wilfulness in me, but said nothing more. He then took up the pail and poured the milk into the trough--my father being of the opinion that it was never too early to begin to feed pigs. At once the little fellows--all save mine, who lay still and alone, only turning his strangely sad eyes from me to the trough--made a furious rush towards it, crowding, squealing, and pushing like--so many little pigs as they were, and like nothing else in the world. Some plunged their heads into the milk, clear up to their eyes, which fairly twinkled and snapped with roguery, and one--the one with the black tail and ear, scrambled into the trough bodily, just as though he wanted to get more than the others, and thought he could absorb it with his legs and body, as well as take it in at his mouth; then, not satisfied with this, he went marching up and down the trough, treading on the snouts of his fellows, until they got angry, and rooted him out entirely.