One morning, Fairy Sunrise heard that a little pig on a farm had gone quite vain.
Fairy Sunrise was up every morning exactly when the sun was, which is how she got her name. She had a great fondness for pigs — thought they were clever, charming creatures, and far nicer than most people gave them credit for. But this particular pig was giving her trouble.
His name was Gink, and he was the much-loved pet of a little girl on a farm. The trouble had started when some city visitors came to stay. Gink had listened, very carefully, to their conversations — and he had heard them say that to be truly fashionable, a person must walk every day and take plenty of exercise.
Gink had never given much thought to being fashionable before. But now the idea took hold of him completely. He decided he would be a very modern, very stylish pig who went on daily walks.
So the next morning, off he went.
He trotted through the village, managing — just barely — to avoid the horses’ hooves and the little boys’ bicycles. He made it all the way to the lake, where he found a group of boys loading up canoes for a camping trip.
“Don’t you want to come with us?” one of them called out.
Gink was just puffing up with pleasure at the invitation — a camping trip would be very fashionable indeed — when he heard a second boy say, “Won’t he make wonderful bacon?”
No one has ever seen a pig move so fast.
Gink ran all the way home without stopping, and flung himself into his pen, and didn’t come out again until supper.
After that, he stayed safely on the farm and decided that city fashions were entirely silly, and possibly dangerous. He also lost all interest in taking walks.
And Fairy Sunrise, who had been nearby just in time to whisper “bacon” into the second boy’s ear, was thoroughly delighted with how things had turned out.
