The House that Hogg Built

Billy Hogg loved to play. Oh, boy, did he ever love to play, and with his imagination he was most popular with all the other critters at Farmer Brown’s. Trouble is Mama Hogg got pretty tired of Billy playing all day.

            “You got to go and make yourself useful,” she scolded. “Build yourself a house at least. You’ve lived under our roof far too long as it is.”

            Well, ole Billy, he squealed in protest, of course. “There’s plenty o’ room here, Ma! Why should I move out?”

             Ma eventually had her way; she usually does, ya know, and Billy marched down the road, feeling a little disgruntled p’haps, til he saw all of Farmer Brown’s straw bales stacked neatly beside the fence.

“What did I make such a fuss about, anyways?” He grunted to his admiring fans that were trailing after him. “I can whip up a home in no time; no time a’tall, and we will have plenty of elbow room for all our parties.”

            So Billy exchanged a few shiny coins for what he thought was a mighty fine stack of bales and his little friends clapped admiringly as the house shot up before their wondering eyes.

           The Cocky Ole Rooster had a thing or two say of course. He always had too much opinion to suit Billy any ways. But when he started pecking away at his ‘golden’ walls Billy angrily chased him away with a hoe,

            “How dare you,” he squealed. “You leave my fine mansion alone!” He missed seeing Old Mother Hen hide a chuckle behind her ample wing.

            Ma was quite amazed that Billy hadn’t been underfoot all day, so went to investigate. She pursed her lips thoughtfully when she saw Billy’s project, but didn’t want to discourage him, so said nothing. Ma scurried away and marched back with a gray cat under one fleshy arm.

             “Here, Billy,” she announced. “Here’s my house warming gift for you, to keep all the ‘attitudes’ from scurrying around and causing havoc.”

            “Thanks, Ma. Thanks a lot, but you know how much I hate cats.”

            “Her name is Conscience,” Ma replied firmly and marched back to the house to attend to her baking.

            Billy and Conscience glared at each other for a full minute. “Well,” he sighed, ”If you have to be here, at least I can give you a bowl of milk and a proper name. From now on you are to answer to the name Connie.”

            Conscience looked at him scornfully and strolled away, tail swishing back and forth.

             That night Billy lay awake for a while with his hands folded beneath his head.

“You know, this just might be a good time as any to turn over a new leaf and make something of myself.” He watched as Conscience chased after an attitude called Laziness and was mighty pleased when she actually caught her. Of course, he didn’t know at the time that Laziness had many friends and relatives who had been informed that Billy had built a wonderful shelter ‘for them’ and had no qualms about eating him ‘out of house and home’!

We’ll leave Billy to his own devises for now, but you are invited to come back tomorrow to learn of new developments.