Billy the pot belly pig woke up under Ralph’s house again.  He blinked in the sunlight that was shining through the opening in the skirting of the old man’s trailer house.  Ralph was an elderly cowboy who had retired from the range.  He was hard as nails on the outside but he had a soft spot for the stray animals that wandered around the little prairie town where he lived.

Billy had been taken to raise when he was a piglet by some city folks that lived on down the hill on the outskirts of town.  They already had a sow pig named Monica.  They got Billy to keep her company but they just couldn’t get Billy to settle down and be a good pig.  Monica was a very well mannered pig and was allowed to go inside their house for a treat sometimes.  She was a great company pig.  Visitors to the house enjoyed feeding her biscuits from the dining room table.  They tried to do the same thing with Billy but…well…he just wanted to make a big mess.

So…they gave him to some folks who put him out in their back yard.  It wasn’t long before he had rooted right out of a hole in the fence.  They really didn’t want to get out and fix the fence so they just let him go.

Billy had grown awfully big and had some big old tusks that stuck out of either side of his mouth.  At first sight he was a little frightening but you just show him some food and he was gentle as a lamb.

It didn’t take long for people in the neighborhood to get sort of used to him.  After all, they were country folks and things like that just added a bit of entertainment in a small town.  They took to trowing their table scraps and garden waste on over their fences for Billy to eat.

All in all he had a pretty good life there.  He did learn which houses to avoid.  There was a family of hardcore cowboys living down the way.  They had several kids who were always practicing their roping skills.  One day Billy wandered into their yard and low and behold they had him roped and hog tied before he could blink an eye.  They let him go after awhile only to have it happen the next day all over again.  after that he learned to stay away from the Nickles boys house.

From then on Billy stuck pretty close to his little alleyway home.  He’s spend his days eating potato peels and squashed garden veggies that the neighbors supplied for him.  Every once in a while the Smiths, who had more money than most around there, would put out some corn for him.  Billy really liked corn.

Then the afternoon would come around and he would head on home to Ralph’s place.  There he would lay in the sun until nightfall came and he would go on under the trailer house and snuggle down in the blanket Old Ralph had put there for him.  Billy the pot belly pig would dream his pot belly pig dreams and wake up to do it all again in the morning.