How Merry Left the Meadow

Every journey starts with a nose full of curiosity.

Merry is a little piglet who lives in Merrimeadow, a sunny meadow where the grass is soft, the pond is warm, and every morning smells like clover. Merry loves the meadow. But Merry loves questions even more.

One bright morning, Merry found a trail of footprints in the dew - footprints that were not piglet-shaped at all.

"Who made these?" wondered Merry. "And where do they go?"

Merry asked Willa the cow. Willa swished her tail. "Those," she said, "lead to the Big Farm on the other side of the hill. All the animals in the valley live there. I hear they throw a party every single morning."

A party every morning! Merry packed a tiny backpack - one clover snack, one map (drawn by Merry, mostly accurate), and one brave little heart - and set off over the hill.

The trail led past the duck pond, where Puddles the duckling offered a ride on a lily pad and a quack of encouragement. It led through the corn rows, where a crow named Cornelius gave directions that were mostly wrong but very confident. And just over the top of the hill, Merry heard it:

"Moo! Baa! Cluck! Oink?"

The Big Farm. A hundred new friends Merry had not met yet.

Merry took a deep breath, wiped the mud off one hoof (only one - the others were too far gone), and trotted down into the loudest, happiest morning of a little piglet's life.