"I'll go down that way on a kinda scout," I says, and started off. When I got clost to the widda's,--about as far as from here to that hitchin'-post yonder--I seen a crowd of women and kids a-lookin' at somethin' behind the house. I walked up and stretched _my_ neck. And there in that tie-pen was a' even dozen of new little pigs! "Ma'am," I says, "this _is_ good luck!" "Good luck?" repeats the widda. "I reckon it's somethin' more'n just good luck." (Them's _exac'ly_ her words--"Somethin' more'n just good luck.") "Wal," I goes on, "oncet in a while, a feller's got to _ad_mit that somethin' better'n just or-d'nary good luck _does_ git in a whack. Mebbe it'll be the case of a gezaba that ain't acted square; first thing you know, _his_ hash is settled. Next time, it's exac'ly the _other_ way 'round, and some nice lady 'r gent finds theyselves landed not a' inch from where they wanted to be. But neither case cain't be called just good _luck, no,_ ma'am. Fer the reason that the contrary facts is plumb shoved in you' face. "Now, take what happened to Burt Slade. Burt had a lot of potatoes ready to plant--about six sacks of 'em, I reckon. The ground was ready, and the sacks was in the field. Wal, that night, a blamed ornery thief come 'long and stole all them potatoes. (This was in Nebraska, mind y'. Took 'em fifty mile north and planted 'em clost to his house. So far, you might call it just _bad_ luck. _But_--a wind come up, a _turrible_ wind, and blowed all the dirt offen them potatoes; next, it lifted 'em and sent 'em a-kitin' through the windas of that thief's house--yas, ma'am, it took 'em in at the one side, and outen the other, breakin' ev'ry blamed pane of glass; then--I'm another if it ain't so!--it sailed 'em all that fifty mile back to Slade's and druv 'em into the ground that he'd fixed fer 'em. And when they sprouted, a little bit later on that spring, Slade seen _they'd been planted in rows!_ "They ain't no doubt about this story bein' _true_. In the first place, Slade ain't a man that'd lie; in the second place, ev'rybody knows his potatoes was _stole,_ and ev'rybody knows that, just the same, he had a powerful big crop that year; and, then, Slade can show you his field any time you happen to be in that part of Nebraska. And no man wants any better proof'n _that._" "A-_course,_ he don't," says the widda. "And I'd call that potato transaction plumb wonderful." "It shore was." She turned back to the hawgs. "I can almost see these little pigs grow," she says, "and I'm right fond of 'em a'ready. I--I hope nothin' bad'll happen to 'em. I'm a little nervous, though. 'Cause--have you noticed, Mister Lloyd?--_they's just thirteen pigs in that pen._" "Aw, thirteen ain't never hurt nobody in Oklahomaw," I says. And I whistled, and knocked on wood. "Anyhow, I'm happy," she goes on, "I'm better fixed than I been fer a coon's age."