Text Leveling System

Babe The Gallant Pig

RDQ:	1763	Max Word/Sent	85	Total Words	2425		Diff Words	783
Lex	860	Ave Word/.Sent	11	Hi Freq occurs	1750	72.2%	Hi freq	344	43.9%
AR	4.7	Long Sentences	15.9	Low Freq occurs	146	6%	Low freq	112	14.3%

"Guess my weight"
"What's that noise?" said Mrs. Hogget sticking her 
comfortable round red face out of the kitchen 
window. "Listen there 'tis again did you hear it what a 
racket what a row anybody'd think someone was 
being murdered oh dearie me whatever is it just 
listen to it will you?"
Farmer Hogget listened. From the usually quiet 
valley below the farm came a medley of sounds: the
oompah oompah of a brass band the shouts of 
children the rattle and thump of a skittle alley and 
every now and then a very high very loud very 
angry-sounding squealing lasting about ten seconds.
Farmer Hogget pulled out an old pocket watch as 
big around as a saucer and looked at it. "Fair starts at 
two, he said. "It's started."]]
"I knows that" said Mrs. Hogget "because I'm
late now with all these cakes and jams and pickles and
preserves as is meant to be on the Produce Stall this
very minute and who's going to take them there I'd 
like to know why you are but afore you does
what's that noise?"]] 
The squealing sounded again.
"That noise?"
Mrs. Hogget nodded a great many times. 
Everything that she did was done at great length whether it 
was speaking or simply nodding her head. Farmer 
Hogget on the other hand never wasted his energies 
or his words.
"Pig" he said.
Mrs. Hogget nodded a lot more.
"I thought 'twas a pig I said to meself that's a pig 
that is only nobody round here do keep pigs 'tis all 
sheep for miles about what's a pig doing I said to 
meself anybody'd think they was killing the poor 
thing have a look when you take all this stuff down 
which you better do now come and give us a hand it 
can go in the back of the Land Rover 'tisn't raining 
'twon't hurt wipe your boots afore you comes in."
"Yes" said Farmer Hogget.
When he had driven down to the village and made his 
delivery to the Produce Stall Farmer Hogget walked 
across the green past the fortune tellers the games of 
chance the ferris wheel and the band to the source of 
the squealing noise which came every now and again 
from a small pen in a far corner against the 
churchyard wall.]] 
By the pen sat the Vicar notebook in hand a 
cardboard box on the table in front of him. On the 
pen hung a notice-'Guess my weight. Ten pence a 
shot.' Inside was a little pig.
As Farmer Hogget watched a man leaned over and 
picked it out of the pen. He hefted it in both hands 
frowning and pursing his lips in a considering way 
while all the time the piglet struggled madly and 
yelled blue murder. The moment it was put down it 
stopped. Its eyes bright intelligent eyes met the 
farmer's. They regarded one another.
One saw a tall thin brown-faced man with very 
long legs and the other saw a small fat pinky-white 
animal with very short ones.
"Ah come along Mr. Hogget!" said the Vicar. 
"You never know he could be yours for ten pence. 
Guess his weight correctly and at the end of the day 
you could be taking him home!"
"Don't keep pigs" said Farmer Hogget. He 
stretched out a long arm and scratched its back. 
Gently he picked it up and held it before his face. It 
stayed quite still and made no sounds.
"That's funny" said the Vicar. "Every time so far 
that someone has picked him up he's screamed his 
head off. He seems to like you. You'll have to take a 
guess.]] 
Carefully Farmer Hogget put the piglet back in the 
pen. Carefully he took a ten-pence piece from his 
pocket and dropped it in the cardboard box. 
Carefully he ran one finger down the list of guesses 
already in the Vicar's notebook.
"Quite a variation" said the Vicar. "Anything 
from twenty pounds to forty so far." He wrote 
down "Mr. Hogget" and waited pencil poised.
Once again slowly thoughtfully the farmer 
picked the piglet up.
Once again it remained still and silent.
"Thirty-one pounds" said Farmer Hogget. He put 
the little pig down again. "And a quarter" he said.
"Thirty-one and a quarter pounds. Thank you Mr. 
Hogget. We shall be weighing the little chap at about 
half past four."
"Be gone by then."
"Ah well we can always telephone you.. If you 
should be lucky enough to win him."
"Never win nothing."]] 
As he walked back across the green the sound of 
the pig's yelling rang out as someone else took a 
guess.
"You never do win nothing" said Mrs. Hogget over 
tea when her husband in a very few words had 
explained matters. "Though I've often thought I'd 
like a pig we could feed 'un on scraps he'd come just 
right for Christmas time just think two nice hams]] 
two sides of bacon pork chops kidneys liver 
chitterlings trotters save his blood for black 
pudding there's the phone."
Farmer Hogget picked it up.
"Oh" he said.]] 
"There. Is that nice?"
In the farmyard Fly the black-and-white collie was 
beginning to train her four puppies. For some time 
now they had shown an instinctive interest in 
anything that moved driving it away or bringing it back 
turning it to left or right in fact herding it. They had 
begun with such things as passing beetles but were 
now ready Fly considered for larger creatures.
She set them to work on Mrs. Hogget's ducks.
Already the puppies were beginning to move as 
sheepdogs do seeming to creep rather than walk 
heads held low ears pricked eyes fixed on the angrily 
quacking birds as they maneuvered them about the 
yard.
"Good boys" said Fly. "Leave them now. Here 
comes the boss."
The ducks went grumbling off to the pond and the 
five dogs watched as Farmer Hogget got out of the]] 
Land Rover. He lifted something out of a crate in the 
back and carried it into the stables.
"What was that Mum?" said one of the puppies.
"That was a pig."
"What will the boss do with it?"
"Eat it." said Fly. "When it's big enough."
"Will he eat us" said another rather nervously 
"when we're big enough?"
"Bless you" said his mother. "People only eat 
stupid animals. Like sheep and cows and ducks and 
chickens. They don't eat clever ones like dogs."
"So pigs are stupid?" said the puppies.]]
Fly hesitated. On the one hand, having been born and brought up in sheep country, she had in fact never been personally acquainted with a pig. On the other, like most mothers, she did not wish to appear ignorant before her children.
"Yes," she said. "They're stupid."
At this point there came from the kitchen window a long burst of words like the rattle of a machine gun, answered by a single shot from the stables, and Farmer Hogget emerged and crossed the yard toward the farmhouse with his loping stride.
"Come on," said the collie bitch. "I'll show you." The floor of the stables had not rung to a horse's hoof for many years, but it was a useful place for storing things. The hens foraged about there, and sometimes laid their eggs in the old wooden mangers; the swallows built their nests against its roof beams with mud from the duck pond; and rats and mice lived happy lives in its shelter until the farm cats cut them short. At one end of the stables were two loose boxes with boarded sides topped by iron rails. One served as a kennel for Fly and her puppies. The other sometimes housed sick sheep. In there Farmer Hog get had put the piglet.
A convenient stack of straw bales allowed the dogs to look down into the box through the bars.
"It certainly looks stupid," said one of the puppies, yawning. At the sound of the words the piglet glanced up quickly. He put his head to one side and regarded the dogs with sharp eyes. Something about the sight of this very small animal standing all by itself in the middle of the roomy loose box touched lily's soft heart. Already she was sorry that she had said that pigs were stupid, for this one certainly did not appear to be so. Also there was something dignified about the way it stood its ground, in a strange place, confronted with strange animals. How
different from the silly sheep, who at the mere sight of a dog would run aimlessly about, crying "Wolf! Wolf!" in their empty-headed way.
"Hullo," she said. "Who are you?" "I'm a Large White," said the piglet.
"Blimey!" said one of the puppies. "If that's a large white, what's a small one like?" And they all four sniggered.
"Be quiet!" snapped Fly. "Just remember that five minutes ago you didn't even know what a pig was." And to the piglet she said kindly, "I expect that's your breed, dear. I meant, what's your name?"
"I don't know," said the piglet.
"Well, what did your mother call you, to tell you apart from your brothers and sisters?" said Fly and then wished she hadn't, for at the mention of his family the piglet began to look distinctly unhappy. His little forehead wrinkled and he gulped and his voice trembled as he answered.
"She called us all the same." "And what was that, dear?"
"Babe," said the piglet, and the puppies began to giggle until their mother silenced them with a growl. "But that's a lovely name," she said. "Would you like us to call you that? It'll make you feel more at home. "
"There. Is that nice? "
At this last word the little pig's face fell even further.
"I want my mum," he said very quietly.
At that instant the collie bitch made up her mind that she would foster this unhappy child.
"Go out into the yard and play," she said to the puppies, and she climbed to the top of the straw stack and jumped over the rail and down into the loose box beside the piglet.
"Listen, Babe," she said. "You've got to be a brave boy. Everyone has to leave their mother, it's all part of growing up. I did it, when I was your age, and my puppies will have to leave me quite soon. But I'll look after you. If you like." Then she licked his little snout with a warm rough tongue, her plumed tail wagging. "There. Is that nice?" she said.
A little while later, Farmer Hogget came into the stables with his wife, to show her his prize. They looked over the loose box door and saw, to their astonishment, Fly curled around the piglet. Exhausted by the drama of the day, Babe lay fast asleep against his newfound foster parent.
"Well, will you look at that!" said Mrs. Hogget. "That old Fly, she'll mother anything, kittens, ducklings, baby chicks, she's looked after all of them, now
'tis a pig, in't he lovely, what a picture, good thing he don't know where he'll finish up, but he'll be big then, and we'll be glad to see the back of him, or the hams of him, I should say, shan't we, wonder how I shall get it all in the freezer?"
"Pity. Really," said Farmer Hogget absently.
Mrs. Hogget went back to her kitchen, shaking her' head all the way across the yard at the thought of her  husband's softheartedness.
The farmer opened the loose box door, and to save the effort of a word, clicked his fingers to call the bitch out.
As soon as Fly moved the piglet woke and followed her sticking so close to her that his snout touched her wil tip. Surprise forced Farmer Hogget into speech.
"Fly!" he said in amazement. Obediently, as always, the collie bitch turned and trotted back to him. The pig trotted behind her.
"Sit!" said Farmer Hogget. Fly sat. Babe sat. Farmer Hogget scratched his head. He could not think of anything to say.
CHAPTER
"Why can't I learn?"
By dark it was plain to Farmer Hogget that, whether he liked it or not, Fly had not four, but five children. All the long summer evening Babe had followed Fly about the yard and buildings, aimlessly, it seemed to the watching farmer, though of course this was not the case. It was in fact a conducted tour. Fly knew that if this foster child was to be allowed his freedom and the constant reassurance of her company for which he obviously craved, he must quickly learn (and clearly he was a quick learner) his way about the place; and that he must be taught, as her puppies had been taught, how to behave like a good dog.
"A pig you may be, Babe," she had begun by saying, "but if you do as I tell you, I shouldn't be a bit surprised if the boss doesn't let you run about with us, instead of shutting you up. He's a kind man, the boss is."
"Why can't I learn?"
"I knew that," said Babe, "when he first picked me up. I could feel it. I knew he wouldn't hurt me." "You wait. . ." began one of the puppies, and then stopped suddenly at his mother's warning growl. Though she said nothing, all four of her children knew immediately by instinct what she meant. "Wait for what?" said Babe.
"Er . . . you wait half a sec, and we'll take you round and show you everything," said the same puppy hastily. "Won't we, Mum?"
So Babe was shown all around the yard and the farm buildings, and introduced to the creatures who lived thereabouts, the ducks and chickens and other poultry, and the farm cats. He saw no sheep, for they were all in the fields.
Even in the first hour he learned a number of useful lessons, as the puppies had learned before him: that cats scratch and hens peck, that turning your back on the turkey cock means getting your bottom bitten, that chicks are not for chasing and eggs are not for eating.
"You do as I do," said Fly, "and you'll be all right." She thought for a moment. "There is one thing though, Babe," she said, and she looked across at the back door of the farmhouse, "if I go in there, you stay

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Little support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Dialog: Unlabeled Speaker

Vocabulary: Some difficult words

Language: Many descriptive words

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Story/Poem

Inferences: Several Implications

Complexity: Several unrelated ideas

Concept: Fanciful

Chapters

Mature concepts: With common experiences or clear fantasy

Features

Character traits

Character development

Integral Setting

Simple problem/solution

Dialect/Accents

Topic

Dogs

Learning

Kindness

*Animals

Animals: Farm

*Feelings, Behaviors

Low Frequency Words

absently	acquainted	afore	aimlessly	amazement
angrily	anybody'd	astonishment	bales	bitch
blimey	boarded	chap	chasing	chitterlings
conducted	confronted	constant	convenient	curled
dearie	dignified	distinctly	emerged	energies
exhausted	ferris	foraged	fortune	foster
freedom	further	grumbling	gulped	hastily
hefted	herding	hesitated	hogget	hogget's
housed	hullo	ignorant	immediately	in't
instant	instinct	instinctive	intelligent	introduced
kennel	kindly	learner	liver	loping
madly	maneuvered	mangers	medley	mention
mere	meself	murder	murdered	nervously
newfound	obediently	oompah	pence	personally
piglet	plumed	poised	poultry	preserves
pricked	produce	pursing	racket	reassurance
regarded	rough	rover	rung	saucer
seeming	shan't	shown	shutting	silenced
skittle	sniggered	softheartedness	sounding	source
speech	squealing	stables	stall	stride
swallows	thereabouts	thoughtfully	tisn't	tour
twas	twon't	variation	vicar	vicar's
weighing	wrinkled	yawning