A travelling salesman of agricultural machinery was on a three week tour through the hinterlands of southern Arkansas and was visiting one particular farmer.

A travelling salesman of agricultural machinery was on a three week tour through the hinterlands of southern Arkansas and was visiting one particular farmer. He was standing, alongside of the farmer, leaning on the corral rail - as he always did before pitching the new line of tractors - and looking at all of the farm animals in the barnyard. Seeing one particular pig, he said: Say, that sure is a fine hog, but, you know, I have never seen a pig with one wooden leg before. The farmer said: You see, that there pig is one valuable animal, I can tell you. That there hog saved my life three times. The first time was about a month ago. My wife fried potatoes for supper, just the way I like them, and left the frying pan on the stove. About midnight or so, the pig must have smelled the smoke, but be broke out of his pen, butted the house door open with his snout, woke us up and we got out of the house just in time. And it wasn't but two weeks later and I was mowing on the back forty and I tipped the tractor over and it pinned me under the rear wheel. Gas was leaking out of the tank onto the hot manifold and that pig must have heard me yelling, because he broke out again, ran up to me, saw what had happened, ran to the neighbour, got help and the neighbour came with his tractor and pulled me free. And just last week, I was leading the old dairy bull out to pasture, and he raised up and pulled the ring out of his nose and, quick as two shakes of a dog's tail, he knocked me down. He jumped on me and straddled me with his horns and was about to gore me, when the old pig heard what was going on, broke out again, ran up, got a firm hold on the old bull's tail and I got away. Having heard the explanation, the salesman said: All well and good, but that doesn't explain why that hog has got a wooden leg. The farmer replied: Well, in a way, it does. A pig that is that valuable is way too valuable to eat all at one time.