A Day No Pigs Would Die Chapter 5 Summary

  • The next day is Sunday, and Rob and the family go to church. In the afternoon, Rob takes Pinky for a walk up on the hill above the farm.
  • Since it's springtime, the snow is melting, and there are little rivulets of water here and there. Rob cracks some butternuts for Pinky to eat, and builds a little "flutterwheel" from a few sticks in one of the tiny streams.
  • Pinky gets scared by a crow and a frog; the frog then gets eaten by the crow—poetic justice, eh?Rob remembers a time that his father joked with him about trying to teach a frog to jump backwards. Rob took his father seriously, so he caught a frog and tried to teach it.
  • He didn't have any luck, though. Surprise, surprise.
  • Pinky goes rooting around in the dirt and ends up with a crawdad attached to her nose.
  • Rob pulls the crawdad off and throws it into the pond. Looking toward Mr. Tanner's farm, Rob thinks that it "sure looked prosperous next to ours" (5.23).
  • He sees Apron the cow with her two calves, Bob and Bib. (Bob the calf is named after Rob.)
  • Rob himself is named after Major Robert Rogers, a colonial frontiersman who fought in the French and Indian War.
  • Rob realizes that it's close to chore time, so he and Pinky head home.
  • When he gets there, Mama calls him inside the barn to show him that Miss Sarah, their cat, has had kittens.
  • Miss Sarah is purring, and the babies are all cuddled against her, nursing.
  • Awww. Doesn't get any sweeter than that, folks.