noon
The hogs are eating me up ! They 've bit me and bit me ! '' It was little Ike . Dole and his wife , I learned later , had gone away for the day on a visit , and had left the boy alone to do the chores -- among other things to feed the hogs at noon ; but as Ike had tugged at the heavy trapdoor to raise it , he had slipped and fallen down through the hole . The four gaunt , savage old hogs that were in the pen were hungry and fierce . Even a grown person would have been in danger from the beasts . The pen , too , was knee-deep in soft muck and was as dark as a dungeon .