Ginger heard the piglet before she saw him.

She was walking along a narrow dirt road where the weeds grew tall along the fences and grasshoppers sprang out of her way when she heard a sound from somewhere nearby Oink.

Ginger stopped. She looked toward the field on her left. Nothing. She took three more steps. Oink! Oink! This time it sounded much more urgent.

Ginger pushed through the tall grass beside the road and found a small pink piglet standing in a shallow ditch. He was muddy from his nose to the tip of his curly tail. One ear stood up. The other flopped down. And he looked very unhappy.

“Well,” Ginger said, crouching beside him. “You certainly don't belong here.” The piglet stared at her. Oink.

“I agree,” Ginger said. Ginger looked around for a mother pig, a farmer, or even a hole in one of the nearby fences. There was no one.

The piglet climbed out of the ditch and walked straight toward her. Then he sat on her shoe.

Ginger looked down. “You know, most animals run away from strangers.” The piglet sniffed her shoelace. Then he began chewing it.

“Apparently, you are not most animals.” Ginger gently pulled the shoelace from his mouth.

She decided to walk along the fence and see if she could find where he had come from. The piglet followed. At first, Ginger thought this was very helpful. Then she discovered that piglets did not walk in straight lines.

He stopped to investigate a rock. He chased a grasshopper. He stuck his nose into a clump of weeds. He tried to eat a yellow flower. He walked between Ginger's feet and nearly made her fall over.

“You are not very good at being rescued,” Ginger told him. The piglet wagged his curly tail.

A little farther along, the piglet suddenly stopped. Ginger stopped too.

“What is it?” His ears twitched. He lifted his muddy nose into the air. Then he hurried toward the tall grass. “Wait!”

Ginger followed and found him enthusiastically digging beneath a patch of weeds. Dirt flew behind him in every direction. Some of it landed on Ginger's shoes. Some landed on her legs. And one particularly large clump landed right in the middle of her shirt.

Ginger looked at herself. The piglet looked at her. For a moment, neither moved. Then Ginger laughed. “I suppose I can't blame you,” she said. “You were muddy when we met.” The piglet gave a satisfied little grunt.

Ginger decided he needed a name, at least until she found where he belonged. She studied him carefully. “Pinky?” The piglet ignored her. “Curly?” Nothing. “Mud?”

The piglet looked up. Ginger smiled. “Mud it is.”

So Ginger and Mud continued down the road together. But after a while, Ginger began to worry. The road stretched farther ahead, and there were several fields and farms nearby. Mud was much too little to have traveled very far by himself. “What if we're going the wrong way?” she wondered aloud. Mud sat down. Ginger sat beside him. For once, the piglet was quiet. She scratched gently behind his floppy ear. “Someone must be looking for you.” Mud leaned against her leg.

Ginger knew what it felt like to be somewhere and not quite know where you belonged. Sometimes being lost wasn't about being very far from home. Sometimes it was simply about not knowing which direction home was.

She looked back toward the ditch where she had first found him. Maybe, she thought, she had been looking too far ahead.

So Ginger walked slowly back along the road. This time she wasn't looking for a gate or a farmhouse. She was looking at the ground. And before long, she noticed something. A tiny muddy hoofprint. Then another. And another.

“There you are,” Ginger whispered. The prints were faint in places, almost hidden beneath the dust. Ginger followed them. Mud followed Ginger. Every few yards she found another little print. They led away from the road and across a patch of dry ground toward an old wooden fence.

Ginger heard something before they reached it. A low grunt. Then another. Mud heard it too. He froze. Behind the fence was a pasture. And in the pasture was the largest pig Ginger had ever seen.

The mother pig stood at the far end of the enclosure surrounded by several piglets. She lifted her head. Mud stared at her. Then he squealed. Not an ordinary little oink. A tremendous, excited, whole-body squeal.

The mother pig answered. Mud raced toward the fence. “There you are,” Ginger said. She found a place beneath the fence where the dirt had been pushed away. Mud must have wriggled underneath it. Getting out had apparently been much easier than getting back in.

Ginger knelt and began scooping loose dirt away with her hands until the opening was just big enough. “There,” she said. “Try that.” Mud put his nose under the fence. Then his head. Then his shoulders. Then he stopped. His little back legs kicked furiously.

“You're stuck.” Ginger gently pushed. Mud wriggled. Ginger pushed again. Pop! Through he went. He tumbled into the pasture, scrambled to his feet, and raced toward his mother. She greeted him with a deep, rumbling grunt and nudged him firmly with her nose. Ginger couldn't decide whether it was a kiss or a scolding. Perhaps it was both.

Mud disappeared into the little crowd of pink bodies. For a moment, Ginger couldn't tell which one was hers. Then one small piglet turned around. One ear stood up. The other flopped down. He looked directly at Ginger.

Oink! Ginger smiled. “I suppose your real name probably isn't Mud.” Mud, or whatever his name really was, wiggled his curly tail. “But I'm still calling you that.”

Ginger started back toward the road. A few steps later, she looked down at her muddy hands, her muddy knees, her muddy shirt, and one very muddy shoe.

Rescuing a piglet, she decided, was messy and noy that easy. But she didn't mind.

As Ginger walked home, she thought about the little hoofprints she had followed. They had been so small that someone hurrying past might never have noticed them. But Ginger had learned long ago that small things could tell you a great deal if you paid attention.

A feather could tell you a bird had passed by. A broken twig could tell you something had crossed a trail. A trail of ants could lead you to something sweet. And a line of tiny muddy hoofprints could lead a lost piglet home.

Sometimes, Ginger thought, finding the answer wasn't about looking farther away. Sometimes you had to go back to where you started and notice what you had missed the first time.

Behind her, from somewhere beyond the fence, came one last sound. Oink! Ginger turned and waved. “Stay home, Mud!”

Then she continued down the road, wondering what she might find next.