Sunday, Sep 5, 2021 • 15min
The Pig Seed
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How do we know what we know? That is the question I wanted to explore in this story. In it we follow a tortoise named Lionel, who is challenged by another tortoise to consider how well he understands the world around him, and how he's gained the knowledge he claims to have. I hope this one sparks your own thinking on this topic. ENJOY!
If you love this story, please share it with all sweatshirt-wearing tortoises, all book club members who actually read the books, all pigs who claim to have sprouted from plants, and all of your friends! They might just need a good story these days. Big People: if you happen to have an Apple device, leave a review in Apple Podcasts!
If your tiny person wants to share a story they've written, please send photos or recordings of it to rhea@littlestoriestinypeople.com. I'd LOVE to see their artwork, stories, and anything else they'd like to share.
BIG THANKS to the listeners who provided sound effects used in the story: WYLEE, DELLA, SCOUT, and WHITNEY!
Thank you to ROBERT and OLIVIA for helping me with the reminder message at the beginning of this episode!
Visit my website, www.littlestoriestinypeople.com (lovingly designed by my in-house tech director), to see book recommendations, Little Hedgehog tees, my picture book, and more!
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Rhea Pechter
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Rhea Pechter
00:09
This is Rhea, welcome to "Little Stories for Tiny People".
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00:14
So I've had something on my mind lately, and it led to the story I'm going to share with you today. Here's what I've been thinking about: "How do we know what we know?"
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00:28
It sounds simple, right, but I'm not so sure that it is. This story is a little exploration of that question. Let's get to it. It's called, "The Pig Seed". Take it away, Robert and Olivia.
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00:49
Remember there are no pictures. You have to imagine the pictures. And your mind, they can imagine the pictures however you want. Okay, here we go.
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Rhea Pechter
01:03
Lionel, a tortoise of 46 years in good health and good spirits, was ambling through the grass on the way to his monthly book club. On the same path he always took to get to his book club, when he came upon another tortoise.
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01:32
She was right in the middle of the path, blocking it completely. As he moved closer, he saw she was digging in the soil with a spade and she was humming.
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01:47
Lionel muttered. The tortoise didn't seem to hear him above her humming. "Um, excuse me!", he said. She didn't respond.
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02:01
Finally, he held out a foot and gently tapped her shell. "Oh!", the tortoise turned to see him.
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02:12
"Hi!", Lionel said, peering over the small divot the tortoise was creating in the earth. "Hello?", said the tortoise.
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02:22
"Um, I was just wondering if I could move past you on the path."
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02:27
"Alright." The tortoise moved to the side to allow Lionel to pass. He glanced down where she had been digging.
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02:35
"What are you planting?", Lionel asked, surprising himself a bit, since he'd actually read the book this month and he did need to get going to be on time for his book club. But there was something about this tortoise with her digging and her weird humming that made him curious about her.
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02:56
"I'm planting a seed", she said. The tortoise produced a seed from her backpack. She held the seed on her outstretched foot, high above the hole. It would have made more sense to just bend down and place the seed in the soil.
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03:15
To Lionel, it seemed wholly unnecessary to drop the seed from such a great height. But that's what she did and the seed dropped from her foot and fell precisely into the space she had cleared in the soil. Now, Lionel was even more curious, "What type of seed is it?", he asked, squinting at the seed.
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03:39
He didn't know why he was squinting at it because even if he got a good look at it, he didn't know what any seeds looked like. And by asking, it kind of made it seem like he knew something about seeds, but he didn't really know anything about seeds.
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03:56
"It's a pig seed", the tortoise said, patting soil on top of the seed with a foot.
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04:03
"Oh, I love figs.", Lionel said, relieved, it was a common seed, one he could comment on, as silly as that was.
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04:14
"I'm Lionel by the way."
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04:16
"Nice to meet you, Lionel", the tortoise did not offer her own name.
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04:23
"It's not a fig seed", the tortoise said. From her backpack, she produced a water bottle. She opened the bottle and again held out her foot at a great height, so that when she tipped the bottle the water poured down like a waterfall over a cliff.
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04:43
"It's a pig seed." Lionel did not have eyebrows to furrow, so he simply narrowed his eyes.
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04:52
"I've never heard of a pig seed before", he said, moving closer to get a look. "Does it grow a type of fern?"
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05:01
The tortoise sighed heavily. "It doesn't grow a fern. It grows pigs", the tortoise said, and shook her head like it was amazing, this had to be said out loud.
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05:19
Lionel laughed, but he noticed the tortoise wasn't laughing, "But you're not serious. You can't grow pig from a seed." The tortoise began putting away her things into her backpack.
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05:38
"I'm always serious", she said. She did seem serious. Lionel guess, that she'd never laughed in her life: "Must be terrible not to laugh. Life must be dull." Perhaps, he thought she's one of those animals that only occasionally says, "That's funny!" in place of laughter. But it's something truly funny to you if you don't laugh.
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06:04
By the time Lionel had allowed these thoughts to run through his mind, the tortoise was all packed up.
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06:13
"You can't grow a pig from a seed", Lionel said again. The tortoise looked him straight in the eye, "How do you know?"
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06:23
Lionel blinked, "Well, everyone knows."
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06:30
"Have you even seen a pig before?", the tortoise swung her backpack on top of her shell. Lionel thought for a moment, "I've seen a pig in a book." The tortoise laughed.
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06:48
"So she did laugh.", Lionel thought. She was laughing at him. Lionel was momentarily dazed, realizing his guess about her never laughing, which he had fully trusted a moment ago, had been proved incorrect so quickly and completely.
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07:08
"So you've never seen a pig with your own eyes?", the tortoise said, cocking her head to the side.
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07:16
"Well, no."
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07:19
"So you've never seen a pig?", the tortoise said, brushing some dirt off the front of the sweat shirt she was wearing, "but you are 100% certain that no pig in the history of the world has ever sprouted from a seed."
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07:40
"Interesting. Very interesting.", Lionel frowned. This was the strangest interaction he'd ever had. It gave him a peculiar feeling. Lionel knew what pigs didn't swell from seeds. He was 100% sure, but he didn't have any idea how to explain why he was so sure.
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08:11
The tortoise left. Actually she skipped away. Lionel stood there dumbstruck.
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08:21
Finally, after a few minutes of imagining pigs leaping out of a plant, he started back in the path, now late for his book club.
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08:35
A month later, Lionel was again on the way to his book club. He was alarmed to see the same tortoise in the very same spot, blocking his way.
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08:48
Their last conversation had been so odd that Lionel was not sure he wanted to have another one. He hid behind a tree and poked his head out to see what she was up to.
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09:03
The seed had grown. It was now a flowering plant. Lionel didn't recognize bees buzzed all around it. The tortoise had her watering can, and again she was holding it very high off the ground so the stream of water fell from a great height.
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09:28
Lionel seeing that the plant was not sprouting pigs couldn't help himself. He ambled out from the tree and over to the tortoise.
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09:40
"Hello?"
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09:42
"Hi."
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09:43
"I don't know if you remember me but I remember you, Lionel."
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09:47
"Oh, well. Um", Lionel said, trying not to smile. He swatted away one of the many bees. "I see it's not growing pigs."
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09:57
"No.", the tortoise said.
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09:60
"So it wasn't a pig seed.", Lionel said again, trying not to smile.
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10:06
"No, it wasn't." The tortoise seemed entirely unconcerned. She pulled out a small pair of clippers and snapped a browning leaf. Lionel watched her, wondering why she didn't seem to feel embarrassed about her error. She shrugged and said, "Turns out it was a bee seed."
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10:29
Lionel's eyes got big, the other tortoise went on, "The bees seem very healthy too. Just look at them go. They buzz really well."
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10:40
Lionel just stared. He considered what to say. He started to talk a few times but stopped short, "But that doesn't really make any- if the bees-"
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10:54
While Lionel was trapped in a mess of his own thoughts, the tortoise again packed up her things and left.
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11:02
"Bye." Lionel stare to the bees for a few moments longer. He watched as they flew around the plant landing here and there.
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11:12
Then he headed off in the direction of his book club. On his way, he passed by trees, big trees, medium trees and tiny sapling trees. He was comforted by the fact that, he knew the big trees had once been saplings. He had seen them grow with his own eyes. Each month after that, Lionel passed by what he came to think of as the bee plant. Now and then he saw the tortoise there fussing with the plant worrying over it.
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11:52
Didn't have any more conversations. They just said "Hello" as he passed.
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11:58
"Hello."
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11:59
"Hello, Lionel."
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12:01
Lionel was sure the seed had not grown, the bees that were buzzing around the plant. He was certain seeds could not grow bees or pigs or any other animals.
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12:16
As Lionel walked, he thought of the many things he knew for sure. He knew the sun was an enormous star and it gave light and warmth to the whole earth.
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12:29
He knew that winter often brought snow and spring often brought rain. And he knew that the moon was made of a most delicious cheese. He planned to someday find the ladder that would take him there so he could taste it himself.
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12:50
Lionel comforted himself with the knowledge that he understood the world around him so very well.
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13:08
I loved adding the little twist at the end of this story and I hope you enjoyed it too. I also hope this story sparks your own thinking about how we learn about the world all around us, and what each of us might be getting wrong. I know I get things wrong, I think we all do sometimes.
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13:30
"Little Stories for Tiny People" is written, performed and produced by me, Rhea Pechter. Peter K runs my website and puts my stories on the internet for all of you to enjoy. On my website, littlestoriestinypeople. com, you can find links to merch like fun T-shirts, my book, "Little Fox Can't Wait to Dream", and you can sign up for my email list so you can hear about any big news that comes along.
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14:04
Big thanks to Robert and Olivia for the intro message. And thank you to Wiley, Della, Scout and Whitney for the awesome sound effects used in this story.
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14:22
And thank you as always for listening in.
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