Welcome back, little one. Pull your blanket up tight, because our straw-house pig is running as fast as his little trotters will carry him — straight toward his brother's front door.
Bang, bang, bang! "Brother! Brother, let me in! The wolf blew my whole house down!"
The middle pig — the one who was always a little bit hasty, always in a hurry to finish things quickly — flung open his door. His house was built of sticks, tied together every which way with bits of string. It had taken him only one afternoon to build, and he was very proud of how fast he'd worked.
"Come in, come in!" he said, pulling his shaking brother inside. "Nothing can get through a good sturdy stick wall!"
Now, sturdy is a lovely word, little one. It means strong and solid, built to last — the exact opposite of flimsy. But here's the tricky part: just because something looks sturdy doesn't always mean it truly is. The middle pig's sticks were tied on quickly, in a hurry, with plenty of gaps and wobbly spots he hadn't bothered to check.
The two brothers bolted the door, caught their breath, and were just starting to feel safe again when — sniff, sniff, sniff — a large grey nose pressed itself against the window.
The wolf had followed the trail of scared little pig-footprints straight through the woods, and now here he was, licking his lips at not one pig-dinner, but two.
"Little pigs, little pigs," he called, in his silkiest, most polite voice, "let me come in!"
"Not by the hair of our chinny chin chins!" both brothers shouted together, holding each other's trotters tight.
"Then," said the wolf, and you could practically hear him grinning, "I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in!"
He took the hugest breath he had taken all day. His chest puffed up like a balloon. And — WHOOOOOSH! — the sticks groaned, cracked, snapped, and the whole wobbly house came crashing down around the two pigs' ears in a cloud of splinters and dust.
But this time, the two brothers didn't waste a single second feeling sorry for themselves. They scrambled up, grabbed each other's hooves, and ran — through the broken doorway, over the fence, down the winding lane — toward the only house left. The house belonging to their youngest brother. The one who had never once been in a hurry. The one who had taken his time, thought things through, and built with the strongest material he could find.
Behind them, they could hear the wolf's heavy paws thudding closer and closer through the trees, and his low, hungry laugh echoing through the dark.
"Almost there!" panted the eldest pig.
"I hope," puffed the middle pig, "that our little brother built something really, really good."
Sweet dreams, little dreamer. Tomorrow night, two very tired, very scared pigs reach their brother's front door — and we finally discover just how strong a house built with patience can be.