CHAPTER III
THE PIG IS IMPORTANT
"My goodness! what are you doing down there, Aggie?" demanded Ruth. "Andwho's that with you!"
"I--I got up to get a peach, Ruthie," explained Agnes, ratherstammeringly. "And I asked the boy to have one, too."
Ruth, looking out of the bedroom window, expressed her amazement at thisstatement by a long, blank stare at her sister and the white-haired boy.Agnes felt that there was further explanation due from her.
"You see," she said, "he--he just saved my life--perhaps."
"How is that?" gasped Ruth. "Were you going to eat _all_ those peachesby yourself! They might have killed you, that's a fact."
"No, no!" cried Agnes, while the boy's face flushed up darkly again. "Hesaved me from falling out of the tree."
"Out of the tree? _This_ tree!" demanded Ruth. "How did you get intoit?"
"From--from the window."
"Goodness! you never! And with your bathrobe on!" ejaculated Ruth, hereyes opening wider.
As an "explainer," Agnes was deficient. But she tried to start the storyall over again. "Hush!" commanded Ruth, suddenly. "Wait till I comedown. We'll have everybody in the house awake, and it is too early."
She disappeared and the boy looked doubtfully at Agnes. "Is she theoldest sister you spoke of?"
"Yes. That's Ruth."
"She's kind of bossy, isn't she?"
"Oh! but we like to be bossed by Ruthie. She's just like mother was tous," declared Agnes.
"I shouldn't think you'd like it," growled the white-haired boy. "I hateto be bossed--and I won't be, either!"
"You have to mind in school," said Agnes, slowly.
"That's another thing," said the boy. "But I wouldn't let another boyboss me."
In five minutes Ruth was down upon the back porch, too. She was neat andfresh and smiling. When Ruth smiled, dimples came at the corners of hermouth and the laughter jumped right out of her eyes at you in a mostunexpected way. The white-haired boy evidently approved of her, now thathe saw her close to.
"Tell me how it happened!" commanded Ruth of her sister, and Agnes didso. In the telling the boy lost nothing of courage and dexterity, youmay be sure!
"Why, that's quite wonderful!" cried Ruth, smiling again at the boy. "Itwas awfully rash of you, Aggie, but it was providential this--this--Youhaven't told me his name?"
"Why! I don't know it myself," confessed Agnes.
"And after all he did for you!" exclaimed Ruth, in admonition.
"Aw--it wasn't anything," growled the boy, with all the sex's objectionto being thought a hero.
"You must be very strong--a regular athlete," declared Ruth.
"Any other boy could do it."
"No!"
"If he knew how," limited the white-haired boy.
"And how did you learn so much!" asked Ruth, curiously.
Again the red flushed into his pale face. "Practicin'. That's all," hesaid, rather doggedly.
"Won't you tell us who you are?" asked Ruth, feeling that the boy waskeeping up a wall between them.
"Neale O'Neil."
"Do you live in Milton?"
"I do now."
"But I never remember seeing you before," Ruth said, puzzled.
"I only came to stay yesterday," confessed the boy, and once more hegrinned and his eyes were roguish.
"Oh! then your folks have just moved in?"
"I haven't any folks."
"No family at all?"
"No, ma'am," said Neale O'Neil, rather sullenly Ruth thought
"You are not all alone--a boy like you?"
"Why not?" demanded he, tartly. "I'm 'most as old as you are."
"But _I_ am not all alone," said Ruth, pleasantly. "I have the girls--mysisters; and I have Aunt Sarah--and Mr. Howbridge."
"Well, I haven't anybody," confessed Neale O'Neil, rather gloomily.
"You surely have some friends?" asked Ruth, not only curious, butsympathetic.
"Not here. I'm alone, I tell you." Yet he did not speak so ungratefullynow. It was impressed upon his mind that Ruth's questions were friendly."And I am going to school here. I've got some money saved up. I want tofind a boarding place where I can part pay my board, perhaps, by workingaround. I can do lots of things."
"I see. Look after furnaces, and clean up yards, and all that?"
"Yes," said the boy, with heightened interest. "This other one--yoursister--says you have plenty of empty rooms in this big house. Would youtake a boarder?"
"Goodness me! I never thought of such a thing."
"You took in that Mrs. Treble and Double Trouble," whispered Agnes, whorather favored the suit of the white-haired boy.
"They weren't boarders," Ruth breathed.
"No. But you could let him come just as well." To tell the truth, Agneshad always thought that "a boy around the house would be awfullyhandy"--and had often so expressed herself. Dot had agreed with her,while Ruth and Tess held boys in general in much disfavor.
Neale O'Neil had stood aside, not listening, but well aware that thesisters were discussing his suggestion. Finally he flung in: "I ain'tafraid to work. And I'm stronger than I look."
"You _must_ be strong, Neale," agreed Ruth, warmly, "if you did whatAggie says you did. But we have Uncle Rufus, and he does mosteverything, though he's old. I don't just know what to say to you."
At that moment the sound of a sash flung up at the other side of the ellstartled the three young folk. Mrs. MacCall's voice sounded sharply onthe morning air:
"That pig! in that garden again! Shoo! Shoo, you beast! I wish you'd eatyourself to death and then maybe your master would keep you home!"
"Oh, oh, oh!" squealed Agnes. "Con Murphy's pig after our cabbages!"
"That pig again?" echoed Ruth, starting after the flying Agnes.
The latter forgot how lightly she was shod, and before she was half-wayacross the lawn her feet and ankles were saturated with dew.
"You'll get sopping wet, Aggie!" cried Ruth, seeing the bed slippersflopping, half off her sister's feet.
"Can't help it now," stammered Agnes. "Got to get that pig! Oh, Ruth!the hateful thing!"
The cobbler's porker was a freebooter of wide experience. The old CornerHouse yard was not the only forbidden premises he roved in. He alwaysdug a new hole under the fence at night, and appeared early in themorning, roving at will among the late vegetables in Ruth's garden.
He gave a challenging grunt when he heard the girls, raised his head,and his eyes seemed fairly to twinkle as he saw their wild attack. Acabbage leaf hung crosswise in his jaws and he continued to champ uponit reflectively as he watched the enemy.
"Shoo! Shoo!" shouted Agnes.
"That pig is possessed," moaned Ruth. "He's taken the very one I wasgoing to have Uncle Rufus cut for our Saturday's dinner."
Seeing that the charging column numbered but two girls, the pig tossedhis head, uttered a scornful grunt, and started slowly out of thegarden. He was in no hurry. He had grown fat on these raids, and he didnot propose to lose any of the avoirdupois thus gained, by hurrying.
Leisurely he advanced toward the boundary fence. There was the freshearth where he had rooted out of Mr. Con Murphy's yard into this largerand freer range.
Suddenly, to his piggish amazement, another figure--a swiftly flyingfigure--got between him and his way of escape. The pig stopped, snorted,threw up his head--and instantly lost all his calmness of mind.
"Oh, that boy!" gasped Ruth.
Neale O'Neil was in the pig's path, and he bore a stout fence-picket.For the first time in his experience in raiding these particularpremises, his pigship had met with a foe worthy of his attention. Fourgirls, an old lady, and an ancient colored retainer, in giving chaseheretofore, merely lent spice to the pig's buccaneering ventures.
He dashed forward with a sudden grunt, but the slim boy did not dodge.Instead he brought that picket down with emphasis upon the pig's snout.
"Wee! wee! wee!" shrieked the pig, and dashed headlong
down the yard,blind to anything but pain and immediate escape.
"Oh! don't hurt him!" begged Ruth.
But Agnes had caught her sister around the neck and was hanging uponher, weak with laughter. "Did you hear him? Did you hear him?" shegasped. "He's French, and all the time I thought he was Irish. Did youhear how plain he said 'Yes,' with a pure Parisian accent?"
"Oh, Neale!" cried Ruth again. "Don't hurt him!"
"No; but I'll scare him so he won't want to come in here again in ahurry," declared the boy.
"Let the boy alone, Ruth," gasped Agnes. "I have no sympathy for thepig."
The latter must have felt that everybody was against him. He could looknowhere in the enemy's camp for sympathy. He dove several times at thefence, but every old avenue of escape had been closed. And that boy withthe picket was between him and the hole by which he had entered.
Finally he headed for the hen runs. There was a place in the fence ofthe farther yard where Uncle Rufus had been used to putting a trough offeed for the poultry. The empty trough was still there, but when the pigcollided with it, it shot into the middle of the apparently empty yard.The pig followed it, scrouging under the fence, and squealingintermittently.
"There!" exclaimed Neale O'Neil. "Why not keep him in that yard and makehis owner pay to get him home again?"
"Oh! I couldn't ask poor Mr. Murphy for money," said Ruth, giving ananxious glance at the little cottage over the fence. She expected everymoment to hear the cobbler coming to the rescue of his pet.
And the pig did not propose to remain impounded. He dashed to theboundary fence and found an aperture. Through it he caught a glimpse ofhome and safety.
But the hole was not quite deep enough. Head and shoulders went throughall right; but there his pigship stuck.
There was a scurrying across the cobbler's yard, but the Kenway girlsand their new friend did not hear this. Instead, they were startled by asudden rattling of hoofs in a big drygoods box that stood inside thepoultry pen.
"What's that?" demanded Neale O'Neil.
"It's--it's Billy Bumps!" shrieked Agnes.
Out of the box dashed the goat. The opening fronted the boundary fence,beneath which the pig was stuck. Perhaps Billy Bumps took the rapidlycurling and uncurling tail of the pig for a challenging banner. Howeverthat might be, he lowered his head and catapulted himself across theyard as true as a bullet for the target.
Slam! the goat landed just where it seemed to do the most good, for theremainder of the pig shot through the aperture in the board fence on theinstant. One more affrighted squeal the pig uttered, and then:
"Begorra! 'Tis ivry last brith in me body ye've knocked out," came fromthe other side of the fence.
"Oh, Agnes!" gasped Ruth, as the sisters clung together, weak fromlaughter. "That pig can't be French after all; for that's as broad anIrish brogue as ever I heard!"