“I won’t,” promised Mabel. “Thank you ever so much for letting us go.”
The long walk over the blossoming prairie was wonderful and the other delighted youngsters thanked Mabel for planning the trip. The children at the cottage proved interesting and sweet and the girls loved them. Tommy remembered Mabel and said: “Please stay wiz us, you is nicer than Lizzie,” which pleased Mabel very much indeed, though of course she didn’t stay. The shy twins soon became friendly and even the baby was smiling and responsive. Mrs. Charles had been making cookies and generously passed them around. Then Maude looked at her watch and said that it was time to start back.
The girls decided to go home by the road that wound along over the prairie and somewhat west of the more direct but pathless route they had taken to the cottage. It was longer but Sallie said that interesting things grew along the edges. Even Sallie, however, was surprised at one thing they discovered. Mabel, who was trudging sturdily along, a little ahead of the others—and of course she had a right to lead the procession since it was her party—suddenly stopped short.
“Mercy!” she gasped. “What’s that!”
“What’s what?” asked Sallie, crowding to the front. “Is it a new flower? Oh! Why, that looks like a little pig!”
“But ’way out here!” cried Maude. “It couldn’t walk so far and there are no farms along here.”
“But the farmers ’way south of here,” returned Sallie, “send them in to the packing houses or down to the trains along this road. Probably this one got spilled out of somebody’s wagon and the driver never missed him.”
“No doubt,” said little Jane Pool, “the other piggies squealed so hard that the poor man never heard the cries of distress from this one.”
“It’s so little and pink and clean,” said Bettie, admiringly.
“But so naked,” objected Marjory. “It really seems as if it ought to be wearing baby clothes—little woolly ones. I’m glad it’s a warm day.”