“No; but I don’t believe he has fired a gun these three weeks; he’s been too busy. Why?”
“Because there’s a pig in the pen that came there we don’t know how; all we know is, that we found him there.”
“Why,” said Mrs. Rhines, looking up from her work, “Charlie got a pig.”
Captain Rhines gave his wife a nudge to keep dark, but it was too late. Ben had heard the remark, and insisted upon knowing.
“Well,” said his mother, “I suppose I am telling tales out of school; but Charlie came to our house in the middle of the night, and called John out of bed, and they took off, as though they were possessed, to Jonathan Smullen’s, after a pig.”
“That was well planned, Charlie,” said Joe; “and I’ll forgive you for singeing me so.”
“I should never have thought of setting the brush on fire, Mr. Griffin, if Captain Rhines had not told me to.”
“We are square now, Joe,” said the captain; “your scorching will do to offset the fright you gave me, when I thought I had shot Ben, having put one bullet through the window, and the other into a milk-pan of eggs, on the dresser.”