“Ouf! ouf!” grunted Piggy White, hearing steps, and expecting dinner.
“I’m busy now, Piggy White,” said Boy Blue, looking over the side of the pen. “I’m painting. Oh my! Piggy White, you’d look just beautiful if you only had some blue stripes!”
Piggy White was a young pig, quite clean and pretty; the little Wares made a pet of him. He had a fresh straw bed every night, and Jotham took a deal of care to keep his house tidy. He was so accustomed to visits from the children he only gently grunted in reply to Boy Blue’s remark.
The next thing seen of that small lad he had climbed over and was as busy over Piggy White as he had been on the tool-house. Piggy liked to have his back rubbed, and was very quiet while Boy Blue painted a long stripe down his spine and shorter ones across his sides.
“Piggy White, if you wig your tail so I fink I’ll scold. I want to paint the end of it.”
By this time there was not much paint in the bucket, but there was a great deal on Boy Blue’s hands, on his stockings, on the short trowsers, and on the front of his little blouse.
“H’m!” said Boy Blue, suddenly looking up. “I fink—Jotham—I fink I’ve got frough.”
“The land of liberty!” said Jotham, looking down. “You’re blue, sure enough.”
Then he picked up the little workman and carried him into the house.
When mamma had been out and looked at the tool-house and Piggy White, and had come in and looked at Boy Blue, she said what she had said about five hundred times: