"A CLEANER IF NOT A BETTER BOY."
"Oh, ma, don't sthpank me, I thought they wath wild pigth, and I put 'em here tho they'd be thafe, but I thed I'd take 'em back."
After much squealing and kicking the five pigs were caught and carried to the field by Hannah, Chinky, Nora, Dora and Johnnie. Stubbins was needed in the kitchen where he was given what you might call a double spanking; one for taking the pigs, the second for scaring his mother.
The spanking finished, Stubbins was asked to tell about his meeting with Welcome Hodgkins. The child repeated every word. Mrs. Mulvaney listened quietly until her young son confessed that he said his mother was used to dirt. Then she spanked him until the dishes rattled in the cupboard. After that Mrs. Mulvaney put different clothes on Stubbins, scrubbed his hands and face until the skin was raw, brushed his hair so hard his head swam, and sent him a cleaner if not a better boy, to call on Welcome Hodgkins.
"You can't be folks unless you keep looking decent," declared Mrs. Mulvaney, "and don't you ever let me know of your telling the neighbours that your mother's used to dirt, or I may put you in the boiler and boil you clean next time."
That is the way Mr. Hodgkins was led to believe that Mrs. Mulvaney was an uncommonly neat woman, the day he and Stubbins became friends.
CHAPTER VIII
STUBBINS AND CHINKY LEARN THEIR NAMES
Little by little Mrs. Mulvaney remembered her old country home. Little by little the springtime breezes, sweet and fresh, smoothed the wrinkles from her brow, and softened her voice.
"Thay, ma," declared Stubbins one Sunday morning, when the birds were singing from every swaying branch, and the green world seemed bursting with joy, "Thay, do you know I think you're motht ath pretty ath Mitheth Brown, and Mr. Hodgkinth he thay—"