"You must be strong, Neale," agreed Ruth, warmly, "if you did what Aggie says you did. But we have Uncle Rufus, and he does most everything, 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 ell startled the three young folk. Mrs. MacCall's voice sounded sharply on the morning air:
"That pig! in that garden again! Shoo! Shoo, you beast! I wish you'd eat yourself 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-way across the lawn her feet and ankles were saturated with dew.
"You'll get sopping wet, Aggie!" cried Ruth, seeing the bed slippers flopping, 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 Corner House yard was not the only forbidden premises he roved in. He always dug a new hole under the fence at night, and appeared early in the morning, 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. A cabbage leaf hung crosswise in his jaws and he continued to champ upon it reflectively as he watched the enemy.