There was a scurrying across the cobbler's yard, but the Kenway girls and their new friend did not hear this. Instead, they were startled by a sudden rattling of hoofs in a big drygoods box that stood inside the poultry pen.
"What's that?" demanded Neale O'Neil.
"It's—it's Billy Bumps!" shrieked Agnes.
Out of the box dashed the goat. The opening fronted the boundary fence, beneath which the pig was stuck. Perhaps Billy Bumps took the rapidly curling and uncurling tail of the pig for a challenging banner. However that might be, he lowered his head and catapulted himself across the yard as true as a bullet for the target.
Slam! the goat landed just where it seemed to do the most good, for the remainder of the pig shot through the aperture in the board fence on the instant. One more affrighted squeal the pig uttered, and then:
"Begorra! 'Tis ivry last brith in me body ye've knocked out," came from the other side of the fence.
"Oh, Agnes!" gasped Ruth, as the sisters clung together, weak from laughter. "That pig can't be French after all; for that's as broad an Irish brogue as ever I heard!"