"What are you making?" asked Mabel.
"I'll tell you by and by, when it's all done," said Belle, severely. "It's not ready for you to understand just yet; but it's going to be a very good lesson for you."
However, she suffered Mabel to look over her paper, and even to copy the figures which grew beneath her busy fingers; Mabel little thinking all the while that she herself was the subject of the pictures. Meantime Mr. Powers and Mrs. Walton, pleased to see the children so quiet, and apparently agreeing so well, talked quietly together.
But this proved too good to last.
"Now they're all done, and I'll tell you about them; and we'll see if they'll improve you," said Belle, when she had completed two pictures. "Do you see these animals?" and she pointed with her pencil to a curious collection of four-legged objects, with every possible variety of tail among them.
"Yes," said Mabel: "what are they? Bugs?"
"No," answered Belle, indignantly: "they are pigs. This is a 'proverb-picture.' Proverbs are meant to do people good, or give them a lesson; but Maggie and Bessie and I think pictures make 'em plainer. This is a proverb that Maggie made up. Here is a man pouring milk into a trough what the pigs eat out of, and this pig,"—directing Mabel's attention to a creature without any legs, those four members which were supposed to belong to him lying scattered in all directions over the picture, while long streaks intended to represent floods of tears poured from his eyes,—"and this pig was so greedy that he ran as fast as he could to the end of the trough where he fought the man was going to pour the milk. But the man fought he'd serve him right, and so he went to the ofer end and poured the milk in there; and when the pig tried to run there, his legs were so tired they all fell off; so he couldn't get any milk, and he cried so much he 'most drowned himself. And the proverb of the picture is, 'The greedy pig don't get much, after all.' When pigs or other people are greedy, their legs gen'ally come off, or other accidents; and if they don't, people think they're very horrid, any way. Do you know who the greedy pig is meant for?"
Mabel had a pretty clear idea, and was not pleased, which was not at all strange; but her curiosity was excited respecting the other picture, and she determined to satisfy it before she made any disturbance.