What they saw was not an alarming cause for bankrupting their investments, but a ludicrous game that the fat mammy seemed to be playing with three little pigs.
Because Rachel was fat, she could not jump and turn as lithely as the lean little pigs. And having three tantalizing fugitives to chase and try to catch kept her on the “hop, skip and jump” exercise in a manner that would have made the girl scouts of Solomon’s Seal Camp green with envy.
She would all but catch one of the porkers when it would slip from under her out-spread, down-swooping hands. Inevitably such a dodge would precipitate Rachel upon her hands and knees. And the piggy would stand at a different point of the compass and look calmly at the breathless pursuer.
Multiply one wriggly, slippery, tricky little pig by three, and you will see that Rachel had no small contract that had to be attended to. Her shouts and the names she called the callous animals made the audience in the stair-windows shake with amusement. But they smothered their laughter so she wouldn’t hear them and so find out that she was being watched.
Now and then one of the pigs would break away through the hedge at the rear of the grass-place which was set apart for drying the clothes. Again one of them would keep its head turned in order to watch its pursuer, and thus come unexpectedly up against the side of the house, or bump into the clothes-poles. At such times a piercing squeal, not of pain but of sheer surprise, would make the cold chills creep up the girls’ backs.
When Rachel was tripped up by one of the wily fellows and suddenly made to sit plump upon the ground, her audience could no longer keep silence. A roar of laughter rang out from young throats, and the breathless, perspiring cook lifted eyes which expressed such heartfelt rebuke, that Janet jumped from the window-seat and started down the stairs, calling to the girls to follow her.
“Come on, girls, we’ve all got to help Rachel catch those little rascals,” said she.
When Mrs. James and the five girls joined Rachel on the grass in the rear of the house, there began such jumping and running, such calling and laughing, as never was heard in Westchester County since the days of the Revolution.
The three pigs acted obsessed. They led their pursuers back and forth, in and out of hedges, under clothes-lines, and what-not. They would pretend to lag, and just as the shouting victor swooped to catch him, the pig would double back upon his tracks and leave his chagrined pursuer flat in the grass. Finally the pigs seemed to become blase over this tame sport, so they all three put their heads together momentarily as if for a conference.
Rachel considered this the moment she had been waiting for, so she tip-toed over, silently beckoning the girls to surround the pigs.