"One side of the shield was black and the other white," said she, with a quiet little smile, "so both were right and both were wrong."
The children considered. It was very interesting.
"But," said Max, "it couldn't be like that with Dolly and me—there couldn't be thirteen and not be thirteen."
"No, it is difficult, I own, to see how that could be," said mamma. "But queer things do happen—there are queer answers to puzzles now-and-then."
"I wish it was settled about ours," said Dolly, with a sigh. "I—I don't like quarrelling with dear Maxie," and she suddenly buried her face in her mother's lap and began to cry—not loudly, but you could see she was crying by the way her fat little shoulders quivered and shook.
This was too much for Max.
"Dolly," he said, tugging at her till she was obliged to look up, "don't—I can't bear you to be unhappy because of—because of me—do kiss me, Dolly, and don't let us ever think any more about those stupid little black pigs."
So they kissed each other, and it was "all right."
"But," said Dolly, "I'm so afraid it'll begin again when we see them. Could papa ask Farmer Wilder to put them somewhere else, mamma? We can't leave off looking out of our windows, can we?"
"I think it would be rather a babyish way of keeping from quarrelling, to ask to have the temptation to quarrel put away," said mamma. "Besides—it would have to be settled, you see."