“My! My! What is the hurry? I see the foot is all better.”
“We got a pig!” the lad gasped, when he could speak.
“A pig!”
“Yessir! A live one, too! He’s awful big. A man brought him in a wagon. That is why I couldn’t come this morning.”
Grant treated himself to a humble reflection upon the wisdom of childish preferments.
“What are you going to do with him?”
“Eat him up, I guess. Daddy said there was enough wasted about our house to keep a pig, so we got one. Aren’t you going to take me up?”
“Of course. But first we must put teddy in his place.”
“I’m to go home at five o’clock,” the boy said, when he had got properly settled.
The hours slipped by all too quickly, and if the lad’s presence did not contribute to good plowing, it at least made a cheerful plowman. It was plain that Zen had sufficient confidence in her farmer neighbor to trust her boy in his care, and his frequent references to his mother had an interest for Grant which he could not have analyzed or explained. During the afternoon the merits of the pig were sung and re-sung, and at last Wilson, after kissing his friend on the cheek and whispering, “I like you, Uncle Man-on-the-Hill,” took his teddy-bear under his arm and plodded homeward.