"We never saw them all out before," echoed John. "You see there are three in the trough, and one all sticky who has just crawled out, that makes four. Then there are five squeezed up in the mud behind the sow's back and two under her snout, so you can see the whole eleven at once. She had thirteen, but two of them were squashed to death the first day. Barton found them both flat; he says she must have slept on top of them by mistake. Our sows generally do when they have a lot of children."
"Do you notice that little black one with a white patch under his right eye?" inquired Betty, feeling that it was now her turn to do the honours of the pig-sty. "We call him Spot. He is such a little love, only horribly greedy. That is why he is in such a mess, he will crawl in the trough and get covered with milk. Sometimes Barton brings him outside for us to pat. I wonder if we could possibly get him for ourselves if we poked the sow off with sticks so that she shouldn't push through the door when it is opened?"
"Oh, don't try! Please don't open the door!" begged Ann. "I couldn't bear to have those horrid smelly creatures coming after me. I know I should scream if they got loose!"
"Don't you like pigs, then?" This inquiry came in tones of astonishment from all three children.
"Like them? No! They smell that horrid it quite upsets me!" Poor Ann's disgust was so genuine that she quite forgot to speak as correctly as she had succeeded in doing up to this point.
It was in vain that the Wests pointed out how baby pigs are quite as pretty as kittens or puppies when they roll playfully over on their mother's fat sides. Ann only held her nose and turned away her face; even when Spot went through the most ridiculous antics, pulling his little brother Whitey all about the sty by his tail, she expressed no admiration.
"Well, if you really don't like them I suppose we had better go and see the cows," said Madge rather impatiently. It is always disappointing, and gives very unnecessary trouble, when visitors will not share one's own tastes. Madge had relied on the pigs as an enormous attraction to a town child, and she was proportionately irritated when the entertainment failed. "I suppose you don't think cows dirty?" she asked with elaborate politeness.
No, Ann had no objection to cows. On the contrary, she knew a milkman who kept some cows on the outskirts of the town, and she sometimes went there and had a tumbler of new milk for a treat. To be sure she felt a little timid when Madge pushed a cabbage into her hand, and told her to feed a large red cow with particularly sharp horns. The children had a habit of each adopting a cow and feeding it themselves when there were any cabbages or pea-stalks to spare. Every cow, of course, had a name.
"That red one is quite new. She only came on Saturday," observed John. "So we haven't yet settled who she is to belong to, and that is why you can feed her. But we are going to call her Spiteful, because she shakes her head so crossly and has such very sharp horns."
This was rather a formidable introduction to a cow, and it is not to be wondered at that Ann soon incurred the scorn of the other children by dropping her cabbage on the ground and retiring behind the railings. She afterwards accused Spiteful of having tried to bite her.