The key to Betsy's heart

by Sarah Noble Ives

“Get onto them overalls!”

“Hi, there, Van; lend us your necktie!”

Van bobbed his head every time he heard his name, and enjoyed the whole show as if it had been planned for him alone. He was in his element—the very center of admiration. Betsy felt that she was doing her whole duty by her part of the exhibit. All was going forward as merrily as possible until——

Van looked ahead and saw something in the procession—a small object that had up to now escaped his notice; as they rounded a curve he had a second glimpse of it. One of the attendants, dressed as a clown, was leading a very much bescrubbed and shining young pig. Van was now wide awake.

Piggy was pink as the flush of dawn. He wore a large bow of red, white, and blue ribbon which annoyed him exceedingly. Moreover, he was naturally timid and retiring, and did not like being dragged around by a string in the midst of such queer-looking people. He was distinctly uncomfortable. Piggy protested, and it was his squealing that first drew Van’s attention.

Now Van knew pigs—none better; but this was a new kind. He did not stop to consider that he himself was groomed and arrayed and fit to kill—that he was quite as funny as the funniest. His one desire was to get a closer view of the strange, uncanny beast. He gave a leap; and almost went over the dash-board, but Betsy was on her guard and held him back. She took a firm grip on his leather collar, which he wore under Treesa’s, and tried to steady him. He wriggled backward under her arm, leaving the collar and chain in Betsy’s hands, while he slipped down behind her, yelping and barking, into the midst of the merrymakers in the hayrick.

Instantly there was uproar and confusion. One caught at his tail, but it was too short to be useful; another grabbed him by his red necktie, and it came away, an unsightly string. Another snatched at his white collar; that also came loose. Some one took a firm hold upon his shirt-front; he gave a mighty squirm, and behold, he was no longer in that shirt! It dangled in the hands of the astonished haymaker. Leaping and wriggling, Van, at top speed, made a pilgrim’s progress from hand to hand, down the whole length of the hayrick.

Betsy was on the ground now; she ran around to the rear, and amid a chorus of gleeful yells from the crowd, she caught her charge as he jumped. The procession had stopped, so Van’s side-show had full swing. He struggled desperately, and was out of Betsy’s arms, leaving the last remnant of his respectability—his overalls—in her hands, and was after that pig.

Piggy was quite unprepared. With nerves already wrought to a high tension by the crowd, and the unaccustomed grandeur of his necktie, the sight of Van bearing down upon him was too much. He squealed as never pig squealed before, and tugged at his gala harness in frantic terror. Van leaped upon him; he tore the offending ribbon bow from his neck; he tried to catch him somewhere, and shake him up, but Piggy was a pachyderm, plump and solid,—and that means that Van could not find one spot on his whole pink exterior where a restraining tooth could be fastened.

Piggy squealed louder; it was an awful moment. One more wild lunge, and the leash flew out of the clown’s hands. With a bound Piggy was off across the lawn, sprinting at a gait so lively that any razor-back of the wildwood would have been proud to own him as a relative.