"What, Bun?" said Aunt Dorcas, while the skimmer in her hand was dripping over the soap-kettle. "He's all spring and India rubber. What's he doing now?"
"Doing?" said grandmother. "I'd say so! If he hasn't rigged some leathers and strings, and he's trying to harness that little speckled pig into his wagon. Can't you hear the pig squeal?"
"He's always a-squealing," said Mrs. Gates, from the milk-room. She was a large, motherly looking woman; but now she hurried to the door, and shouted, "Audubon, my son, what are you doing to that poor critter?"
"Why, mother, spring's come, and it's time he did something. I can drive him if I can once get him harnessed. He's half in now; but he does just plunge around!"
The speckled pig was a small one, truly, and he was well acquainted with Bun Gates; but his present occupation was new to him. The wagon matched him fairly well as to size, and it was only a little too plain that he had strength enough to haul it anywhere the moment he should have a fair chance. The best he could do at that moment was to make music, and his voice was uncommonly clear and shrill.
"Dorcas! mother!" exclaimed Mrs. Gates, "do come here and look at that boy."
"I see him," said grandma, but Aunt Dorcas put down her skimmer, and came to the door just as another boy, a head shorter than Bun, trotted up the garden walk to see what was the matter with the pig.
"Harnessed! harnessed! Oh, what a horse! I'll get in for a ride."
"Jump in, Jeff," said Bun. "You take the reins that belong to his head, and I'll hold on to the rein that goes to his hind-leg. We'll break him in."
Jeff was hardly more than eight years old, while his stoutly built and chubby elder brother was at least thirteen. There was "boy" enough in either of them, but the "spring" was tremendously developed in Bun. He was so full of it that he could hardly stand still. Neither could the pig stand still, and while the women at the kitchen door and window were laughing until the tears came into their eyes, the speckled unfortunate was dodging in every direction in a desperate effort to regain his freedom. Bun had deceived him when he enticed him from the barn-yard. The gate through which he had consented to be driven was well known to Speckle as leading into the garden, and all the free rooting to be desired of any pig could be had there. He had marched through the gate meekly enough, and he had looked over the "promised land," with its neatly kept walks and beds, and with all its green things just coming up, and yet here he was with a rope still restraining his hind-leg and a queer net-work of pig harness all over him. No part of that harness worked as a muzzle, and Speckle did what he could with his voice to express his opinion of the matter.