"The garden'll just be ruined. There he goes, right through the tomato plants, and they ain't but just been sot out."
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Bun. "He's stopped in the spinach bed, and he's gone to rooting right away."
"Never mind," said Rube. "The wagon's all right. He might have broken that."
"We must get him out somehow."
Yes, that was precisely the task they had before them; but the pig was in the garden, and he knew it, and believed that he too had duties to perform. He could run, and he could dodge, and he could change work from one bed to another, but at any moment when he got at all away from those boys, he found uses for his long, busy, root-hunting nose.
Jeff crept out from among the raspberry bushes right away, and when his mother and the two other women reached that spot, he was able to answer them: "No, I ain't hurt a bit, but I'm scratched the worst kind. Oh, that pig!"
"Run, Jeff," said Aunt Dorcas, "and hold the barn-yard gate open. Don't let any other pigs get in. There are three more out of the pen. Must be Bun let 'em out when he went for that one."
The pig was now making a stand among the young beets; but suddenly an idea came to Bun, and he sprang forward. In an instant he was seated in the wagon, and was goading his victim with the sharp end of his long stick.
"Got him, Rube! I've got him, mother! He'll have to go now."
"Oh, my son! Yes, Dorcas, he's starting off. Look, mother; if he isn't pulling wagon and all!"