noise to Sarah's bed.

Sure enough, the clock was there and Sarah admitted that she had set it.

"I wanted to be sure and get up early," she explained. "I have to get
my pig and go and see the Gay family."

But she further conceded that she had not meant to rise at the witching
hour of three A. M. Her intention had been to set the alarm for
half-past five and her mistake was due to the fact that she had not set
an alarm clock before.

"And never will again," commented Winnie, bearing the offending clock
away with her for safe-keeping. "Not if I have anything to say, will
you ever touch an alarm clock."

Breakfast was half an hour later than usual, in consequence of this
performance, and Sarah was in a fever of impatience to reach the pig
pens. When finally excused from the table, she shot through the door
and was back before her mother and sisters had left the dining-room.

Loud sounds of altercation in the kitchen proclaimed her return.

"You can't bring that in here--go away, Sarah Willis!" came Winnie's
voice. "Where did you get that dirty beast?"

"He's mine--he's a pig," countered Sarah, who always assumed that
Winnie was intensely ignorant in matters of natural history. "Mr.
Hildreth gave him to me."

There was the noise of a scuffle, the slam of a door and then Sarah's
wail:

"Oh, you've hurt him! And he's sick--you're the most cruel woman I
ever knew and I'll tell Mother so!"

Mrs. Willis opened the swinging door into the kitchen and Rosemary and
Shirley pressed close behind her. Sarah stood on the back porch, a
young pig in her arms, and Winnie occupied the center of the kitchen
floor.

"We don't keep our pigs in the parlor--not in this house," said Winnie
firmly. "Nor yet in the kitchen--as long as I'm in it."

Rosemary thought then, as she had often thought before, how easily her
mother settled differences and with how few words. It took scarcely
five minutes for Mrs. Willis to examine the pig and praise his
possibilities to Sarah; to suggest a comfortable box in the woodshed as
his logical home--where he might have fresh air in abundance and yet be
close to Sarah if he needed her attention; and to enlist the sympathies
of Winnie--whose bark was always loud and whose bite had never
materialized yet--to the extent that she provided a piece of soft
flannel to line the box and warm milk to comfort the interior of the
little pig.

His pigship was a runt, as Mr. Hildreth had said, and d