f
Sarah's time and attention. She let Rosemary and Shirley go over to
see the Gays very often without her. There were the pig's meals to be
served, his toilet to be made and his manners and training carefully
considered.

"My conscience, Sarah Willis, you're not going to wash that pig, are
you?" demanded Winnie the first morning Sarah made known her ideas on
the question of cleanliness in connection with Bony.

"I certainly am," announced Sarah with appalling firmness. "Hugh says
you can't be well, 'less you are clean. I don't suppose I can wash
Bony in the bathtub?"

"Now Sarah, if I didn't love you, you would have driven me crazy years
ago," said Winnie, who was a famous general when she minded to be.
"You know washing a pig in the bathtub is out of the question. I
wouldn't wash him in the laundry tubs, either; we have to be nice to
Mrs. Pritchard for if she deserts us like as not there'll be no more
clean clothes this summer; you can't pick and choose your washwoman in
the country."

"Where'll I wash him then?" asked Sarah.

"Take him out to the barns--there must be tubs there," directed Winnie.
"I'll give you a piece of soap and an old towel. Don't bring the towel
back, either."

"I'll hang it on a bush to dry," promised Sarah amiably. "But I have
to have some hot water, Winnie; Bony is delicate and I can't give him a
cold bath."

"Then he'll have to wait till to-morrow for his bath," said the wily
Winnie. "The tea kettle is empty and I can't be lighting the stove to
heat water just now."

"Well, I'll try the cold water," Sarah decided reluctantly, "but if
Bony catches cold, you'll be sorry--that's all."

The pig under one arm and the towel and soap under the other, Sarah
made for the barn and reached the big tub where the horses were
watered, when Warren saw her.

"What are you going to do with that pig, Sarah?" he asked suspiciously.

"Wash him," said Sarah, beginning to weary of being questioned.

"Not in that horse tub," declared Warren. "I've just filled it for the
team. That's a drinking trough, not a bathtub."

Brief experience had already taught Sarah, as it had Rosemary and
Shirley, that while Richard might be cajoled or persuaded, Warren was
firmness itself. If he said that pigs could not be washed in the
watering tub, that settled the matter.

"The brook is the best place to wash a pig, anyway, Sarah," suggested
Warren helpfully. "You take this stiff brush and put Bony in th