as busily disgorging an assortment of articles from her
blouse. When she whirled around upon the astonished group it was
apparent that she had secreted upon her small person a pair of baby
shoes, a doll's dress and a small parasol. In these her pig, Bony, was
now arrayed.

"You want to look at my pig!" she announced in clarion tones. "He can
do tricks!"

"Tricks!" echoed Richard, while Rosemary rapidly identified the dress
as belonging to Shirley's largest doll, ditto the parasol, and the
shoes as a pair of Sarah's own carefully treasured for years by Winnie.

"What kind of tricks?" demanded Warren.

"You wait and see--" Sarah was so excited her voice trembled. "I
taught him lots of things. I've been teaching him every afternoon in
the barn--he is a naturally bright pig."

Her audience was inclined to share her opinion, after watching Bony
perform. The pig walked up and down before them in the absurd costume,
twirling the parasol and bowing to each in turn as he passed.

He danced, very mincingly, to a tune Sarah played for him on the
harmonica--Rosemary wondered how many other treasures Sarah's blouse
could hold--and though Richard said that no pig, no matter how highly
educated, could hope to identify that tune, it was admitted that Bony
was a graceful dancer.

"He can wear spectacles and read a book, too," declared Sarah proudly,
"but I couldn't bring them!"

Like all managers of celebrities she had begun to experience the
tyranny of the "props."

"Well, you must have had a heap of patience," commented Warren
admiringly. "Can he do anything else, Sarah?"

"Jump through a hoop," enumerated Sarah, "push a doll carriage and walk
around carrying a doll like a baby--I broke two of Shirley's china
dolls, teaching him that trick, but she doesn't know it yet. And, oh,
yes, he can sweep--with a toy broom--and play a toy piano."

"So that's where all Shirley's toys have gone to!" Rosemary tried to
speak severely, but she ended by laughing. "Shirley has been missing
her playthings, one after the other," Rosemary explained to the boys.
"And we thought she took them outdoors to play with and forgot where
she left them."

"After supper to-night," said Sarah, calmly ignoring this disclosure,
"I'll give an exhibition in the barn."

CHAPTER XVII

WILLING AND OBLIGING

Sarah was as good as her word. She not only assembled the entire
Rainbow Hill family in the barn that evening and put Bony through