who has just crawled out, that
makes four. Then there are five squeezed up in the mud behind the
sow's back and two under her snout, so you can see the whole eleven at
once. She had thirteen, but two of them were squashed to death the
first day. Barton found them both flat; he says she must have slept on
top of them by mistake. Our sows generally do when they have a lot of
children."

"Do you notice that little black one with a white patch under his right
eye?" inquired Betty, feeling that it was now her turn to do the
honours of the pig-sty. "We call him Spot. He is such a little love,
only horribly greedy. That is why he is in such a mess, he will crawl
in the trough and get covered with milk. Sometimes Barton brings him
outside for us to pat. I wonder if we could possibly get him for
ourselves if we poked the sow off with sticks so that she shouldn't
push through the door when it is opened?"

"Oh, don't try! Please don't open the door!" begged Ann. "I couldn't
bear to have those horrid smelly creatures coming after me. I know I
should scream if they got loose!"

"Don't you like pigs, then?" This inquiry came in tones of
astonishment from all three children.

"Like them? No! They smell that horrid it quite upsets me!" Poor
Ann's disgust was so genuine that she quite forgot to speak as
correctly as she had succeeded in doing up to this point.

It was in vain that the Wests pointed out how baby pigs are quite as
pretty as kittens or puppies when they roll playfully over on their
mother's fat sides. Ann only held her nose and turned away her face;
even when Spot went through the most ridiculous antics, pulling his
little brother Whitey all about the sty by his tail, she expressed no
admiration.

"Well, if you really don't like them I suppose we had better go and see
the cows," said Madge rather impatiently. It is always disappointing,
and gives very unnecessary trouble, when visitors will not share one's
own tastes. Madge had relied on the pigs as an enormous attraction to
a town child, and she was proportionately irritated when the
entertainment failed. "I suppose you don't think cows dirty?" she
asked with elaborate politeness.

No, Ann had no objection to cows. On the contrary, she knew a milkman
who kept some cows on the outskirts of the town, and she sometimes went
there and had a tumbler of new milk for a treat. To be sure she felt a
little timid when Madge pushed a cabbage into her h