Then the Twins and Dennis told the story all over again, and Mrs
McQueen took the little pig in her apron. "The poor little thing!" she
said. "Its heart is beating that hard, you'd think its ribs would burst
themselves. I'll get it some milk right away this minute when once
you've looked in the yard."

Mr McQueen and Dennis and the Twins went to the fence. There in the
yard were the two geese with the black feathers in their wings! "Faith,
and the luck is all with us this day," said Mr McQueen. "However did
you get them back at all?"

"'Twas this way, if you'll believe me," said Mrs McQueen. She
scratched the little pig's back with one hand as she talked. "I was
just after churning my butter when what should I see looking in the door
but that thief of a Tinker with the beard like a rick of hay! Thinks I
to myself, sure, my butter will be bewitched and never come at all with
the bad luck of a stranger, and he a Tinker, coming in the house!

"But he comes in and gives one plunge to the dasher for luck and to
break the spell, and says he, very civil, `Would you be wanting to buy
any fine geese to-day?'

"My heart was going thumpity-thump, but I says to him, `I might look at
them, maybe,' and with that I go to the door, for the sake of getting
him out of it, and if there weren't our own two geese, with the legs of
them tied together!"

"The impudence of that!" cried Mr McQueen. "Get along with your tale,
woman! Surely you never paid the old thief for your own two geese!"

"Trust me!" replied Mrs McQueen. "I'm coming around to the point of my
tale gradual, like an old goat grazing around its tethering stump! I
says to him, `They look well enough, but I'm wishful to see them
standing up on their own two legs. That one looks as if it might be a
bit lame, and the cord so tight on it! And meanwhile, will you be
having a bit of a drink on this hot day?'

"Then I gave him a sup of milk, in a mug, and with that he thanks me
kindly, loosens the cord, and sets the geese up on their legs for me to
see. In a minute of time I stood between him and the geese, and `Shoo!'
says I to them, and to him I says, `Get along with you before I call the
man working behind the house to put an end to your thieving entirely!'

"And upon that he went in great haste, taking the mug along with him,
but it was cracked anyway!"

"Woman, woman, but you've the clever tongue in your head," said Mr
McQueen with admiration.

"'Tis