lunged toward us. Not a loose
stick or stone was within reach. If there had been, there was not time
to pick it up.

"Run for the fence! Run!" called the brave girl to me, and met the
voracious brute with a kick, so well aimed that the high heel of her
shoe struck full upon the eye next to her. In the respite gained by the
sow's stagger and recoil, our defender overtook me, caught my hand, and
fled along the path traced in the trampled broom-straw, through which we
had waded merrily awhile ago. We had not taken a dozen steps when we
heard the enemy roaring behind us.

"Oh!" gasped I, running with all my might meanwhile. "She will eat up
Bud! Like she--ate--up--the--little--ducks!"

"She shall eat me first!"

I knew she meant it, and that it was true. The fence was not more than
fifty yards away. It looked a mile off, and the wild grass was as tough
and treacherous as it had been pliant and sweet when we had danced
through it. I was a swift runner and my limbs obeyed me well. I was
conscious, moreover, of the strong upbearing of my companion's hand that
lent wings to my feet. If I were to stumble, she would not let me fall.
This persuasion kept mind and heart in me.

Yet the sow would have caught up with us had not a pig set up a piteous
squeal, as it lost its way or was entangled by the grass. The mother
went back to reassure it with a series of staccato gruntings, very
unlike those with which she renewed the chase.

We were at the fence. I scrambled over, spent and shaking, hardly able
to receive the precious load that was lowered to me. As Cousin Molly
Belle dropped after us, our pursuer's snout was poked between the lower
rails in a last and futile attempt to get at the baby's fat legs.

"_Then_ I got mad all through!" Cousin Molly Belle told my mother, in
recounting the adventure.

Her white face flamed scarlet in a second. A pile of disused pea sticks
lay in the fence corner. She seized one, and jumped over the fence
again. Wielding her weapon as if it were a flail, she brought it down
upon the ugly head and raw-boned body; and as the sow turned tail to
run, belabored her through the orchard to the gap by which she had
entered.

The conqueror returned to me, flushed, but unsmiling. I had Bud tight in
my arms, and was laughing and crying together.

"It was funny to see you lam her and to see her run," I sobbed between
giggles that hurt me more than the sobs.

She sat down on the grass, and clasped the