duck--but _her_ loss Mrs. Gammit had taken calmly enough, declaring it
to be nothing more than a good riddance to bad rubbish.

It was not until the return of moonlight nights that the bear had
discovered the white pig, and thus come face to face, at last, with a
thoroughly aroused Mrs. Gammit. True to his kind, he did like pork;
but absorbed in the easier adventures of the garden and the shed, he
had not at first noted the rich possibilities of the pig-pen, which
occupied one corner of the barn, under the loft. Suspicious of traps,
he would not, at first, enter the narrow opening of the stable door,
the wide main doors being shut. He had preferred rather to sniff
around outside at the corner of the barn, under the ragged birch-tree
in which the big turkey-cock had his perch. The wakeful and wary old
bird, peering down upon him with suspicion, had uttered a sharp _qwit,
qwit_, by way of warning to whom it might concern; while the white
pig, puzzled and worried, had sat up in the dark interior of the pen
and stared out at him in silence through the cracks between the
boards. At last, growing impatient, the bear had caught the edge of a
board with his claws, and tried to tear it off. Nothing had come
except some big splinters; but the effort, and the terrifying sound
that accompanied it, had proved too much for the self-control of the
white pig. An ear-splitting succession of squeals had issued from the
dark interior of the pen, and the bear had backed off in amazement.

Before he could recover himself and renew his assault, the window of
the cabin had gone up with a skittering slam. The white pig's appeal
for help had penetrated Mrs. Gammit's solid slumbers, and she had
understood the situation. "Scat! you brute!" she had yelled
frantically, thrusting head and shoulders so far out through the
window that she almost lost her balance in the effort to shake both
fists at once.

The bear, not understanding the terms of her invective, had sat up on
his haunches and turned his one eye mildly upon the bristling tufts of
grey hair which formed a sort of halo around Mrs. Gammit's virginal
nightcap. Then Mrs. Gammit, realizing that the time for action was
come, had rushed downstairs to the kitchen, seized the first weapon
she could lay hands upon--which chanced to be the broom--flung open
the kitchen door, and dashed across the yard, screaming with
indignation.

It was certainly an unusual figure that she made in the radiant