weight was too much for poor Jan; down went
the pail with a crash into the trough, and Jan himself tumbled suddenly
forward, his feet flew out behind, and he was left hanging head down,
like a jack knife, over the fence!

It was just at this moment that Marie came to the door, and when she
saw Jan balancing on the fence and kicking out wildly with his feet,
she screamed with laughter.

Jan was screaming, too, but with pain and indignation. "Come here and
pick me off this fence!" he roared. "It's cutting me in two! Oh,
Mother! Mother!"

Marie ran to the pigpen as fast as, she could go. She snatched an old
box by the stable as she ran, and, placing it against the fence, seized
one of Jan's feet, which were still waving wildly in the air, and
planted it firmly on the box.

"Oh! Oh!" laughed Marie, as Jan reached the ground once more. "If you
could only have seen yourself, Jan! You would have laughed, too!
Instead of pouring the pig-feed on to yourself, you poured yourself on
to the pig-feed!"

"I don't see anything to laugh at," said Jan with dignity; "it might
have happened to any man."

"Anyway, you'll have to get the pail again," said Marie, wiping her
eyes. "That greedy pig will bang it all to pieces, if you leave it in
the pen."

"I can't reach it," said Jan.

"Yes, you can," said Marie. "I'll hold your legs so you won't fall in,
and you can fish for it with a stick." She ran for a stick to poke
with, while Jan bravely mounted the box again, and, firmly anchored by
Marie's grasp upon his legs, he soon succeeded in rescuing the pail.

"Anyway, I guess I've fed the pig just as well as you have made the
coffee," he said, as he handed it over to Marie.

"Oh, my sakes!" cried Marie; "I forgot all about the coffee!" And she
ran back to the kitchen, to find that the kettle had boiled over and
put the fire out.

Jan stuck hid head in the door, just as she got the bellows to start
the fire again. "What did I tell you!" he shouted, running out his
tongue derisively.

"Scat!" said Marie, shaking the bellows at him, and Jan sauntered away
toward the pasture with Pier's halter over his arm.

Pier had been eating grass for two nights and a day without doing any
work, and it took Jan some time to catch him and put the halter over
his head. When at last he returned from the pasture, red and tired, but
triumphant, leading Pier, Marie and her mother had already finished
their breakfast.

"Look what a man we have!" c