"DIDDY."
Larry and Eileen took hold of hands, and began running as fast as they
could. They jumped from one tuft of grass to another. Dennis came
splashing through the puddles after them. He had almost caught them,
when all of a sudden, Larry stopped and listened.
"What's that now?" he said. Eileen and Dennis listened too. They heard
a faint squealing sound.
They looked all around. There was nothing in sight but the brown bog,
and the stones, and the blue hills far beyond. They were a little bit
scared.
"Do you suppose it might be a Leprechaun?" Eileen whispered.
"'Tis a tapping noise they make; not a crying noise at all," Larry
answered.
"Maybe it's a Banshee," Dennis said. "They do be crying about sometimes
before somebody is going to die."
"'Tis no Banshee whatever," Eileen declared. "They only cry at night."
They heard the squealing sound again.
"'Tis right over there," cried Eileen, pointing to a black hole in the
bog where turf had been cut out. "Indeed, and it might be a beautiful
baby like Deirdre herself! Let's go and see."
They crept up to the bog-hole, and peeped over the edge. The hole was
quite deep and down in the bottom of it was a little pig! Dennis rolled
over on the ground beside the bog-hole and screamed with laughter.
"Sure, 'tis the beautiful child entirely!" he said.
"'Tis the little pig the Tinkers had!" cried Eileen.
"It broke the rope and ran away with itself," shouted Larry.
"However will we get it out?" said Eileen. "The hole is too deep
entirely!"
"The poor little thing is nearly destroyed with hunger," Larry said.
"I'll go down in the hole and lift her out."
"However will you get out yourself, then, Larry darling?" cried Eileen.
"The two of you can give me your hands," said Larry, "and I'll be up in
no time."
Then Larry jumped down into the hole. He caught the little pig in his
arms. The little pig squealed harder than ever and tried to get away,
but Larry held it up as high as he could.
Eileen and Dennis reached down and each got hold of one of the pig's
front feet. "Now then for you!" cried Larry.
He gave the pig a great shove. He shoved so hard that Eileen and Dennis
both fell over backwards into a puddle! But they held tight to the pig,
and there the three of them were together, rolling in the bog with the
pig on top of them!
"Hold her, hold her!" shrieked Larry. By standing on tiptoe his nose
was just above the edge of the bog-hole, so he could see them.
"I've got her," Eileen cried. "Run back for the bit of rope the Tinkers
left, Dennis, and tie her, hard and fast!"
Dennis ran for the rope while Eileen sat on the ground and held the
little pig in her arms. The little pig squealed and kicked and tried
every minute to get away. She kicked even after her hind legs were tied
together. But Eileen held on!
"You'll have to get Larry out alone, Dennis, while I never let go of
this pig," cried Eileen, breathlessly. "She's that wild, she'll be
running away with herself on her two front legs, alone."
Dennis reached down, and took both of Larry's hands and pulled and
pulled until he got him out.
Larry was covered with mud from the bog-hole, and Eileen and Dennis were
wet and muddy from falling into the puddle.
But they had the pig!
"Sure, she is a beautiful little pig, and we'll call her Deirdre,
because we found her in the bog just in the same way as Conchubar
himself," said Larry.
"Indeed, Deirdre was too beautiful altogether to be naming a pig after
her," Eileen said.
"Isn't she a beautiful little pig, then?" Larry answered.
"Well, maybe we might be calling her `Diddy,' for short, and no offence
to herself at all," Eileen agreed.
The poor little pig was so tired out with struggling, and so hungry,
that she was fairly quiet while Dennis carried her on his shoulder to
the road. Eileen walked behind Dennis and fed her with green leaves.
She was so quiet that Larry said: "We'll tie the rope to one of Diddy's
hind legs, and she'll run home herself in front of us."
So when they reached the road he and Dennis tied the rope securely to
Diddy's left hind leg and set her down.
They found Colleen asleep, standing up.
Larry woke her. Then he said, "Eileen, come now, you take the jug, and
get on Colleen's back. Dennis can lead her, and I'll drive the pig
myself."
But Diddy was feeling better after her rest. She made up her mind she
didn't like the plan. She squealed and tried to get away. Once she
turned quickly and ran between Larry's legs and tripped him up. But she
was a tired little pig, and so it was not long before, somehow, they got
her back to where Mr McQueen was working.
He hadn't heard them coming, though what with the pig squealing, and the
children all speaking at once, they made noise enough. But Mr McQueen
had his head down digging, and he was in a bog-hole besides, so when
they came up right beside him, with the pig, he almost fell over with
astonishment.
He stopped his work and leaned on his clete, while they told him all
about the pig, and how they found it, and got it out of the hole, and
how the Tinkers must have lost it. And when they were all done, he only
said, "The Saints preserve us! We'll take it home to Herself and let
her cosset it up a bit!"
So the children hurried off to take the pig to their Mother without even
stopping to eat their bit of lunch. Mr McQueen came, too.
When they got home, they found Mrs McQueen leaning on the farmyard
fence. When she saw them coming with the pig, she ran out to meet them.
"Wherever did you find the fine little pig?" she cried. Then she threw
up her hands. "Look at the mud on you!" she said.
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 mighty lucky we have," said Mrs McQueen, "for it's little else
women have in this world to help themselves with!"
Then she put the little pig down in the empty pig-pen in the farmyard
and went to fetch it some milk.