"There are _thirteen_," repeated Dolly again. "Look, Max, begin at the
side of the field nearest the gate--there are three close together, and
then--oh dear, two have run back to the others, and--no, I can't count
aloud, but I'm sure--" and she went on to herself, "one, two, three,
four,"--"there _are_ thirteen, I'm as sure as sure."
"And _I'm_ as sure as sure, or surer than sure, that there are only
twelve," said Max, aggravatingly.
"Master Max and Miss Dorothy, come to your tea," said nurse's voice from
the table. "And it's getting chilly--the evenings aren't like the middle
of the day--you mustn't stand at the windows any more. It's draughty,
and it would never do for you to be getting stiff necks or swollen
glands or anything like that on the top of all there's been."
The two came slowly to the tea-table, but their looks were not very
amiable.
"You're so rude," said Dolly to her brother, "contradicting like that. I
never saw anybody so _persisting_."
"How can you help persisting when you know you're right?" said Max. "I
can't tell _stories_ to please you."
But I must say his tone was more good-natured than Dolly's.
"Well," said she, "can _I_ tell stories to please _you_? I _know_ there
are thirteen."
"And I _know_ there are only twelve," retorted Max, more doggedly.
After that they did not speak to each other all through tea-time. Nurse,
who often complained of the chatter-chatter "going through her head,"
should have been pleased at the unusual quiet, but somehow she wasn't.
She had a kind heart, and she did not like to see the little couple
looking gloomy and cross.
"Come, cheer up, my dears," she said, "what _does_ it matter? Twelve or
thirteen, though I don't know what it is you were talking about--call it
twelve-and-a-half and split the difference, won't that settle it?"
It was rather difficult not to smile at this suggestion--the idea of
chopping one of the poor little pigs in two to settle their dispute was
too absurd. But Dolly pinched up her lips; _she_ wasn't going to give
in, and smiling would have been a sort of _beginning_ of giving in, you
see. And Max, to save _him_self from any weakness of the kind, started
whistling, which nurse promptly put a stop to, telling him that
whistling at table was not "manners" at all!
This did not increase Master Max's good temper, especially as Dolly
looked very virtuous, and as if _her_ "manners" could never call for any
reproof. And a quarter-of-an-hour or so later, when mamma came up to pay
them a little visit, it was very plain to her that there was a screw,
and rather a big screw, loose somewhere in the nursery machinery. For
Max was sitting in one corner pretending to read, and Dolly was sitting
in another corner--the two furthest-off-from-each-other corners they
could possibly find--pretending to sew, and on both little faces the
expression was one which mammas are always very sorry indeed to see.
But mammas learn by experience to be wise. And all wise people know that
when other people are "upset" or "put out," _or_, to say it quite
plainly, "in a bad temper," it is no use, even though it is rather
difficult not to do so, to go "bang at them," with some such questions
as these: "What _is_ the matter with you?" "What _are_ you looking so
cross about?" "Have you been quarrelling, you tiresome children?" and so
on. Especially if, as these children's mamma just now was clever enough
to find out, the angry feelings are beginning to soften down into
unhappiness, and the first little whisper of "wishing I hadn't been so
cross"--or "so unkind," is faintly making its way into the foolish,
troubled little hearts. At that moment a sharp or severe word is sadly
apt to drown the gentle fairy voice, and to open the door again to all
the noisy, ugly imps of obstinacy and pride and unkind resentment, who
were just _beginning_ to think they had best slink off.
So this loving and wise--wise because she was loving, and loving because
she was wise!--mother said nothing, except--
[Illustration: "I did some knitting"]
"I am so sorry not to have come up before, dears, but I have been very
busy. Has it been a very dull afternoon for my poor little prisoners?"
"Not so very," said Dolly, slipping off her seat, and sidling up to her
mother, who had settled herself on the old rocking-chair by the fire,
with a nice comfortable look, as if she were not in a hurry. "Not so
very--we read some stories, and I did six rows of my knitting, and Max
cut out some more paper animals for poor little Billy Stokes--and--then
we went to our windows and began looking out," but here Dolly's voice
dropped suspiciously.
"Well," said her mother, "that all sounds very nice. But what happened
when you were looking out at your windows?"
"Nothing _happened_," said Max, slowly.
"Well--what did you see? And what did you _say_? I can tell from your
faces that things haven't gone cheerfully with you all the
afternoon--now have they?" said mamma.
"No," Dolly replied eagerly, "they haven't. Only p'r'aps we'd better say
nothing more about it. I don't want it all to begin again. If Max likes
I'll try to forget all about it, and be friends again."
"I don't mind being friends again," said Max, "I'd rather. But I don't
see how we _can_ forget about it--they're sure to be there again
to-morrow, and then we _couldn't_ forget about them. Oh, I wonder if
they're there still, if it's not too dark to see them," he went on,
suddenly darting to the window. "Then mamma could count them, and that
would settle it."
"This is very mysterious," said mamma, smiling, "Dolly, you must
explain."
But Max was back from the window before Dolly could begin, and his first
words were part of the explanation.
"They're gone in," he said in a disappointed tone, "but I don't know
that it matters much. For it would have been too dark for you to count
them properly, mamma. It was a lot of little pigs, mamma, in Farmer
Wilder's field; little black pigs--twelve of them."
"_Thirteen_," said Dolly.
"No, no!" began Max, but he stopped. "That's it, you see, mamma," he
said, in a melancholy tone.
"That's _what_?" asked mamma.
"The--the quarrel. Dolly will have it there were thirteen, and I'm sure
there were only twelve."
[Illustration: Max cut out some paper Animals]
"And," said Dolly, laughing a little--though I must say I think it was
mischievous of her to have snapped in with that "thirteen"--"nurse heard
about 'twelve' and 'thirteen,' but she didn't know what it was about, so
she asked us if we couldn't split the difference. Fancy splitting up a
poor little pig."
"There isn't one to split, not a _thirteen_ one," said Max, rather
surlily.
"Yes there is," retorted Dolly.
Mamma looked at them both.
"My dear children," she said. "You really _must_ be at a loss for
something to quarrel about. And after all, you remind me of----"
"What do we remind you of, mamma?" asked both, eagerly, "something about
when you were a little girl?"
"No, only of an old story I have heard," said mamma.
"Oh, do tell it," said Max and Dolly.
[Illustration: "Oh, do tell it."]
[Illustration]