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.

CHAPTER NINE.

THE SECRET.

Mr McQueen was a good farmer, but at the time he lived in Ireland,
farmers could not own their farms.

The land was all owned by rich landlords, who did not do any work
themselves. These landlords very often lived away in England or France,
and did not know much about how the poor people lived at home, or how
hard they had to work to get the money for the rent of their farms.

Sometimes, when they did know, they didn't care. What they wanted was
all the money they could get, so they could live in fine houses and wear
beautiful clothes, and go where they pleased, without doing any work.

When the landlords were away, they had agents to collect the rents for
them.

The business of these agents was to get all the rent money they could,
and they made life very hard for the farmers.

Sometimes when the farmers couldn't pay all the rent, the agent would
turn them out of their houses. This was called "evicting" them. The
farm that Mr McQueen lived on, as well as the village and all the
country roundabout, was owned by the Earl of Elsmore, who lived most of
the year in great style in England. The agent who collected rents was
Mr Conroy. Nobody liked Mr Conroy very much, but everybody was afraid
of him, because he could do so much to injure them.

So one morning when Mr McQueen came back very early from his
potato-field, he was not glad to see Mr Conroy's horse standing near
his door, and Mr Conroy himself, leaning on the farmyard fence, looking
at the fowls.

"How are you, McQueen?" said Mr Conroy, when Mr McQueen came up.

"Well enough, Mr Conroy," said Mr McQueen.

"And you're doing well with the farm, too, it seems," said Mr Conroy.
"Those are good-looking fowls you have, and the pig is fine and fat.
How many cows have you, now?"

"Two, and a heifer," said Mr McQueen.

"You drained that field over by the bog this year, didn't you, and have
it planted to turnips?" went on Mr Conroy. "I'm glad to see you so
prosperous, McQueen. Of course, now, the farm is worth more than it was
when you first took it, and so you'll not be surprised that I'm raising
the rent on you."

"If the farm is worth more, 'tis my work that has made it so," said Mr
McQueen, "and I