Katie, kindly, "then I'll frow you one;" and she did it
from the tips of her clean fingers.

"But piggy's velly dirty," said she, wiping her lips on her apron.

"Don't they wath him?" said Charlie; "they wath theep."

"Um isn't a sheep," returned Katie; "um's a pig."

"But your gwampa could wath him."

"No, gampa couldn't; gampa's deaf. I'll tell Ruthie, and Ruthie'll wash
him with the toof brush."

"I with thee would," sighed Charlie; "thee ought to. O ho!" he added, a
bright thought striking him; "you got a mop?"

"A mop?"

"Yes; a bwoom 'thout any bwoom on it; only wags."

Katie knew what he meant in a minute; and soon her hair was flying in
the wind, as she ran into the house for her handled mop. She looked
first in the parlor, and then in the front hall; but at last she found
it in the wash-room. She was very sly about it, for she was not sure
Ruthie would approve of this kind of housework. Then Charlie tugged out
a pail of water, and dipped in the mop; and between them both they
thrust it through the opening of the pen, upon piggy's back. But the
dirty creature did not love clean water. When he felt the mop coming
down, he thought the sky was falling, and ran as fast as Chicken Little
frightened by the rose-leaf.

It was of no use. The mop was wilful, and fell into the trough; and
there it staid, though the children spent the rest of the forenoon in
vain attempts to hook it out. When Ruthie went that noon to feed the
pig, she found the trough choked with a mop, a hoe, a shovel, and
several clothes-pins. She did not stop to inquire into the matter, but
took the articles out, one by one, saying to herself, with a smile,--

"Some of that baby's work. I couldn't think what had become of my mop;
she's enough to try the patience of Job. And now," added Ruth, throwing
her apron over her head, "I may as well look up Miss Dimple. There's not
a better child in the world than she is when she pleases; but deary me,
when things do go wrong!"

Just then a wagon drove up to the gate, and Ruth said, as she saw a
burly figure alight from it,--

"Why, that can't be Uncle Seth? I'm afraid something has happened at our
house!"

CHAPTER IX.

A DARK DAY.

Meanwhile Dotty was lying on the hay in the barn scaffold. It is very
easy to be unhappy when we particularly try to be so; and Dotty had
arrived at the point of _almost_ believing that she _almost_ wished she
was actually dead.

And, to add to her gloom