ut she just shoved
and slid about as if she was on ice. She had a small pipe in her mouth,
with about an inch of a stem, to keep her nose warm, and her skin was
so yaller and wrinkled, and hard and oily, she looked jist like a dried
smoked red herrin', she did upon my soul.

"The floor of the room was blacker nor ink, because that is pale
sometimes; and the utenshils, oh, if the fire didn't purify 'em now
and ag'in, all the scrubbin' in the world wouldn't, they was past that.
Whenever the door was opened, in run the pigs, and the old woman hobbled
round arter them, bangin' them with a fryin' pan, till she seemed out
o' breath. Every time she took less and less notice of 'em, for she
was 'most beat out herself, and was busy a gettin' of the tea-kettle to
bile, and it appeared to me she was a-goin' to give in and let 'em sleep
with me and the lawyer, near the fire.

"So I jist puts the tongs in the sparklin' coals and heats the eends on
'em red hot, and the next time they comes in, I watches a chance, outs
with the tongs, and seizes the old sow by the tail, and holds on till
I singes it beautiful. The way she let go ain't no matter, but if she
didn't yell it's a pity, that's all. She made right straight for the
door, dashed in atween old aunty's legs, and carries her out on her
back, ridin' straddle-legs like a man, and tumbles her head over heels
in the duck pond of dirty water outside, and then lays down along side
of her, to put the fire out in its tail and cool itself.

"Aunty took up the screamin' then, where the pig left off; but her voice
warn't so good, poor thing! she was too old for that, it sounded like a
cracked bell; it was loud enough, but it warn't jist so clear. She came
in drippin' and cryin' and scoldin'; she hated water, and what was wus,
this water made her dirtier. It ran off of her like a gutter. The way
she let out agin pigs, travellers and houses of entertainment, was a
caution to sinners. She vowed she'd stop public next mornin', and bile
her kettle with the sign; folks might entertain themselves and be hanged
to 'em, for all her, that they might. Then she mounted a ladder and goes
up into the loft-to change.

"'Judge' sais I, 'I am sorry, too, I singed that pig's tail arter that
fashion, for the smell of pork chops makes me feel kinder hungry, and if
we had 'em, no soul could eat 'em here in such a stye as this. But, dear
me,' sais I, 'You'd better move, Sir; that old woman is juicy, and I
se