ould help."

They installed themselves for this work. The acrid smell of
potato-parings rose in the furnace-like heat of the kitchen, along with
the singing voice, asking and answering itself. Mark listened with all
his might, laughing and wriggling with appreciation. When his mother had
finished and was putting the potatoes into the boiling water, he said
exultantly, "He got around _her_, all right, I should say what!"

Paul burst in now, saying, "Mother, Mother!" He stopped short and asked,
"What you got on your head, Mark?"

The little boy looked surprised, put his hand up, felt the bandage, and
said with an off-hand air, "Oh, I bunked my head on the corner of the
swing-board."

"I know," said Paul, "I've done it lots of times." He went on, "Mother,
my pig has lice. You can just _see_ them crawling around under his hair.
And I got out the oil Father said to use, but I can't do it. It says on
the can to rub it on with a stiff little brush. I don't see how ever in
the world you're going to get your pig to stand still while you do it.
When I try to, he just squeals, and runs away."

His mother said with decision, from where she stooped before the open
ice-box door, "Paul, if there is anything in the world I know nothing
about, it is pigs. I haven't the slightest idea what to do." She shut
the heavy door with a bang more energetic than was necessary to latch
it, and came back towards the stove with a raw, red piece of uncooked
meat on a plate.

"Oh, how nasty meat looks, raw," said Mark, with an accent of disgust.

"You eat it with a good appetite when I've cooked it," remarked his
mother, somewhat grimly, putting it in a hot pan over the fire. An odor
of searing fibers and smoke and frying onions rose up in the hot, still
air of the kitchen.

"If I could have guessed we'd have such weather, I'd never have ordered
a pot-roast," thought Marise, vexed.

"Please, Mother, _please_," begged Paul.

"Please what?" asked his mother, who had forgotten the pig.

"Henry!" said Paul. "If you could see how he scratches and scratches and
how the behind of his ears is all scabs he's so bitten."

"Wouldn't Eugenia and Vincent Marsh love this conversation?" thought
Marise, turning the meat in the pan and starting back from the spatters
of hot fat.

"Mother, don't you see, I agreed to take care of him, with Father, and
so I _have_ to. He's just like my child. You wouldn't let one of _us_
have lice all over, and scabs on ou