er.

Hours passed by; all the rest of the dinner got itself properly cooked
at the right time, but the pig presented exactly the same appearance at
dewy eve as it had done in the early morn. We looked rather crest-fallen
at its pale condition when one o'clock struck, but I said cheerfully,
"Oh, I daresay it will be ready by supper!" But it was not: not a bit of
it. Of course we searched in those delusive cookery books, but they only
told us what sauces to serve with a roasted pig, or how to garnish it,
entering minutely into a disquisition upon whether a lemon or an orange
had better be stuck into its mouth. We wanted to know how to cook it,
and why it would not get itself baked. About an hour before supper-time
I grew desperate at the anticipation of the "chaff" Alice and I would
certainly have to undergo if this detestable animal could not be
produced in a sufficiently cooked state by evening. We took it out of
the oven and contemplated it with silence and dismay. Fair as ever did
that pig appear, and as if it had no present intention of being cooked
at all. A sudden idea came into our heads at the same moment, but it was
Alice who first whispered, "Let us cut off its head." "Yes," I cried; "I
am sure that prevents its roasting or baking, or whatever it is." So we
got out the big carving knife and cut off the piggy's head. Far be it
from me to offer any solution of the theory why the head should have
interfered with the baking process, but all I know is, that, like the
old woman in the nursery song, everything began to go right, and we got
our supper that night.

Has anybody ever reflected on how difficult it must be to get a chimney
swept without ever a sweep or even a brush? Luckily our chimneys were
short and wide, and we used a good deal of wood; so in three years the
kitchen chimney only needed to be cleansed twice. The first time it was
cleared of soot by the simple process of being set on fire, but as a
light nor'-wester was blowing, the risk to the wooden roof became very
great and could only be met by spreading wet blankets over the shingles.
We had a very narrow escape of losing our little wooden house, and it
was fortunate it happened just at the men's dinner hour when there was
plenty of help close at hand. However great my satisfaction at feeling
that at last my chimney had been thoroughly swept, there was evidently
too much risk about the performance to admit of its being repeated, so
about a year after