ing like a lark.

Now, who felt not a little surprised, and a little foolish too, to find
himself shut up at home? Our friend Peter the Graybeard. Still, he
wasn't going to own himself beaten, but fell to work churning butter, as
though he had never done anything else all the days of his life.

It's no hard matter to get over-heated when one takes up a new trade,
and Peter soon, feeling very dry, went down into the cellar to draw a
mug of beer from the cask. He had just knocked out the bung and was
applying the spigot, when he heard an ominous crunching and grunting
overhead. It was the sow, devastating the kitchen.

'Oh Lord! my butter's lost!' yelled Peter the Graybeard, as he rushed
pell-mell up the steps, with the spigot in his hand. What a spectacle
was there! the churn upset, the cream spilt all over the floor, and the
huge sow fairly wallowing in the rich and savory tide.

Now even a wiser man would have lost all patience; as for Peter, he
rushed upon the brute, who, with piercing screams, strove to escape; but
it was a hapless day to the thief, for her master caught her in the
doorway and dealt her so well applied and vigorous a blow on the side of
her skull with the spigot that the sow fell dead on the spot.

As he drew back his novel weapon, now covered with blood, Peter
recollected that he had not closed the bung-hole of his cask, and that
all this time his beer was running to waste. So down he rushed again to
the cellar. Fortunately, the beer had ceased to run, but then that was
because not a drop remained in the cask.

He had now to begin his morning's work again, and churn some more butter
if he expected to see any dinner that day. So Peter visited the
dairy-house, and there found enough cream to replaced what he had just
lost. At it he goes again, and churns and churns away, more vigorously
than ever. But, in the midst of his churning, he remembers--a little
late to be sure, but better late than never--that the cow was still in
the stable, and that she had neither food nor water, although the sun
was now high above the horizon. Away he runs then to the stable. But
experience has made him wise: 'I've my little child there rolling on the
floor; now, if I leave the churn, the greedy scamp will turn it over,
and something worse might easily happen!' Whereupon, he takes up the
churn on his back and hastens to the well to draw water for the cow. The
well was deep, and the buckets did not go down far enough