The Corner House Girls at School | Page 9

scrouging under the fence, and squealing
intermittently.
"There!" exclaimed Neale O'Neil. "Why not keep him in that yard and
make his owner pay to get him home again?"
"Oh! I couldn't ask poor Mr. Murphy for money," said Ruth, giving an
anxious glance at the little cottage over the fence. She expected every
moment to hear the cobbler coming to the rescue of his pet.
And the pig did not propose to remain impounded. He dashed to the
boundary fence and found an aperture. Through it he caught a glimpse
of home and safety.
But the hole was not quite deep enough. Head and shoulders went
through all right; but there his pigship stuck.
There was a scurrying across the cobbler's yard, but the Kenway girls
and their new friend did not hear this. Instead, they were startled by a
sudden rattling of hoofs in a big drygoods box that stood inside the

poultry pen.
"What's that?" demanded Neale O'Neil.
"It's--it's Billy Bumps!" shrieked Agnes.
Out of the box dashed the goat. The opening fronted the boundary
fence, beneath which the pig was stuck. Perhaps Billy Bumps took the
rapidly curling and uncurling tail of the pig for a challenging banner.
However that might be, he lowered his head and catapulted himself
across the yard as true as a bullet for the target.
Slam! the goat landed just where it seemed to do the most good, for the
remainder of the pig shot through the aperture in the board fence on the
instant. One more affrighted squeal the pig uttered, and then:
"Begorra! 'Tis ivry last brith in me body ye've knocked out," came from
the other side of the fence.
"Oh, Agnes!" gasped Ruth, as the sisters clung together, weak from
laughter. "That pig can't be French after all; for that's as broad an Irish
brogue as ever I heard!"
CHAPTER IV
NEALE O'NEIL GETS ESTABLISHED
Perhaps Billy Bumps was as much amazed as anybody when he heard
what seemed to be the pig expressing his dissatisfaction in a broad Irish
brogue on the other side of the fence.
The old goat's expression was indeed comical. He backed away from
the hole through which he had just shot the raider head-first, shook his
own head, stamped, and seemed to listen intently to the hostile
language.
"Be th' powers! 'Tis a dirthy, mane thrick, so ut is! An' th' poor pig kem
t'roo th' hole like it was shot out of a gun."

"It's Mr. Murphy!" whispered Ruth, almost as much overcome with
laughter as Agnes herself.
Neale O'Neil was frankly amazed; but in a moment he, like the girls,
jumped to the right conclusion. The cobbler had run to the rescue of his
pet. He had seized it by the ears as it was trying to crowd under the
fence, and tugged, too. When old Billy Bumps had released his pigship,
the latter had bowled the cobbler over.
Mr. Con Murphy possessed a vocabulary of most forceful and
picturesque words, well colored with the brogue he had brought on his
tongue from "the ould dart." Mr. Murphy's "Irish was up" and when he
got his breath, which the pig had well nigh knocked out of him, the
little old cobbler gave his unrestrained opinion of the power that had
shot the pig under the fence.
Ruth could not allow the occurrence to end without an explanation. She
ran to the fence and peered over.
"Oh, Mr. Murphy!" she cried. "You're not really hurt?"
"For the love av mercy!" ejaculated the cobbler. "Niver tell me that
youse was the one that pushed the pig through the fince that har-rd that
he kem near flyin' down me t'roat? Ye niver could have done it, Miss
Kenway--don't be tillin' me. Is it wan o' thim big Jarmyn guns youse
have got in there, that the pa-apers do be tillin' erbout?"
He was a comical looking old fellow at best, and out here at this early
hour, with only his trousers slipped on over his calico nightshirt, and
heelless slippers on his feet, he cut a curious figure indeed.
Mr. Con Murphy was a red-faced man, with a fringe of sandy whiskers
all around his countenance like a frame, having his lips, chin and
cheeks smoothly shaven. He had no family, lived alone in the cottage,
and worked very hard at his cobbler's bench.
"Why, Mr. Murphy!" cried Ruth. "Of course I didn't push your pig
through the fence."

"It was Billy Bumps," giggled Agnes.
"Who is that, thin?" demanded Mr. Murphy, glaring at Neale O'Neil.
"That young felley standin' there, I dunno?"
"No. I only cracked your pig over the nose with this fence paling," said
the boy. "I wonder you don't keep the pig at home."
"Oh, ye do, do ye?" cried the little