"Here I am, papa!" he cried.

"Clare," exclaimed his father, "what a mess you have made of
yourself!"

"I gave them your compliments," answered the boy, as he scrambled over
the fence with his father's assistance, "and asked them if I might
stay with them till you were ready. They said yes, and invited me
in. I went in; and we've been having such games! They were very kind
to me."

His father turned involuntarily and looked into the sty. There stood
all the pigs in a row, gazing after the boy, and looking as sorry as
their thick skins and bony snouts would let them. Their mother rose in
a ridge behind them, gazing too. Mr. Skymer always spoke of pigs as
about the most intelligent animals in the world.

I do not know when or where or how his love of the animals began, for
he could not tell me. If it began with the pigs, it was far from
ending with them.

The next day he asked his father if he might go and call upon the
pigs.

"Have you forgotten, Clare," said his mother, "what a job Susan and I
had with your clothes? I wonder still how you could have done such a
thing! They were quite filthy. When I saw you, I had half a mind to
put you in a bath, clothes and all. I doubt if they are sweet yet!"

"Oh, yes, they are, indeed, mamma!" returned Clare; "and you know I