The entire household was startled to be awakened¹ at three o'clock the next morning by the mad ringing of an alarm clock. Shirley wept, Mrs. Willis and Rosemary were sure it was the telephone and Winnie scolded vigorously and, still scolding, traced the noise to Sarah's bed.  
Sure enough, the clock was there and Sarah admitted that she had set it.
 
"I wanted to be sure and get up early," she explained. "I have to get my pig and go and see the Gay family."
 
But she further conceded that she had not meant to rise at the witching hour of three A. M. Her intention had been to set the alarm for half-past five and her mistake was due to the fact that she had not set an alarm clock before.
 
"And never will again," commented Winnie, bearing the offending clock away with her for safe-keeping. "Not if I have anything to say, will you ever touch an alarm clock."
 
Breakfast was half an hour later than usual, in consequence of this performance, and Sarah was in a fever of impatience³ to reach the pig pens. When finally excused from the table, she shot through the door and was back before her mother and sisters had left the dining-room.
 
Loud sounds of altercation⁴ in the kitchen proclaimed her return.
 
"You can't bring that in here—go away, Sarah Willis!" came Winnie's voice. "Where did you get that dirty beast?"
 
"He's mine—he's a pig," countered Sarah, who always assumed that Winnie was intensely ignorant in matters of natural history. "Mr. Hildreth gave him to me."
 
There was the noise of a scuffle, the slam of a door and then Sarah's wail⁵:
 
"Oh, you've hurt him! And he's sick—you're the most cruel woman I ever knew and I'll tell Mother so!"
 
Mrs. Willis opened the swinging door into the kitchen and Rosemary and Shirley pressed close behind her. Sarah stood on the back porch, a young pig in her arms, and Winnie occupied the center of the kitchen floor.
 
"We don't keep our pigs in the parlor—not in this house," said Winnie firmly. "Nor yet in the kitchen—as long as I'm in it."
 
Rosemary thought then, as she had often thought before, how easily her mother settled differences and with how few words. It took scarcely five minutes for Mrs. Willis to examine the pig and praise his possibilities to Sarah; to suggest a comfortable box in the woodshed as his logical home—where he might have fresh air in abundance and yet be close to Sarah if he needed her attention; and to enlist⁶ the sympathies of Winnie—whose bark was always loud and whose bite had never materialized yet—to the extent that she provided a piece of soft flannel⁷ to line the box and warm milk to comfort the interior of the little pig.
 
His pigship was a runt, as Mr. Hildreth had said, and deprived of his fair share of nourishment⁸ was bony and far from prepossessing. Rosemary had no desire to touch him, but Shirley was fascinated and she and Sarah put him to bed in the box and covered him up with all the care and devotion they had hitherto showered on dolls. As Richard observed, when he came to tell them he was starting for the Gay farm, even a pig could be killed by kindness.
 
"Mother said she'd get me a bottle for him," babbled⁹ Sarah as she emerged clean and damp from Winnie's polishing and joined Richard on the step. "Hugh is going to take her to Bennington this morning and she'll buy it then. And I can bring him up by hand and teach him tricks. His name is—what is a good name for him, Richard?"
 
"Napoleon Bonaparte," supplied Richard with mischievous¹⁰ promptness. "You can call him 'Bony' for short, you know."
 
The practicality of this suggestion charmed Sarah beyond words, and the pig was immediately christened. "Bony" he became in that hour and "Bony" he remained, with the use of his full name on state occasions, long after he was as plump as any of his more fortunate brothers and sisters.
 
"Where do the Gays live?" asked Rosemary, when she and Shirley had joined the two sponsors and they were all walking over the field that led to the back road.
 
"Their land joins Rainbow Hill," returned Richard, "and if I had my way, we'd be better neighbors. The Gays are hard up and proud and the Hildreths are busy and like to keep to themselves. I don't know now whether Louisa and Alec will be glad to see me bringing three strangers to meet 'em, but my honest opinion is they need someone to say 'Hello' and be friendly without prying¹¹."
 
Rosemary looked at him speculatively¹².
 
"Perhaps Mother had better go to see Mrs. Gay first," she suggested, with a little touch of her mother's own generalship.
 
"There isn't any Mrs. Gay," said Richard soberly. "They're orphans¹³—all six of 'em. And Warren and I have it figured out that grown people frighten them—Louisa and Alec shut up like clams¹⁵ when they meet anyone in town. They won't think you and Sarah and Shirley mean to boss their affairs. Maybe they'll be friends with you."
 
The three girls drew closer to Richard as they approached a tumbled-down fence. Six year old Shirley expressed, in a measure, their feelings when she stopped Richard as he attempted to lift her over, with the observation that she had never seen an orphan¹⁴.
 
"An orphan hasn't any mother or father, you know, Shirley," said Richard, smiling. "You'll find Kitty Gay a little girl very much like yourself. Show her how lovely a little girl named Shirley Willis can be."
 
"We'll know eight orphans then, in a minute," declared Sarah, her statistical¹⁶ min............