Sarah continued to bathe her pig every day. In fact she omitted no slightest detail that could contribute to his health and comfort; and the amount of care and affection she lavished¹ on "that porker," as Mr. Hildreth referred to Bony, would have amazed anyone unacquainted with Sarah's trait of exceeding thoroughness. Whatever she found to do—providing it was to her liking—this small girl did with all her might.  
But naturally the most interesting of pigs could not occupy all her time. Bony was young and he craved² sleep. It was during his rest periods that Sarah would consent to accompany her sisters to the Gay farm. Once there, she was like the boy who, led protestingly to the party, had to be dragged home.
 
"Oh, dear, I'm sorry you have to find the house in such a mess," Louisa Gay apologized one morning, across the table filled with dirty dishes and pots and pans piled high in confusion. "I was helping³ Alec in the field all day yesterday and just let the dishes pile up. This morning I meant to wash everything in sight—I was too tired to touch a plate last night."
 
"We'll help," said Rosemary sympathetically. She knew that the four younger Gays were forbidden to light a fire in Louisa's absence—she and Alec were most strict about this—and that, for this reason, they could not heat water and wash the dishes for their sister.
 
"We'll help," repeated Rosemary cheerfully. "I have washed tons of dishes in cooking class; and Sarah will dry them for us."
 
"I will, if Kitty will," qualified⁴ Sarah, hastily, having no mind to be tied down to domestic duties while someone else played.
 
"Kitty is in bed," said Louisa severely⁵. "I told her to make the beds yesterday and she never touched one. She said she forgot. So now she has to stay in bed till dinner time to make her remember."
 
"I'm going to get up now, Louisa!" shrilled⁶ the wrathful voice of Kitty from the upstairs hall.
 
"You go back to bed and stay there, till I tell you you can get up," directed Louisa. "Unless you want to be locked in your room and your dinner."
 
Kitty retreated—they heard the door of room slam—and Louisa went on with her plate scraping.
 
"There's the baby!" Louisa started nervously⁷. "Kenneth must have stopped rocking her."
 
At that moment Kenneth appeared in the kitchen doorway⁹, looking distinctly cross.
 
"I don't see why I always have to rock the baby!" he grumbled¹⁰. "Alec wants me to stake Dora down by the brook¹¹ and when am I going to get any time to help him if I have to keep June quiet?"
 
"Let me rock her," said Shirley. "I can rock just as nice—can't I, Rosemary?"
 
"Well, I think you could," admitted Rosemary, smiling. "You must touch the cradle very gently, you know, Shirley—don't rock June as though she were in a boat at sea."
 
She went in to the darkened room off the kitchen with Shirley and showed her how to sway the old-fashioned cradle with a soothing¹² motion. When she came back to Louisa, Kenneth had disappeared and Sarah with him.
 
"I declare, sometimes I get so discouraged, I don't know what to do," confided¹³ Louisa, filling the heavy tea kettle at the sink and lifting it to the stove. "We do everything the wrong way and yet I don't see where we can take time to do them any better.
 
"For instance, there's June. I know she shouldn't be rocked to sleep—but the one day I tried to break her of the habit and make her go to sleep quietly by herself, I didn't get a thing done. The other children got into mischief¹⁴, Alec was hurt trying to pitch hay and manage the team without help and, after all, June didn't learn a thing. She acted worse the next day, so I had to give it up and go back to the cradle rocking."
 
"I suppose it is hard because she is used to the cradle now," said Rosemary, busily clearing a place on the table for the clean dishes.
 
"Yes, that's the reason," agreed Louisa. "And we spend a lot of time staking Dora around in different places—she was in the front yard that day you came over with Richard. She was there because the front yard has the one decent piece of fencing left on the farm. She would give more milk if we could let her go free in the pasture—but Kenneth has to stake her with a staple¹⁵ and rope because the fences are so poor—where there are any—that the only way to keep her home is to tie her."
 
"You're tired," said Rosemary quickly. "You worked too hard yesterday, Louisa. I wish you'd go off somewhere—find a nice, cool place—and rest; I'll do these dishes."
 
Louisa did look tired. More than that, she looked discouraged. She had not taken pains to brush her hair as carefully as usual and it was "slicked back" in the tightest possible knot. Her dress was perfectly¹⁶ clean, but so faded and mended that it would have taken a merry-hearted girl to have been quite happy in it. Louisa was far from merry-hearted.
 
"But the potatoes will bring in some money, won't they?" urged Rosemary, who now knew a great deal about the Gay finances.
 
"They will, if they're not all sunburned, before Alec gets them into the barn," responded Louisa gloomily, pouring hot water over a pan of dishes. "Last year the yield was poor, too. Ken⁸ and Jim try to help, but neither Alec nor I can bear to keep such little boys working in the hot sun all day long. It isn't right."
 
Louisa was not given to complaint and Rosemary guessed something of the pressure the slender shoulders must be enduring.
 
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