had heard it so often she was rather tired of it. "Who lives in the house beyond that?"

"The seven little kids. A wolf really did swallow them once, but their mother cut him open with her scissors while he was asleep and they all got out."

"And who lives in the little furry house with the chimneys like pointed ears?"

"An old cat. She's nothing but a rhyme. She's very particular, though. Why, one time she was just as mad at her kittens, just because they lost some mittens she had knitted for them."

So Middling went on talking of all the people who lived in the village, while Ellen listened and wondered. It seemed so strange she could hardly believe it was all true.

"What fun you must have together!" she said at last.

The pigs looked at each other and grunted. "We would have," said a slim pig that the others called Ringling, "if it wasn't for an old goat that lives in a cave down at the end of the street."

"Oh, but he's a naughty one," broke in Thumbie, the fattest pig. "He's always doing mischief and playing tricks on us."

"That was a bad trick he played on you, Thumbie," said Middling.

"What was that?" asked the little girl.

"Well, we were all away except Thumbie, and he was asleep in the doorway, and the old goat saw him and brought a paint pot and painted his back so it looked like a big fat face lying there. So when we came home we didn't know what it was, and we were scared, but Thumbie woke up and began to get up, and Ringling she squeaked, 'Run! run! Big face is after us,' so we all began to run. Thumbie he saw us all running, so he got scared too, and he ran after us, and the faster we ran the faster he ran. After a while he tripped and fell, and then he began to cry and we knew who it was."

"Oh, yes, he's as mean as mean can be," went on Middling. "Why, one time when our raspberries were ripe old Shave-head came here—"

"Who's Shave-head?" interrupted Ellen.

"Oh, he's the goat. Old Shave-head came here and asked if he couldn't have some of our raspberries, and we said yes he could if he'd give us a present, and he said he would, so he went home and brought a big pannikin and put it on the table. It was covered.

"Then he went out in the garden and began to pick raspberries as fast as ever he could.

"We all sat round and wondered what was in the pannikin.

"Littlesie guessed it was acorns, and Thumbie thought it was apple parings, and I thought it was pancakes because it was in a pannikin."

"And what was it?" asked Ellen, very much interested.

"Well, it was a joke," said Middling slowly. "He'd fixed up a sort of big jumping-jack inside, and when we took off the lid it jumped out at us and said, 'Woof!' It scared us so we all squeaked and jumped back in our chairs, and the chairs upset and down we came, clatterly-slam-bang!"

Ellen could not help laughing at that.

"He painted all our dolls, too," said Fatty, "and almost spoiled them."

"Have you dolls?" cried Ellen in surprise.

"Oh, yes, indeed. I'll show them to you," and Thumbie ran into the house to get them. When he brought them out Ellen thought they were the cunningest little things for dolls that she had ever seen. They were little wooden pigs just like the real pigs themselves only very small. But they were painted in the funniest way. One was bright purple with a yellow nose, and one was pea-green with red legs, another was sky-blue spotted all over with pink, and the other two were just as funny-looking.

After Ellen had looked at them she asked, "Did the goat paint them that way?"

"Yes, he did, and I think it's real mean." It was Middling who answered.

"What are some of the other tricks he plays?"

Middling thought awhile. "I don't remember any more."

"There was that Fourth-o'-July trick he played on the mother of the seven kids," suggested Ringling.

"Oh, yes. That was mean too; she's so good. She bakes us cookies sometimes and then she gives the old goat some. She's always good to him and nobody likes him either."

"What was the trick?"

"He took torpedoes and put them all down the path at the Mother Goat's. It was a gravel path, and she thought the torpedoes were just part of it. Fourth-o'-July morning she came out to get a pail of water and when she struck a torpedo with her hard hoof it went off, bang! It scared her so she jumped up in the air, and when she came down it was on some more torpedoes. Bang! bang! they went. Every time she made a leap and came down some more torpedoes went off. Mother Goat was so scared she went to bed for all the rest of the day, and it was Fourth-o'-July, too. I just wish we could drive him away."

"So do we," cried all the other pigs. "Then we'd be happy. He's just an ugly old baldhead, anyway."

"I never saw a bald goat," said Ellen.

"His master shaved him," said Ringling, "he was so bad."

"Why? What did he do?"

"Well, his master had three sons, and he sent them one at a time to take the goat out to pasture. Every time before the boy brought the goat home he would ask, 'Goat, have you had enough?' And the goat would answer:

Then the boy would bring him home and put him in the stable. But the father always wanted to be sure his goat had had enough, so he would go out himself and say, 'Goat have you had enough to-day?' Then it would answer:

It made the father so angry to think his sons should have treated the goat that way that he drove them away from home."

"I know," Ellen interrupted. "Then when the father found out that the goat had deceived him and made him send his sons away—"

"He shaved the goat's head and drove it away with a yard-stick," cried Middling, raising his voice. He wanted to tell the story himself. "Then it hid in a bear's cave—"

"I know."

"And the bear was afraid to go home, for he could just see the goat's eyes shining in the cave and he didn't know what it was, and he was afraid to go in; but a bee said it would see, so it went in and stung the goat on the head and then the goat jumped out of the cave and ran till it came here, and I do wish somebody would take it away."

"I would," said Ellen, "if I knew where to take it." She was not afraid of the goat, for she had a pet one at home that drew a little wagon.

Littlesie, who had finished his roast beef and had come to the door, looked frightened. "You couldn't," he cried. "Why Baldhead would butt you right over if you tried to touch him."

"Mistress," said the white gander, "I know how you could make the goat go away."

"How?" asked Ellen.

Then the gander told his plan, while Ellen and all the five pigs listened.

"Good, good," cried the pigs when they had heard it, and they clapped their hoofs and leaped up into the air.

Ellen, too, thought it a good plan and said she would do everything as the gander told her.

The pigs showed her where the goat lived, and then they ran back home,