But naturally the most interesting of pigs could not occupy all her time. Bony was young and he craved 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 helping 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," qualified Sarah, hastily, having no mind to be tied down to domestic duties while someone else played. "Kitty is in bed," said Louisa severely. "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!" shrilled 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 nervously. "Kenneth must have stopped rocking her." At that moment Kenneth appeared in the kitchen doorway, looking distinctly cross. "I don't see why I always have to rock the baby!" he grumbled. "Alec wants me to stake Dora down by the brook 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 soothing 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," confided 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.