This , however , was all too good to last . A man is bound to have some troubles in this life , and Harrington 's were near their beginning when Perry Hayden bought the adjoining farm from the heirs of Shakespeare Ely , deceased , and moved in . To be sure , Perry Hayden , poor fellow , did not bother Harrington much , for he died of pneumonia a month after he came there , but his widow carried on the farm with the assistance of a lank hired boy . Her own children , Charles and Theodore , commonly known as Bobbles and Ted , were as yet little more than babies . The real trouble began when Mary Hayden 's pigs , fourteen in number and of half-grown voracity , got into Harrington 's garden . A railing , a fir grove , and an apple orchard separated the two establishments , but these failed to keep the pigs within bounds . Harrington had just got his garden planted for the season , and to go out one morning and find a horde of enterprising porkers rooting about in it was , to put it mildly , trying . He was angry , but as it was a first offence he drove the pigs out with tolerable calmness , mended the fence , and spent the rest of the day repairing damages . Three days later the pigs got in again . Harrington relieved his mind by some scathing reflections on women who tried to run farms . Then he sent Mordecai , his hired man , over to the Hayden place to ask Mrs. Hayden if she would be kind enough to keep her pigs out of his garden . Mrs. Hayden sent back word that she was very sorry and would not let it occur again . Nobody , not even John Harrington , could doubt that she meant what she said . But she had reckoned without the pigs . They had not forgotten the flavour of Egyptian fleshpots as represented by the succulent young shoots in the Harrington domains . A week later Mordecai came in and told Harrington that `` them notorious pigs '' were in his garden again . There is a limit to everyone 's patience . Harrington left Mordecai to drive them out , while he put on his hat and stalked over to the Haydens ' place . Ted and Bobbles were playing at marbles in the lane and ran when they saw him coming . He got close up to the little low house among the apple trees before Mordecai appeared in the yard , driving the pigs around the barn .
Mrs. Hayden was sitting XXXXX her doorstep , paring her dinner potatoes , and stood up hastily when she saw her visitor .
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