Wilbur shrank back . `` Not to Mr. Robins , '' he said piteously . `` Oh , not there , Aunt Cynthia ! '' Them Notorious Pigs John Harrington was a woman-hater , or thought that he was , which amounts to the same thing . He was forty-five and , having been handsome in his youth , was a fine-looking man still . He had a remarkably good farm and was a remarkably good farmer . He also had a garden which was the pride and delight of his heart or , at least , it was before Mrs. Hayden 's pigs got into it . Sarah King , Harrington 's aunt and housekeeper , was deaf and crabbed , and very few visitors ever came to the house . This suited Harrington . He was a good citizen and did his duty by the community , but his bump of sociability was undeveloped . He was also a contented man , looking after his farm , improving his stock , and experimenting with new bulbs in undisturbed serenity . 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 XXXXX run farms .
as at before by from in than to with within