“Heathens?” said I.  “If you call the Arabians heathens, who have the finest horses in the world, and wouldn’t any more think of cutting off their tails than they would think of cutting their legs off; and if you call the cruel scoundrels who torture their poor horses by sawing their bones apart so as to get a little stuck-up bob on behind, like a moth-eaten paint-brush—­if you call them Christians, then I suppose you’re right.  There is a law in some parts of our country against the wickedness of chopping off the tails of live horses, and if you had such a law here you’d be a good deal more Christian-like than you are, to say nothing of getting credit for decent taste.”

By this time I had forgotten all about what Jone and I had agreed upon as to arguing over the differences between countries, and I was just as peppery as a wasp.  The young woman at the other end of the gate was rather waspy too, for she seemed to want to sting me wherever she could find a spot uncovered; and now she dropped off her horses’ tails, and began to laugh until her face got purple.

“You Americans are so awfully odd,” she said.  “You say you raise your corn and your plants instead of growing them.  It nearly makes me die laughing when I hear one of you Americans say raise when you mean grow.”

Now Jone and me had some talk about growing and raising, and the reasons for and against our way of using the words; but I was ready to throw all this to the winds, and was just about to tell the impudent young woman that we raised our plants just the same as we raised our children, leaving them to do their own growing, when the young woman in the middle of the three, who up to this time hadn’t said a word, screamed out: 

[Illustration:  “AND WITH A SCREECH I DASHED AT THOSE HOGS LIKE A STEAM ENGINE”]

“Oh, dear!  Oh, dear!  He’s pulled out my drawing of Wilton Bridge.  He’ll eat it up.  Oh, dear!  Oh, dear!  Whatever shall I do?”

Instead of speaking I turned quick and looked at the hogs, and there, sure enough, one of them had rooted open a portfolio and had hold of the corners of a colored picture, which, from where I sat, I could see was perfectly beautiful.  The sky and the trees and the water was just like what we ourselves had seen a little while ago, and in about half a minute that hog would chew it up and swallow it.

The young woman next to me had an umbrella in her hand.  I made a snatch at this and dropped off that gate like a shot.  I didn’t stop to think about anything except that beautiful picture was on the point of being swallowed up, and with a screech I dashed at those hogs like a steam engine.  When they saw me coming with my screech and the umbrella they didn’t stop a second, but with three great wiggles and three scared grunts they bolted as fast as they could go.  I picked up the picture of the bridge, together with the portfolio, and took them to the young woman who owned them.  As the hogs had gone, all three of the women was now getting down from the gate.