After marie left, Claire put on her boots and hat and headed out of the house. She heard some loud laughter from hoesa and Tristan.

Uh oh. They must be giving Austin a hard time. She followed the sound of their laughter to the pig pen and saw her three brothers howling at the hilarious sight of Austin , wearing Hosea‟s overalls and coat, trying to pour the pigs‟ food into the

trough in the pig pen without getting any snow, mud or slop on him. She hid her own grin.

Austin was bravely handling the situation but she could tell that being around all the filth was disturbing him. He‟ll be taking another bath tonight.

"Watch out, Austin , here comes big, old, cranky Claire!"

Hosea warned. At first, Claire thought they were talking about her but relaxed as soon as she saw the large sow run to the trough.

Theother two pigs followed her.

"Hurry up and dump the slop before she runs you over!"

Tristan yelled.

Austin anxiously tried to dump the rest of the food into the trough without getting any on him.

"He‟s not going to make it!" Jaime grinned excitedly.

Pig Claire oinked impatiently at him and bumped into him.

He lost his balance and fell into the mud and snow. The bucket of remaining slop fell to the ground and rolled away from him.

He quickly rolled over to avoid getting trampled by the three pigs.

Even Claire had trouble not laughing at the scene, but she felt sorry for Austin. She quickly went to the barn and hopped

bareback on Trouble and ran the horse towards the three pranksters. She knew Trouble would knock them all into the pig

pen, and they knew it too.

Jamie glanced over his shoulder and

saw her speeding towards them on the horse.

"Run!" Jaime yelled.

Her other two brothers looked over, and as soon as they saw her, they jumped into the pig pen to avoid getting run into by Trouble.

She quickly pulled Trouble to a stop and grinned in satisfaction as Pig Claire ran up to the two troublemakers and stepped all over them to get to the remaining slop in the bucket that was right by them.

"You just watch out, Claire. You‟re next!" hoesa called out.

"Ha! As if you can get me. I know all your tricks," she retorted and nudged Trouble back to the barn.

_-------------------------------------

Much love

V.A 💙