The harrowing experience that I now divulge might well be labeled—“Operation Loading Sow.” When I recall the incident I still become weak and a little nauseous. A pig had been included with the stock that came with the farm. For two long months, three times a day I had been carrying food to her, keeping her comfortable with fresh, dry straw and getting no thanks in return. I kept wondering—how long, oh Lord, how long can this continue? We had been advised by experts that she was much too fat to breed and also too fat to butcher. We had been hopeful of raising a litter of pigs so that we could get the larder stocked with our own produce as fast as possible. Our diet that first spring was very inadequate, we had no home canned foods or cured meats on the shelves and this made the planning of meals difficult. Due to the war the two of us did not have enough ration stamps to buy the meat, butter, sugar and nourishing foods that we sorely needed because of the hard work we were engaged in and the physical energy we were expending.
Our sow weighed in the neighborhood of five hundred pounds and as the days became warmer and there was the possibility of her being prostrated by the heat, and I wondered if we might lose her. One afternoon in June, while Al was ploughing on the farthest hillside, a truck drove into the yard and the driver asked whether “the boss” was around. I learned to get used to that phrase, because it was a stock one, but it never failed to irk me. He finally decided to ask me if we had anything to sell in the way of livestock. Immediately the hog came to mind and I thought this might well be the answer to my prayers. I escorted him to the pighouse and after carefully looking her over, he allowed that he would take her along. Soon his truck was backed up to the door ready for loading.
I trust that it will not become too controversial if I go on record here and now, that in my humble opinion there is no animal as contrary as a hog. This was something that I had not known previously, but of course I was quite inexperienced in loading hogs. Actually it took a few moments before I fully realized that we were definitely in trouble. This pig had no intention of walking up the tailgate ramp and into the waiting truck. Apparently she had become quite attached to her present home and did not plan on making a change, if she could help it. Finally I became really frightened when she sat down on her hind quarters, began to drool and show her long yellow tusks, all the while emitting squeals of rage. It was a very hot day, I pessimistically envisioned her prostrated with a heart attack or apoplexy—although at that point it was a toss up which one of us would succumb first!
The buyer whose patience was soon exhausted, reached for a tool known in the trade as a prodder. This, to the uninitiated, resembles a long walking stick equipped with a battery, which when pressed transmits an electric shock. In later years when we progressed to the hired man era I always thought that it would have been a worthwhile tool to have at hand. When this prodder was applied to the sow but to no avail, I suggested that we give her a breathing spell. I would get a pail of her favorite feed to try to coax her into the truck. As I hurried off on my mission of mercy he once more applied the shock-treatment, this time in conjunction with a few well-placed kicks and loud verbal abuse. When I returned with a brimming pail I found that I could not tempt her even though I exerted all of my wiles. Now we were both a bit disconsolate. Then he brightened, remembering, or so he said, that he had heard of occasions where a pig could be backed into a truck, rather than driven in. But, I asked logically, how was one to get five hundred pounds of infuriated porker turned around? At that, realizing that we were back where we had started, with a loud oath and without reservation the prodder was again applied. The squeals now reached a crescendo that echoed and re-echoed through the Caroline hills. I became petrified. What had seemed like such a good stroke of business just a short time ago was fast becoming a disaster—and I knew that if anything happened to Al’s sow, I was as good as dead too!
Fortunately my co-worker then had a brain wave. He noticed a bushel basket hanging on a peg on the wall and reaching for it he quickly clapped it over the pig’s head. Holding fast and with a mighty shout he urged her up the ramp. Caught off guard and probably having tired of the game, she used the last of her strength to waddle into the truck, and with a long sigh collapsed on the floor. The tailgate was flung shut and securely bolted and I knew then that I was safe.
After mopping his sweat-streaked face and indulging in considerable grumbling, he carefully counted out thirty-five one dollar bills and handed them to me, remarking that he hoped he would not have many such days or he certainly would go broke. Climbing into his truck he drove from the yard.
I staggered to a nearby fence and leaned wearily against it. Waves of relief, then of fury alternately engulfed me. Relief that the pig was sold and gone and that I had the proof clutched firmly in my sweating, dirty palm, and then fury that I had been called upon to handle this episode alone. As I gradually regained my strength the poem by James Russell Lowell that I had committed to memory in grade school came back to haunt me. The words now seemed slightly ludicrous—”What is so rare as a day in June—then if ever come perfect days.” Laughing hysterically I hurried inside the house, placed the hard earned money securely in the sugar bowl and trotted up the barn hill to start the evening chores.
When Al came from the field that evening I couldn’t wait to tell him of my afternoon’s work—and then he beat me to the punch! Rather sheepishly he told me that he had been aware of the whole production, complete with the noise, the squeals, the shouts and that he had realized that I must be selling and loading the sow. The sounds had travelled far and wide, up hill and down dale. He congratulated me on a job well done and I knew then that I had learned another important lesson. My afternoon’s experience exemplified the meaning of the word partnership on a farm. Each must willingly pull his weight with no time for recriminations or weaklings. It was my first and last experience in trying to reason with a hog.