“Go get a squirrel,” she said, smiling.
Inside the house, I took the .22 rifle off the lintel over the fireplace, dropped some cartridges in my pocket, and went back outside. I should of been happy, going squirrel hunting, but I just wasn’t.
There was a stand of hickory trees up on the west end of the ridge, on the yonder side of the spar mine. Now that it was autumn, the walnuts would be ripe and eaten. As I climbed up the ridge, I started searching the trees for a gray, a big fat one with a full paunch.
High in a nearby pin oak, there was a round brown ball of dead leaves and twigs. There was no movement near it, but I stood soldier still and waited. My eyes rolled into the tops of the other trees, but saw nothing. There just wasn’t a gray squirrel to be had. I walked up and into the trees, and sat on a stump. Looking down across the valley, it was yellow with goldenrod. Like somebody broke eggs all over the hillside.
Then I heard him! He was just over my head, sitting flat on a branch, twitching his long gray brush of a tail. And making that scolding squirrel chip-chip-chip-chip-chip sort of a sound. Sassy as salt. A round was already in the chamber. Raising the gun, I put the black bead of the front sight deep in the V-notch of the rear sight. The bead was just behind his ear when I squeezed the trigger.
It was like he was yanked off the limb by a rope. He fell kicking into a mess of leaves and brush, and when I got to him he was still twisting. Holding his back legs, I swung his body against the trunk of a sweet gum tree. His spine cracked, and he was dead.
Back on the kitchen stoop, I took a knife and cut open his belly. I was right careful not to cut the paunch. Removing the warm wet sack, I brought it into the kitchen, and washed it under the sink pump. Mama had a clean white linen hanky ready. I lanced the paunch and we emptied all the chewed-up nutmeats on it, spreading them out so they’d dry. Mama put the hanky up in the warming oven above the stove.
I couldn’t see the chocolate cake, but it had to be around somewheres. If there was no cake, Mama wouldn’t of wanted a gray. Outside, I cut up the rest of the squirrel and threw it to the chickens. They fought over the big hunks, and the larger hens bulled the weaker ones away. The scrawny ones got nothing. I was thinking about that, when Papa come up behind me. We watched the matron hens eat, while the runts just watched.
“It isn’t fair, is it, Papa?”
“Rob, it ain’t a fair world.”
“How are the apples doing? You think it’s time we picked?”
“Two more days,” Papa said. “They ain’t good this year, and we can’t let any drop. The spanner worms were so heavy last June, it ate up lots of the buds.”
“We smoked, Papa.”
“That we did. But maybe the mix was wrong. Tell me again, boy, what you did.”
“Just like you said, Pa. It was last May when I scraped all the black ash off the inside of the fireplace and the cookstove. I mixed in the quicklime, and split it up so’s I could put a pile of it under every apple tree in the orchard.”
“How many?”
“Eighteen. We lost one to winter.”
“You add the water to the mix like I told you?”
“Yes, Papa. I threw about a cup on each pile and the mix hissed up real good. It really smoked up proper.”
“Was it windy?”
“Come to think, it was. Some of the vapors got blowed away.”
“Boy, you got to put ash and lime always windward to the tree. Test the breeze for each tree. Currents are strange in an orchard.”
“I did it wrong. That’s why the spanners were so numbered.”
“You’ll do right next spring, Rob. Just take time with things. One chore done good beats two done ragged.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can always look to how a farm is tended and know the farmer. Ever see Brother Tanner’s place?”
“Sure. Lots of times.”
“I don’t mean just see it. I mean to study it. His fence is straight and white as virtue. All the critters are clean. Mark how he cuts his hay. Ain’t no truer windrow in all of Learning.”
“He’s a good farmer,” I said.
“He’ll walk to his barn at six and six. You could set a clock at the first chime of milk that hits the pail.”
“Is he a better farmer than you, Papa?”
“Yes. He bests me at it. He wouldn’t say to my face. But he knows and I know, and there’s not a use in wording it.”
“I don’t want to grow up to be like Mr. Tanner. I want to be like you, Papa.”
“I wouldn’t wish that on a dead cat.”
“I do, Papa. And I will. I’ll be just like you.”
“No, boy, you won’t. You have your schooling. You’ll read and write and cipher. And when you spray that orchard, you’ll use the new things.”
“Chemicals?”
“True. And you’ll have more than farming to do. You won’t have to leave your land to kill another man’s hogs, and then ask for the grind meat with your hat in your hand.”
“But you’re a good butcher, Papa. Even Mr. Tanner said you were the best in the county.”
“He say that?”
“Honest, Papa. He said he could look at half a pork and tell it was you that boiled and scraped it. He said you even had your own trade mark. When you kill pork and twain it, head to rump, you always do what no other man does. You even divide the tail, and half it right to the end. He said this on the way to Rutland.”
“I’m sure glad to be famed for something.”
“Supper’s on!” Mama called out from the kitchen. “You two menfolk intend to stand all evening and preach to the hens?”
“With only one rooster,” Papa yelled up to her, “I doubt they need much preaching.”
Mama laughed, and went inside. We followed, after washing up proper at the pump. Papa put his hand on my shoulder as we walked up to the house.
“Try an’ try,” he said, “but when it comes day’s end, I can’t wash the pig off me. And your mother never complains. Not once, in all these years, has she ever said that I smell strong. I said once to her that I was sorry.”
“What did Mama say?”
“She said I smelled of honest work, and that there was no sorry to be said or heard.”
We had a good supper, with hot biscuit and honey. And after, we had chocolate cake. The nut-meats that we’d took out of the squirrel were dry. Aunt Carrie took ’em out the warming oven and sprinkled them on top of the cake. Like little white stars in a big brown heaven. And I got cut a slice of that cake that even Solomon couldn’t of moved.
Later, after chores and dishes were done, Mama and Aunt Carrie were talking in the kitchen. Papa and I sat in the parlor near the fireplace. We’d had a fire going earlier, but now it was dying down. Ready for bed, like people. Cold weather was coming, and coming for sure. But it felt good to have a fire in the hearth, and it was sure a grand thing to look at while you talked.
Papa said once that wood heats you three times. When you cut it, haul it, and burn it.
“Winter’s coming, Papa.”
“True enough.”
“I think I may need a new winter coat.”
“Better speak to your mother to start stitching.”
“I want a store coat. I need one.”
“So do I. But one thing to learn, Rob, is this. Need is a weak word. Has nothing to do with what people get. Ain’t what you need that matters. It’s what you do. And your mother’ll do you a coat.”
“Just once,” I said. “Just one time I’d hanker for a store-bought coat. A red and black buffalo plaid checkerboard coat, just like Jacob Henry’s. Just once I’d like to walk in the General Store with money in my pocket and touch all them coats. Every one. Touch ’em all and smell all the new that’s in ’em. Like new boots.”
“That would be fine. Real fine,” Papa said.
“Jacob Henry said that in one store in Learning they let you wear all the coats you want before you buy one. And you can put on any coat you want and
walk around the store in it, even if you don’t buy it. But you know what I’d do. I’d buy a red and black one, like Jacob Henry’s. It would be my coat forever, and I’d never wear it out.”
“Reckon you’d outgrow it before you outwear it.”
“Probably would. But I sure do want a coat like that. Why do we have to be Plain People? Why do we, Papa?”
“Because we are.”
“I guess I’ll never have a coat like that. Can I?”
“You can. When you earn one. You’ll be a man one day. One day soon.”
“Someday,” I said.
“It can’t be someday, Rob. It’s got to be now. This winter. Your sisters are gone, all four are wedded and bedded. Your two brothers are dead. Born dead and grounded in our orchard. So it’s got to be you, Rob.”
“Why are you saying this, Papa?”
“Because, son. Because this is my last winter. I got an affection, I know I do.”
“You seen Doc Knapp?”
“No need. All things end, and so it goes.”
“No, Papa. Don’t say that.”
“Listen, Rob. Listen, boy. I tell you true. You got to face up to it. You can’t be a boy about it.”
“Papa, Papa …”
“You are not to say this to your mother, or to Carrie. But from now on, you got to listen how to run this farm. We got five years to go on it, and the land is ours. Lock and stock. Five years to pay off. And you’ll be through school by then.”
“I’ll quit school and work the farm.”
“No you won’t. You stay and get schooled. Get all the teaching you can hold.”
I got up from the chair I was in so as I could be near him. I touched the sleeve of his shirt and felt his whole body stiffen. He looked away as he spoke.
“It’s got to be you, Rob. Your mother and Carrie can’t do it alone. Come spring, you aren’t the boy of the place. You’re the man. A man of thirteen. But no less a man. And whatever has to be done on this land, it’s got to be did by you, Rob. Because there’ll be nobody else, boy. Just you.”
“Papa, no.”
“It can’t be no longer your mother and Carrie taking care of you. Soon you got to care for them. They’re old, too. Years of work’s done that. Your ma’s not young anymore, and Carrie is near seventy.”
“Seventy?”
“Yes, boy. So to short the story, I could be wrong. But I feel like it’s over for me soon. Animals know when. And I reckon I’m more beast than man.”
I didn’t believe it, and I couldn’t say anything. I just hoped he’d reach out and touch me or kiss me or something. But he just got up from his chair, wrapped a hot rock from the fireplace in a sack for his bed, and went upstairs. Mama and Aunt Carrie had left the kitchen and gone up, too. The parlor was still and dark.
I sat watching the red cinders turn gray. I stayed there until the fire died. So it would not have to die alone.
Chapter
13
October came, with colors as pretty as laundry on a line. Then it was November, and on dark mornings on the way to the barn to milk Daisy, I thought the air would snap my lungs.
For weeks, Papa had looked at Pinky every day. He even said I should feed her some new food, and to mix some meat scraps into her mash. Enough to turn her wild and make her heat. But there was no estrus. No sign of Pinky coming to age. I saw Mr. Tanner up on the ridge with his Purdy, gunning for grouse. And so I told him about my pig, and that there was no estrus. No heat. I asked him if he thought Pinky was barren. He said he’d stop over next morning.
He did. I was hardly through chores when I heard the rattle of an oxcart coming down the road. It was Bob and Bib, and were they ever growed! Behind him as he sat, the wagon sides were slatted up and I couldn’t see what was inside. As he turned in, I ran out to meet him.
“Morning, Brother,” I said.
“Morning, Robert. Fine day.”
I looked between the cart slats and there he was, the finest boar in the county. Big and mean and all male. No one could of ever eat him. His ham would of been strong as tree bark, and full of tack.
“Where’s your gilt?” Mr. Tanner asked.
“Around back,” I said, pointing to where we kept Pinky.
“Your pa home?”
“No,” I said. “He left early. November is a busy time for his work.”
“No matter,” said Ben Tanner. “The reason why of it is this. Perhaps your pig is barren, perhaps no. Sometimes a girl just has to be coaxed and courted. You and I can’t get Pinky to heat, because to her eyes we’re not that handsome. But wait until she gets a smell of Samson. He can smell heat when we can’t. And if he does, she’ll change her tune.”
We backed the oxcart to the small box pen, and put a ramp up for Samson. Removing the slats with Mr. Tanner, I got a look at that boar for the first time. He must have weighed four or even five hundred, and he was one big Poland. Mr. Tanner gave him a prod and he left the cart walking down the ramp like a king. In his nose, the big brass ring caught the sun and it shined real bright.
“All my sows are farrowed, so he’ll be more than happy to help. He’s been in a pen by his lonesome longer than a week. And he’s due.”
I went around back and called Pinky. But she wouldn’t come, and she was too darn big to push, so I had to take a small switch to her. I swatted her good and proper all the way to the box pen, and in she went to mix with Samson. As she walked through the gate, Ben slapped a handful of lard on her rump. Under her tail.
Pinky was large. But next to him, she looked only about half growed. She just looked at him, her nose close to the ground like it always was, trying to get a smell that would tell her what he was. Her rump had been dry as dust, but that didn’t mean that it couldn’t heat.
Samson grunted. He walked to her and pushed her with his nose. She let him push her like that once more, then she backed away from him. He walked to her and by her, rubbing his shoulder against hers. He tried to smell her rump, but she bolted, kicking away at him with her hind feet. Several times he tried to get a good whiff of her, but she wasn’t holding still for it. Turning on him she got her teeth onto his ear and tore its edge before Mr. Tanner could whack her a sharp blow with his stick.
“All part of courting,” said he. “Samson just got his face slapped. That’s all.”
The two hogs just stood there looking at each other, not doing anything. That’s when Ben Tanner lit up his pipe.
“Your father,” he said. “How’s his health?”
He asked the question real easy, like it didn’t matter none. But I knew it did. Ben Tanner looked at me when I didn’t say up, and he wanted an answer.
“Fine,” I said. “Papa’s so sturdy, he never missed a day slaughtering his entire life.”
I had to look away when I said it, and had no idea what I could of said next. As I was trying to think of something, Miss Sarah came out of the barn. Her three kittens were with her, but now they too were growed up almost as mighty as Miss Sarah herself.
“Those are Miss Sarah’s kittens,” I said. “All growed.”
“That old barn cat of mine, the big buff I call Caleb. If he ain’t the torn that serviced that litter I’ll ride Samson all the way home.”
Looking at Samson, I figured there wasn’t a man living or dead who could straddle him. He was one mean looking boar. Had a mean mouth, even though Ben Tanner probably tried to cut back each tusk with pliers or wire cutters. It was no picnic, I would wager, being a dentist to Samson.
“Now that Caleb come to trespass on Miss Sarah,” I said, “it sure would be fitting if Samson would breed Pinky.”
“Sure would. But mind, son. If he does, I expect a stud fee.”
“Stud fee?”
“Fifty dollars,” said Mr. Tanner, smiling. “Or two picks of the litter. You’re to choose.”
“You can have two of her brood,” I said.
“Done.”
Now it was no longer a friendly visit; now it was real business, and
Samson seemed to guess what we all expected of him. Butting hard into Pinky’s front shoulder with his snout, he half turned her about. Quick as silver, he jumped to her rear, pinning her up against the fence. Up on his back legs, he came down hard upon her, his forelegs up on her shoulders. His privates were alert and ready to breed her, and as she tried to move out from under him, he moved with her. His back legs strained forward to capture her, and his entire back and body was thrusting again and again. Pinky was squealing from his weight and the hurt of his forcing himself to her.
As I watched, I hated Samson. I hated him for being so big and mean and heavy. Even when her front legs buckled from all the weight of him being on her, he never eased up. But he was a real boar and a prize boar and there was no stopping him.
“You wait,” said Ben Tanner. “There ain’t a sow in Vermont that’ll deny Samson. He’s all boar.”
Samson was all boar, it proved true. He was bigger and stronger and ten times meaner than Pinky. So he had his way with her. All the time he was breeding into her, she squealed like her throat had been cut. Every breath. She just squealed like crying, and wouldn’t stop. Not even after Samson had enough of her and got down off her, did she stop her. whining Not even then.
Her rump was bruised and there was blood running down her hind leg. She was shaking like she couldn’t stand, her whole body quivering. I started to swing a leg over the fence so I could pat her a bit and clean her up. But I felt Ben Tanner’s strong hand on my shoulder, pulling me back.
“You crazy, boy? You go into that pen now and go near her, and that boar will have you for breakfast. Where’s your sense?”
“I guess I don’t have any,” I said.
“Time you got some. How old be you, Rob?”
“Twelve, sir. I’ll be thirteen, come February.”
“Good. Twelve’s a boy, thirteen a man. Now just take Pinky there. She weren’t nought but a maiden before this morning. Just a little girl, she was. A big little girl. But from this time on, she’s a sow. She knows a thing or two. And next time, she’ll welcome the big boy. Even ram herself through barb-wire to be with him and get bred by him. Understand?”
A Day No Pigs Would Die Page 8
