by Van Reid
Johnny was, at that moment, besieged by the children, who must have thought he was best greeted as a sort of conveyance, for they had climbed atop of him and one was shouting “Giddyap!”
To add to all this sociable chaos, an elderly woman in dark clothes, high-buttoned boots, and a house bonnet arrived from the back of the house to be introduced as Mr. Fern’s Aunt Beatrice. When the elderly woman had been appropriately charmed by Mister Walton, they all watched Johnny and the little Ferns frolic on the floor. The children—introduced, when they could be singled out of the heap, as Bonny and Susan and James and Homer—continued to use the blacksmith like a horse, and he seemed content to perform this service and even laughed as he rode them around the room; he had not behaved half as confidently when Madeline was near.
Mr. Fern smiled, but sadly, at the scene. “Children feel everything so keenly, Mister Walton,” he said. “And they feel every thing, so that their little hearts are tugged this moment by trouble, then that way by laughter. Only moments ago they were fretting like one mind over poor Hercules.”
“I am sorry to hear that your pig is unwell,” said Mister Walton.
Mr. Fern accepted this sympathy with a gracious nod. His brow formed a careworn arch over his face. “Shall we go see the poor fellow,” he said.
Mister Walton was agreeing to this proposition when Mrs. Fern and Madeline bustled into the room carrying trays and cups and a great pot of tea, and Mrs. Fern remonstrated her husband for forgetting his manners. “They have only just arrived, Vergilius,” she insisted. “Let them dry off from getting here before you damp them down again with trekking about the yard.”
“Yes, of course, of course,” said the man. He indicated that his guests should be seated, and then he plunked himself onto the love seat with a lugubrious sigh. “I beg your pardon,” he said, “but Hercules hasn’t been himself for a month or more and we’re very anxious for him.” Johnny Poulter collapsed beneath the weight of children and one of the little boys broke away from the blacksmith’s back to leap into his father’s lap.
“What’s happened to him?” asked Sundry. He accepted a cup of tea and a piece of cake from Madeline with a smile and a “Thank you.”
Johnny did not miss Sundry’s appreciation of the eldest Fern daughter and decided it was worth his while to pay attention. He righted himself on the floor and, with only two or three of the children hanging from him, found a chair to sit in. Sundry did not miss Madeline’s quickness to wait on Johnny, nor Johnny’s continued awkwardness; the blacksmith dropped his spoon and very nearly dropped his cup, and he excused himself several times over.
“That is the enigma, Mr. Moss,” Mr. Fern was saying. “Hercules hasn’t failed in any manner but his happy temperament.” He turned to Mister Walton, who he seemed to think was the expert among his guests. “He was an extraordinarily satisfied pig, was our Hercules, Mister Walton.”
“I can believe it, if the portrait above the mantle is any evidence,” said the bespectacled fellow. “How does his discontent manifest itself, Mr. Fern?” Mister Walton had grown quite alarmed for the creature.
“Hercules is very sick,” said one of the children. The young ones lost a measure of their careless delight every time the pig’s name was invoked.
“It is complex, sir,” said Mr. Fern, “to demonstrate by rudimentary explanation, but if ever there was a glum pig, he is the individual.”
If ever there was a glum man! thought a solicitous Mister Walton.
“He doesn’t occupy himself,” continued Mr. Fern. “He doesn’t greet company anymore, and I never hear him patrolling the yard of a night, as used to be his habit. But the true affliction is something separate from—or, rather, in addition to—those fluctuations.”
“He’s very contemplative,” said Mrs. Fern.
“Pensive, even,” said Mr. Fern.
“Oh, it’s deeper than that,” said Madeline. “Mister Walton, you have never seen such a melancholy pig.”
“Perhaps he has gotten lazy,” said the elderly aunt, but she looked uncertain of the hypothesis when the attention of the room fell upon her. Mister Walton thought she evinced discomfort with the subject in general; perhaps she thought pigs an unsuitable topic for parlor conversation.
The remainder of the family did not share her opinion, and Mister Walton grew misty-eyed simply viewing their distress. “I wish I knew what to say,” he admitted.
“Has he lost weight?” asked Sundry, who knew something of farm matters
“He has not,” informed Mr. Fern.
“Has he had the society of other pigs?”
“We conveyed a sow from an adjacent farm two weeks ago, but he displayed not the slightest interest,” answered the man.
“He was always such a chivalrous pig,” said Madeline wistfully.
“The sow stayed two days, then walked home,” said Mr. Fern.
Mister Walton was lifting his cup at this juncture and only hesitated briefly before taking a tentative sip. He glanced to Sundry, but his friend seemed as concerned as the family and as mystified as Mister Walton himself.
There was a strange color to the atmosphere when they stepped out—more like dusk than so close to noon on a day in late spring. The rain had dwindled to an occasional spit, and the wind had shifted into the northeast, bringing with it a small chill even as the sun made brief appearances among the clouds.
“Hercules!” called Mr. Fern, when they paused before the front door, and “Hercules!” called the younger children. Mister Walton heard quacking, and then a low grunt, as might be expected from an old curmudgeon who doesn’t want to be disturbed.
“He’s over by the barn,” said Vergilius Fern. Looking quite blue, he led the way with his long strides, pausing by a tethered goat whose crown he scratched as he passed; around the side of the little shed before the barn they found a colossus of a white pig stretched out on his side amidst a flock of softly quacking ducks.
Sundry had seen some prize pigs in his time, but he didn’t know when he had seen such an enormous one as this. Hercules was long as well as massive, so that he looked like a small cow lying there as his white side gently rose and fell. The creature hardly acknowledged his visitors, even when Mr. Fern informed the pig that Mister Walton and Sundry had come expressly to see him.
Mister Walton half thought it was some beast of legend lying there before them, and when asked if he would like to make a closer examination the portly fellow lifted his hat, scratched his head, and shifted from one foot to the other before stepping forward. The family and Johnny Poulter waited, as they might while a doctor considered his patient. The ducks quacked sociably and parted ranks as Mister Walton and Sundry approached the giant animal. When the two men were within a yard or so of the pig, they paused and leaned forward. In a low tone Mister Walton said to Sundry, “This is very curious, don’t you think?”
“Well,” said Sundry. “It is.” Mister Walton wasn’t sure whether they were speaking of the Fern family’s odd interest in his seeing Hercules or of Hercules’s inexplicit ailment itself. A duck came up to the portly man and gazed at him.
Hercules swung his great head around and Mister Walton had never seen such a look of gloom upon the face of an animal. The ears drooped in a most downcast manner, the chops formed an almost human frown, and those pig eyes were red and bleary, so that the guests could believe the beast spent its days and nights weeping.
Mister Walton glanced back at the family again. To Sundry, he said in the same quiet tone, “They seem, almost, to think that I have some expertise in the sphere of pigs.”
“The subject first came up at the store,” said Sundry. “Did you display some genius there?”
Mister Walton chuckled quietly. “I believe that I was singularly ungenius-like.” After a moment he said, “Do you know, it reminds me of the time those people at Wiscasset thought I was a big game hunter.”
“You rescued that animal,” said Sundry, clearly with every faith in Mister Walton’s restorativ
e powers. “You didn’t say anything about pigs at the store?”
“I did mention,” admitted Mister Walton, "to the two older gentlemen in the corner that there are a good many pigs in Iowa.”
“That doesn’t seem to put you in the running, somehow,” said Sundry. He glanced back at the Ferns, who hung back as if he and Mister Walton were in the most serious consultation. “Does he mind being touched?” Sundry asked.
“Not at all,” assured Mr. Fern. “Dismal as he is, he yet appreciates a tender scratch upon the belly.”
Sundry scooched beside the creature and cautiously rubbed the massive stomach. Hercules let out a long sound that was half groan and half sigh, and gazed blearily into the middle distance. The ducks replied in a soft chorus and wandered about the pig in a companionable manner.
“He seems almost human,” said Mister Walton. It made him sad to look at the pig. Sundry let out a sound that might have come from their friend Mr. Thump. “What is it?” said Mister Walton.
“Do you know what sort of human he reminds me of?” said the young man quietly. “Do you remember the Dash-It-All Boys?”
“How could I forget them?”
“Do you remember last December when we found them at the station?
“They were suffering from a night of excess, I believe,” said Mister Walton in a near whisper.
Sundry made that Thumplike sound again. “That groan Hercules gave out just now reminded me very much of one I heard from Mr. Waverley.”
Mister Walton thought on this. “Are you suggesting,” whispered Mister Walton, “that this pig has been drinking?”
“Perhaps his slop has fermented.”
“I can’t imagine he gives it the opportunity.”
“What does he eat?” wondered Sundry of Mr. Fern.
“Whatever we eat,” said the man, looking from Mister Walton to Sundry as if he wondered who the expert really was.
“Perhaps it was only Mr. Poulter’s discussion of teetotalers that put me in mind,” said Sundry.
The pig gave out another humanlike groan, blew a sigh, and barely shifted himself. Sundry’s eccentric notion had taken root, however, for Mister Walton suddenly imagined that the animal looked regretful.
“What do you think ails him?” wondered Mr. Fern anxiously.
Mister Walton shot a startled look at Sundry, but his young friend only gave a quick wink and looked away. Mister Walton could not imagine why the people at the store and now the Ferns, thought he would know anything about pigs, but it seemed the moment to disabuse them on this issue. “I must be truthful, Mr. Fern—’ began Mister Walton.
“Mister Walton would have to know more to form an opinion,” said Sundry.
Mister Walton almost laughed, for no statement could be more accurate. “Of course,” said Mr. Fern. “You must stay to dinner, if you are not pressed to be elsewhere, and then we can answer your questions to the best of our abilities.”
Mister Walton looked ready to speak again—that is, he looked ready to express some opinion or offer an important smattering of news. He took a breath and the whole family waited upon his word. Sundry nodded by way of accepting the invitation, and Mister Walton said, “Thank you, Mr. Fern. That would be very nice.” When the Ferns had gotten a few paces ahead of them, Mister Walton turned to Sundry and said quietly, “Do you know anything about pigs?”
“We do raise them at Moss Farm,” said the young man, his hands behind his back as he strolled. He seemed unperturbed.
Mister Walton glanced back at the stricken creature. Hercules let out something like a snore, and the portly man wondered, briefly, if pigs dreamed.
BOOK THREE May 28, 1897
(Afternoon and Evening)
15. What He Once Had Been
“They do, of course, ... pigs ... dream,” Vergilius Fern said when the subject of porcine sleep was raised and Mister Walton posed the question. “Everyone has seen a dog chase rabbits in his sleep,” explained the farmer, “and pigs have at least the mental faculties of an old bloodhound.”
Mister Walton would not have contradicted the man, even had he any experience of pigs by which to do so—Mr. Fern was that fond of the enormous creature in the yard; no one would have willingly offended him. As it happens, pigs do dream—or, at least, Hercules did that afternoon, drifting from his deep gloom to the solace that sleep can harbor. He dreamt of what he once had been, what (in his large porcine heart) he had aspired to, and what he once imagined himself to be.
Watch a dog imagine himself to be heroic and noble and without any dire circumstance to test him he will yet embody those salutary traits; it is the thought that counts. See a cat stare into the underbrush, where only the wind stirs (perhaps); she is imagining herself as stealth and danger incarnate. (Even a kitten has this capacity.) The cat may pounce wide of her prey, but she will walk away with that certainty of stealth and danger unhindered.
Hercules had once been the very soul of Fern Farm because he had thus imagined himself, applying his vision with goodwill and an admirable work ethic. Not all strong men will bend themselves to difficult tasks, and many a man who lacks in physical strength will think himself through a heavy burden. Hercules once rescued young Homer from a feral dog, and many were the times he stood between a night predator and the frightened ducks, not simply because the pig was large or capable of anger but also because he imagined himself as watch and protector of his family and estate.
“We do not mourn because we are old,” said some philosopher, “we mourn because we are no longer young.” Dreams were sweet and bitter to Hercules in those days. Sometimes they were formed of beautiful images that hurt with the melancholy of loss. One recurring muse took him to the very nurturing belly of his mother, among the warm, restive bodies of a dozen siblings; it was perhaps more a dream of species than a personal memory, but when it came he whimpered in his sleep like a lonely child.
Another vision took him through flower-strewn fields with Farmer Fern, fast as the wind, light as duck’s down; sunlight obtruded the shadows of the farmer and his family, but Hercules knew their presence as he bounded over the bright hills.
Or he would simply know himself as the farm and that the farm was him, one existing in the other, like the egg in the chicken and the chicken in the egg. He had flashes of real things—luminous memories of visitors, friendly pats and scratches between his ears, the darker recollections of self-imposed night watches when the weasel or the fox prowled the inner wards. Hercules had been endlessly hungry for his exertions and had eaten all he needed as reward. He was a great white whale of a pig with a heart to match; but his appetite had betrayed him.
He might even have sensed something perilous about the slops fed to him ever since a certain figure first crept onto the property weeks ago with the promise of a midnight snack. He might have told himself “Never again!” as he groaned and gloomed through another day, but the midnight slops would come again and the remainder of the night would be lost in a strange haze, till the sadness and despondency of another all-too-brilliant morning barely roused him from his unaccustomed lethargy. He did not mourn simply because he felt ill and dejected, he mourned because he was not what he once was, or what he had imagined himself to be.
Everyone suffers his frailty. Hercules dreamed his melancholy dreams and his friends the ducks quacked softly, solicitously about him.
But why would he always return to that beckoning swill of hazardous spirits? “Well,” said Sundry, when all was said and done, and with his customary inverted logic, “that’s why they call them pigs.”
If the Ferns and their farm seemed self-contradictory, Mr. and Mrs. Fern were nothing but complementary to one another in the procreative sense; the long aspect of the father had merged with the round countenance of the mother to form a bevy of handsome children. Madeline was not alone in catching the eye, for every one of her siblings bore up to close scrutiny and seemed, in the opinions of Mister Walton and Sundry, to match a comely appearance with attractive manners
and a ready smile, even if the best of manners must give way to curiosity sometimes.
“Mister Walton doesn’t talk much about pigs,” said Susan to Sundry at the dinner table.
“Doesn’t he?” said Sundry. “Ah, well, Sherlock Holmes never talked about a case while he was pondering it.”
Hearing this, the young woman considered the portly gentleman at the other end of the table with renewed awe.
Mister Walton was adept at happy conversation, and, like many intelligent and curious people, could appear, unintentionally, to have command of many a subject at hand simply by asking questions; however consciously, it was also a method by which to direct the topic of discourse, and Mister Walton inquired about the farm, about Mr. Fern’s school and his pupils, and about the Fern children and their pursuits, but never raised the subject of pigs.
As it happened, the guests were not yet sat down to dinner before they were invited to stay for supper, and they would not sit to supper before they were invited to stay the night. Mister Walton might have graciously declined both invitations on the grounds that they were on their way to see Sundry’s Uncle Cedric if Sundry had not (in each instance) spoken for them first and accepted. “I don’t wish to keep you from Norridgewock,” said Mister Walton when he and Sundry had a moment by themselves.
“‘Whatever breeze or notion,’” quoted Sundry. Johnny Poulter eventually had to return to work, and he offered to take Sundry back to town to retrieve the bags and hire a carriage. The Ferns insisted that Johnny stay for dinner first and the family and their guests gathered about a well-laden table. Mister Walton was delighted by the company of young people at dinner, and he thought that Madeline Fern in particular might represent a very pleasant notion to his friend.
