A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck Page A

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?”
    “Yes, sir. I think so.”
    “Your pa is slaughtering today, is he?”
    “Yes.”
    “Hard work. He ought to take it easy one of these days, now he’s got you to man the place.”
    “Papa works all the time. He don’t never rest. And worse than that, he works inside himself. I can see it on his face. Like he’s been trying all his life to catch up to something. But whatever it is, it’s always ahead of him, and he can’t reach it.”
    “You reason all that out by your lonesome?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “You’re a keen lad, for a Shaker boy. How are your lessons?”
    “I get A in everything. Almost.”
    “Everything?”
    “Everything except English. I don’t never get an A in that, and darned if I know why.”
    “Maybe the teacher doesn’t like you.”
    “The teacher is Miss Malcolm. She likes me fine. But I still don’t get no A in English.”
    “Strange.”
    “She says I have potential. It means that someday I could do a lot. Miss Malcolm says that I could be more than a farmer.”
    “More than a farmer?!” Ben Tanner looked a bit red. “What better can a man be? There’s no higher calling than animal husbandry, and making things live and grow. We farmers are stewards. Our lot is to tend all of God’s good living things, and I say there’s nothing finer.”
    “That’s what Papa says. In just five years, we’ll own this farm. All of it.”
    “Glad to hear it. You Pecks are good neighbors.”
    I laughed.
    “What’s so funny?”
    “That’s what Papa and I always say about you folks. You’re good neighbors.”
    “I watched all your sisters grow up. Pretty girls, they were. Prim and proper in every way, and a real credit to your folks.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Tanner.”
    “I was sad to hear when your two brothers were taken. Bess was, too. She spent time with your ma because of it. But now it’s you, Robert. And you’vegot a start. Pinky is going to make you a fine brood sow. She’ll farrow at least ten pigs, spring and fall—if you breed her fresh again just three days after she weans. That’s twenty pigs a year. In five years, that’s a hundred hogs.”
    “Gee! A hundred hogs.”
    “It’s not the number alone, boy. Pinky ain’t just another pig. She comes from a stout meaty line. So does Samson. The sow that bore him