“Won’t they smother, Daddy?” I asked when the farmer put the three little pigs in a tow sack, and placed them in our trunk.

“No, Son,” Daddy smiled. “It’ll just keep them out of trouble ‘til we get home.”

As soon as we stopped rolling, I got out and ran to the back of the car to hear that they were very much alive. They kept squealing and squirming until we reached the same hog pen Daddy used when he was a boy. Inside, he placed the sack on the ground, opened it, to release three little black pigs, with what looked like white racing stripes around their shoulders. “They’re so cute, Daddy,” I said, as they ran around the pen. “Can we catch them and pet ‘em?”

“No, Son,” Daddy replied. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Can we at least name them, then?”

“Don’t do that,” he answered. “Why, Daddy?”

“If you get too friendly with them, Son,” he said, ”You’ll be sorry.” I followed Daddy out of the pen. He twisted the protruding wires which closed the makeshift gate, then he got the mash from the porch, and showed me how to mix it with well-water. As he poured the mixture into their trough, the pigs got mash on their heads.

“They’re just acting like pigs,” I said.

Daddy nodded,and smiled.

After we watched them a while, he showed me how to patch a small section of wire onto the fence to cover up a hole, in case pigs rooted through.

“If the hole is big enough, cover it with a board,” he said.

“They won’t get out, will they?”

“When they get big, they probably will.” After school started back, a seventh-grade classmate called me from the large window, which faced the road, my house,and the hog pen. “Leon,” she said, out loud. “Your pigs are out.”

Miss Mona, our teacher, strode over to see, then beckoned me over to see my pigs –who were grazing near our house. “You can go tend to them,” Miss Mona whispered. I hurried out.

“How am I going to get them back in?” I asked myself as I crossed the school yard.

“Hey pigs,” I said, as I walked into the yard, “I got to get you back in the pen.” They just looked up at me. Then came the words, “Just walk to the pen.” “Ya’ll come on,” I said to my pigs. “ I got to get back to class.”

So I walked on past. After three or four steps, I looked back to find them following me—side by side. When I reached the opening, I peeled back the wire and walked into the pen; they followed me in. “You did good, pigs,” I said, smiling. “You stay put while I fix the wire, and I’ll bring you a treat.” I walked back out, hooked the gate , then inspected the outside of the pen until I found the place where they had rooted under the wire, and scooted to freedom. Under the house I picked up a piece of two-by-eight oak, walked inside to find a claw hammer and some staples, then walked back inside the pen. There, I shoved the board back and forth to form a channel in the dirt, then I stapled the fence wire onto the board. My pigs watched as I walked back outside to check my repair, then picked up the galvanized bucket and put in some mash, added the water at the pump house and approached the pen.

“Here you go, you old hogs,” I said, as I poured their treat over their heads—being only mildly irritated at their escape, but really pleased at their desire to follow me back into the pen. I stayed for a minute to watch them jostle each other, then walked back to school.

Over the next few months the escape, the call, the walk-back, the repair, and the treat, became an oft-repeated game. As the days became shorter and cooler, at morning and evening feeding time I began to realize they would be leaving me soon, to be offered for sale.

The last morning was a frosty one. I fed them early so they would have time to eat before Mr. Ransom backed his trailer up to the pen. When he came, I opened the fence and pulled it back to let him in. My pigs watched as he came around to let down the ramp, then to walk behind them to shoo them into the trailer. They did not move.

“These hogs don’t want to go in,” he said after several tries. “You may have to help me.”

I did not want to help him. My first thought was to just walk away and leave. But I could not, for Daddy told me that I might have to help Mr. Ransom load my pigs. And soon I knew what I had to do. So I sighed, turned toward the trailer, trudged up the ramp, and walked inside. My pigs followed me in. I twisted around at the trailer’s end, then hurried past them back down the ramp, without facing them. Mr. Ransom slammed the ramp up, said he’d be seeing me, then got into his car. I did not see my pigs again.

I watched as the trailer disappeared down the hill past the Methodist church, then understood why Daddy said I should not to get too friendly with my pigs, and wondered if he’d made the same mistake when he raised hogs, as a boy, in that same pen.

Perhaps neither of us had not been told that all living beings have a place in a “ Great Chain,” with God on top, amoebas on bottom, and humans and pigs somewhere in-between. And that a very few pigs are destined to become pets, but our little pigs—as most others—had a nobler calling. But I still love those little pigs, and mourn their loss, and my betrayal.

https://ansonrecord.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/web1_Leon-Smith.jpg

Leon Smith