THE ANIMALS

 

Pig Disdain, Versatile Chickeys, Haunted Meadow,

Horse Sense

 

          It shows how wrong you can be about something.  As a draftee I trained with another recruit who could never march in step, who managed to look always disheveled in his uniform, who was never promoted in all the time I knew him, and now I read in the paper he's a prominent lawyer and is running for Congress.

 

          It seems that over time you can carry and even contribute to a misconception about something and it will stay with you all your life unless something shocks you out of it.

 

          In my case it was pigs.

 

          I had always believed them filthy, stupid, obese and bad tempered.  It was in our culture: "You boys are filthy as pigs," and "Your manners at the table are atrocious -- you eat like pigs."  Then, "You're fat as a pig," or "You're pig-headed."

 

          Gramp Poulin called us "Mes petit cochons," and at times our bedroom was called "a sty," which by definition is "any foul, filthy or depraved place."  In older novels molested maidens declaimed, "You, Sir, are a swine!"  And, of course, whole cultures and religions bar the consumption of their flesh.

 

          Adding to the disdain for this derided creature was our father's direction to feed them: "Boys, go now and slop the hogs," or "It's time to give the pigs their swill."

 

          I'm glad at last to see them coming into their own.  After all these years I've finally learned that they roll in the mud not just to be dirty but to protect their pink skin against the harsh rays of the sun.  Even as we.

 

          Now -- long after my farm days -- I read that pigs have high I.Q.s equal to or better than dogs.  I see pigs on television following ladies around as personal pets.  There was made a very enjoyable Australian movie in which a persecuted pig rallied the other animals, rescued a flock of sheep and saved his master's farm.

 

          As cold weather approaches my respect for these much-maligned creatures is doubled and tripled.  Today, after raking leaves and storing away summer furniture, I shall shed my outer garments, enter the kitchen and be greeted by the sweet, wonderful odor of roasting pork with dressing.  And gravy.  And maybe even baked apples.

 

~ * ~

 

          Another Sunday edible on the farm was the versatile chicken.  It was delicious and tender, both baked and fried, and it provided a secondary source of cash income.

 

          Hen products were saleable as eggs, baby chicks, pullets and laying hens.  Dad decided that this was the way to prosperity and we sold them in all categories.

 

          Of course, the sale of eggs was the simplest.  Thousands it seemed, to be gathered, cleaned, put in egg cartons and packed by layers (carefully!) in crates and taken to the railroad station.

 

          The hatching of baby chicks involved kerosene-heated incubators, constant surveillance and the labor of better than average boys.  First, the eggs would be individually "candled" by shining a light through the egg to determine its freshness and whether it had been fertilized.  The good ones were placed in incubator trays and kept at a constant temperature twenty-four hours a day.  It was required that each egg be turned over twice each day.  This was a skill soon learned by the youngest boy.

 

          As the chicks began to hatch and peck their way through the egg shells we were there to help them discard sticky shell remnants and find their footing.  When they dried out and achieved the fluffy look of Easter chicks, they were ready to be placed in partitioned cartons and shipped away for sale.

 

          Pullets (one year old) and mature hens, when marketable, were taken to the railroad station in "chicken crates."

 

          It would seem that with all this inventory and daily production -- plus the cheap child labor -- a reasonable degree of monetary success would be achieved.  Such was not to be.

 

          Debt was first incurred to build the hen houses and buy incubators.  A failure in an incubator, even of short duration, resulted in cancellation of a shipment.  Spells of extremely wet, cold weather wreaked havoc with the young stock in the hen houses, and finally, declining prices for eggs and chickens, and unanticipated consumption of purchased grain created a debt that Mom and Dad would continue to pay years after we had all moved on from the farm.

 

          The tar-papered roofs of the hen houses stood out starkly in the back meadow for a couple of years until finally they were pulled down.  The back meadow seemed a little haunted for a while; something like a barren shore where an incoming ship was lost.

 

~ * ~

 

          A word about farm horses.  Two of them left distinct impressions.

 

          Old Joe was all white and all gentle.  Mom would put us up on his back to ride around the yard and never worry that we might come to harm.  Once when I was a toddler it was said that I fell between the feet of the team working in harness and, instead of shying, Old Joe pulled himself and his working mate up short and stood still.  I was rescued from between their feet unharmed.

 

          His stable mate was a chunky bay and not as considerate.  When older, we were often given the job of harnessing the horses for the day's work.  Being of small stature, I would stand on a stool to heave the harness up and over the horse's back, then go around and pull it down and attach the buckles.  He waited for me, and when I reached the other side of the stall, he would immediately move sideways and pin me against the stable wall.  I would yell and bang his side with my fists but to no avail.  My only way of escape was to slide myself down against the wall and crawl out from under his belly hoping he would not step on or kick some part of me.

 

          He was just stubborn, not mean.  When Dad came to finish harnessing him he was as cooperative as Old Joe.

 

          I felt real affection for the horses, more so than the other farm animals and for some unknown reason -- perhaps the stories we read -- credited them with greater intelligence and sensitivity than the others.  I envisioned them in their stalls musing about their day's activities and I wished that they had windows to look out rather than the blank wall of their stable.