“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’ve got 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 would often bear twelve instead of ten. Two extra. That’s dollars, boy. Dollars you can pay off this farm with, Good solid Yankee dollars that you can bank.”
All this talk of hogs and dollars and meat and banks was rolling around inside my head with no direction. It didn’t quite sound Christian to me, but then I suppose that everyone in the world didn’t all live strict by the Book of Shaker.
“But we’re Plain People, sir. It may not be right to want for so much.”
“Nonsense, boy. Bess and I are fearing Christians, same as you.”
“But you aren’t a Shaker. Are you?”
“No. I’m a Baptist! Wash feet and hard shell Baptist. Born one, and I hope to die one. But not yet. I’m a Baptist, and so’s Bess.”
I almost busted out laughing. There they were, the three people who probably loved me more than anyone in the whole world (besides Papa, Mama, and Aunt Carrie)—Mr. and Mrs. Tanner, and Aunt Matty. And all of them were good shouting Baptists. It just goes to show how wrong I could feel about some things.
And how foolish.
Chapter
14
The apple crop was bad.
The weather had turned colder, and we were lucky to get a few Baldwins and Jonathans barreled for wintering in the cellar. Papa had been right. The crop was lean. The apples that we did harvest were not large, and many had worm holes. The one tree that had died was our greening tree, one that produced smaller apples that were green and very tart. Pie apples. But this winter they’d be no pies.
Twice, Papa had seen a buck and several doe upon the ridge. But each time he got the shotgun and slug-shells ready, the deer were gone. Jacob Henry’s father got a buck. So did Ira Long. One of the men who farmed for Ben Tanner got a doe. But Papa didn’t have a deer rifle; only a shotgun with ball loads. He had to get close for a shot.
He still-hunted early almost every morning, hoping to get a buck deer before it was time to go to work. No luck. Once he even sat for four hours in a cold rain, waiting. He coughed after that; a deep rattling cough that made him hang on to things. But the worst thing was when his lungs got so bad he stopped sleeping with Mama. He slept in the barn. It was warmer there, with Daisy and Solomon both inclosed in a cozy area.
The first snow came. It wasn’t very heavy; and when the next day’s sun broke through, it all melted away. But more would follow.
Pinky did not have a litter of pigs. She was bred and she was barren. And she ate too much to keep as a pet. Samson had mounted her twice, and there was no litter. Nothing. And little estrus. She never really come to full heat, not even once.
It all ended one early morning on a dark December day. It was Saturday and there was no school. After chores, Papa and I came in for breakfast. I tried to down a big bowl of hot steaming oatmeal, but it tasted like soap. And the fresh warm milk from Daisy’s pail was flat. I couldn’t swallow it. Papa just sat at the kitchen table, fingering a pipe that he couldn’t smoke and looking at a breakfast he couldn’t eat. He finally got up from the table to look through the window. Outside, the dark of the moon was just softening into firstlight. When he turned round to me, his face was sober.
“Rob, let’s get it done.”
I didn’t ask what. I just knew. And so did Mama and Aunt Carrie, because as Papa and I were getting our coats on to go outside, they both came over and pretended to help bundle me up.
There had been a light inch of snow the night before. Just enough to cover the ground the way Mama would flour her cake board. I followed Papa out to where we kept the tools, and I stood there watching as he sharpened the knives on the wheel. The sticking knife was short and blunt, with a curved blade. The edge he put to it was extra sharp. He pulled on some heavy rubber boots in the barn, and tied a sheath of leather around his middle, for an apron. We were ready.
Toting some of the tools and a spine saw, I followed him out of the shed and around to the south side of the barn, to where old Solomon and the capstan had pulled the corn cratch—Pinky’s house. Inside it she was lying all curled up warm in the clean straw. It was a soft warm smell.
“Come on, Pinky,” I tried to say in a cheerful way. “It’s morning.” But my throat seemed to catch and the words just wouldn’t come out. I nudged her with my foot. But finally had to take a switch and make her get to her feet. She came to me, nuzzle pointed into my leg. Her curly tail was moving about like it was glad the day had started. People say pigs don’t feel. And that they don’t wag their tails. All I know is that Pinky sure knew who I was and her tail did too.
While Papa lit a fire to boil the water, I pushed her out of the crib and into a box pen, the same one that she’d been in when bred to Samson. She balked at the gate, and I had to hit her hard with the stick a few times to move her forward. It probably hurt her, but what did it matter now.
Following her into the box pen, we closed the gate by sliding the bars across. I got down on my knees in the snow and put my arms around her big white neck, smelling her good solid smell.
Pinky, I said to myself, try and understand. If there was any other way. If only Papa had got a deer this fall. Or if I was old enough to earn money. If only …
“Help me, boy,” said Papa. “It’s time.”
He put his tools on the ground, keeping only a three-foot crowbar. Neither one of us wore gloves, and I knew how cold that crowbar felt. I’d carried it, and it was colder than death.
“Back away,” he said.
“Papa,” I said, “I don’t think I can.”
“That ain’t the issue, Rob.
We have to.”
Standing up, I moved away from Pinky as Papa went to her head. She just stood there in the fresh snow, looking at my feet. I saw Papa get a grip on the crowbar, and raise it high over his head. It was then I closed my eyes, and my mouth opened like I wanted to scream for her. I waited. I waited to hear the noise that I finally heard.
It was a strong crushing noise that you only hear when an iron stunner bashes in a pig’s skull. I hated Papa that moment. I hated him for killing her, and hated him for every pig he ever killed in his lifetime … for hundreds and hundreds of butchered hogs.
“Hurry,” he said.
I opened my eyes and went to her. She was down in the snow. Moving, breathing, but down. I helped roll her over on her back, standing astride her and holding her two forelegs straight up in the air. With his left hand Papa pushed her chin down so that the top of her snout touched the ground. His right hand held the blunt knife with the curved blade. He stuck her throat deep and way back, moving the knife back through the neck toward himself, cutting the main neck artery. Her blood gushed bubbled out in heaving floods. Some of it went on my boots. I wanted to run, and cry and scream. But I just stood there, helping to hold her kicking.
It was all so quiet, like Christmas morning. As Papa continued to draw the pork, I held the feet firm and up. The blood was still pumping out of her, and the ground beneath our feet was spotted with hot pig blood steaming on the cold snow.
Between my ankles I could feel her body quiver in death. I had to look away. So as Papa worked on her, I held fast, staring at the old corn cratch that had once been Pinky’s home.
Papa worked quiet and quick. The guts got drawed out and were there on the cold ground in a hot misty mass. Then we each put a hook in the jaws and dragged the bloody body into boiling water. It was boiled, scraped free of all hair and scurf, and sawed in half.
Papa was breathing the way no man or beast should breathe. I had never seen any man work as fast. I knew his hands must of been just about froze off; but he kept working, with no gloves. At last he stopped, pushing me away from the pork and turning me around so as my back was to it. He stood close by, facing me, and his whole body was steaming wet with work. I couldn’t help it. I started thinking about Pinky. My sweet big clean white Pinky who followed me all over. She was the only thing I ever really owned. The only thing I could point to and say … mine. But now there was no Pinky. Just a sopping wet lake of red slush. So I cried.
“Oh, Papa. My heart’s broke.”
“So is mine,” said Papa. “But I’m thankful you’re a man.”
I just broke down, and Papa let me cry it all out. I just sobbed and sobbed with my head up toward the sky and my eyes closed, hoping God would hear it.
“That’s what being a man is all about, boy. It’s just doing what’s got to be done.”
I felt his big hand touch my face, and it wasn’t the hand that killed hogs. It was almost as sweet as Mama’s. His hand was rough and cold, and as I opened my eyes to look at it, I could see that his knuckles were dripping with pig blood. It was the hand that just butchered Pinky. He did it. Because he had to. Hated to and had to. And he knew that he’d never have to say to me that he was sorry. His hand against my face, trying to wipe away my tears, said it all. His cruel pig-sticking fist with its thick fingers so lightly on my cheek.
I couldn’t help it. I took his hand to my mouth and held it against my lips and kissed it. Pig blood and all. I kissed his hand again and again, with all its stink and fatty slime of dead pork. So he’d understand that I’d forgive him even if he killed me.
I was still holding his hand as he straighted up tall against the gray winter sky. He looked down at me and then he looked away. With his free arm he raked the sleeve of his work shirt across his eyes. It was the first time I ever seen him do it.
The only time.
Chapter
15
Papa lived through the winter. He died in his sleep out in the barn on the third of May.
He was always up before I was. And when I went out to the barn that morning, all was still. He was lying on the straw bed that he rigged for himself, and I knew before I got to him that he was dead.
“Papa.” I said his name just once. “It’s all right. You can sleep this morning. No cause to rouse yourself. I’ll do the chores. There’s no need to work any more. You just rest.”
I fed and watered Solomon and Daisy. And milked her. Then I threw some grain to the hens, made sure they had water, and collected the eggs. One was still wet from laying. I remember there was only seven eggs; five whites and two brown. I wiped off the specks and carried them up the hill to the cellar. Then I went into the kitchen where Mama and Aunt Carrie were already moving about. Now that I was thirteen I was taller than both of them. I put an arm around each one of them, and held them close to me.
“Put my meal in a basket,” I said. “I’m taking Solomon into town to see Mr. Wilcox. Papa won’t be coming up for breakfast. Not this morning, and not ever again. I’ll be back in about two hours, but first I’ll stop and tell Matty and Hume. And some others.”
“You go,” Mama said. “Carrie and I will make do just fine. There’s not time to tell your sisters. And scattered all over Vermont, they couldn’t come.”
“I’ll write letters to all four,” I said. “Now about the funeral. Does he have any good clothes?”
“Yes,” Mama said. “They been ready for some time, up in the camphor chest at the foot of … our bed.”
“Mama, if you could get them out and be ready when Mr. Wilcox comes, it would be a help.”
“They’ll be,” she said.
I kissed each one of them on the brow, and went outside to yoke up the ox. I stopped Solomon at the front gate, went inside and got something (which I never did eat) tied up in a clean checkered napkin and went into Learning.
I told Mr. Wilcox, who was a good Shaker man and who took care of our dead. After telling Aunt Matty and Hume, I came on home. I made just two more stops. To tell Mrs. Bascom and Ira, and to tell Mr. and Mrs. Tanner. By the time I got home, Mr. Wilcox was already there. His bay gelding was just outside the barn hitched to a small rig. Behind the driver’s bench was a coffin. It was unpainted wood and there were no handles. It was a gift from the Circle of Shakers in the town of Learning. Somewhere I’d find money to pay Mr. Wilcox. His fee would not be high as he was also the County Coroner.
“People will be coming at noon, Mr. Wilcox,” I said to him, as he was preparing Papa.
“Everything will be ready, Robert.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I told Aunt Carrie and Mama about the time of the funeral. I knew they’d be ready, in their best and plainest.
“They won’t be many coming,” I said. “Maybe six and that’s all.”
“Rob,” Mama said, “I’m glad we’ve got you to handle things. I couldn’t of done it alone.”
“Yes, you could, Mama. When you’re the only one to do something, it always gets done.”
I dug a grave in the family plot in our orchard. After that I hunted for a chore, just anything to do. The day before Papa died, we’d been mending a plowshare out in the tackroom. Instead of just waiting for the people to come, I worked on it a bit. And just about got it righted.
Before I walked out of the tackroom, I noticed something I’d not took note of previous. It was the handles of Papa’s tools. Most of the tools were dark with age, and their handles were a deep brown. But where Papa’s hands had took a purchase on them, they were lighter in color. Almost a gold. The wear of his labor had made them smooth and shiny, where his fingers had held each one. I looked at all the handles of his tools. It was real beautiful the way they was gilded by work.
As I stood there looking over his tools, I had the hanker to reach out and touch them all. To hold them in my hands the same way he did, just to see if my hands were sized enough to take hold.
Under the tools, I saw an old cigar box that was gray with dust. Inside was a wore-do
wn pencil stub and a scrap of old paper. Unfolding the paper, I saw where Papa had been trying to write his name. One of the “Haven Peck”s was near to perfect, and he almost had the hang of it. The paper was dry and brown, as if he had practiced for a long time. Carefully folding the paper back into just the way he had folded it, I rested it in its box and closed the lid.
Then I went inside to change clothes, as it was almost noon. As a young boy, I’d had a black suit that Mama made me. But I always felt like a preacher in it. Besides, now it was way too small. And what Papa owned was too spare. So I just put on a new pair of work shoes that were tan, and a pair of Papa’s old black trousers which I turned up inside and stuck with pins. I wore one of his shirts with no necktie. I looked at myself in the mirror, to make sure I had the dignity to lead a family to a grave. I looked more like a clown than a mourner. The shirt didn’t fit at all. And the tan work shoes just stuck out like I was almost barefoot. I ripped the shirt off and threw it on the floor. “Hear me, God,” I said. “It’s hell to be poor.”
By noon, they’d all come. Just after we got Papa dressed and his coffin into the house.
Aunt Matty and Hume were the first. Mrs. Bascom came with Ira Long. Only her name was now Mrs. Long, legal and proper. But in my mind she always was Mrs. Bascom. Mr. Tanner and his wife came in the black rig, with a pair of black horses. I went out to meet them.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Tanner.”
“Robert, my name is Benjamin Franklin Tanner. All my neighbors call me Ben. I think two men who are good friends ought to front name one another.”
“And I’m Bess,” his wife said, “from here on.”
As the Tanners joined the others in the parlor of the house, I looked up road. Another wagon was coming. It was May and Sebring Hillman. And from town came Isadore Crookshank along with Jacob Henry and his folks. Last to come was Mr. Clay Sander, the man my father slaughtered for. Along with several of the men that Papa worked with. There would be no work on this day. A day no pigs would die.