The mystery of the prodigal pig was just one of the many hog tales that were produced from a childhood spent on the farm
When I was about five years old, my mother undertook a project to make some spending money that involved a couple of Tamworth hogs for breeding purposes.
We already had Barney, a grumpy old boar who rooted around in the manure pile when not lounging about the barn yard.
I was always leery of him and felt relieved when he was taken away on one of his many honeymoon trips to various farms in the community.
But he would come back more disgruntled than ever.
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Not so Arabella, the fanciful name I bestowed on the new brood sow. My first up-close and personal encounter with her came the day I found her napping on the south side of a straw stack in the nearest field.
When I approached, she never even offered to move. I interpreted her grunting as an invitation to join her, so I lay down perpendicular to her body with my head resting on her belly. I guess the fresh air and the warm rays of the September sun had a soothing effect on us both, and we were soon fast asleep.
A few minutes later I was awakened by my mother’s frantic calls, “Alma, Alma, where are you?”
“Sleeping with the new pig,” I responded.
Our farm was a hog’s heaven, with a little river running through several acres of treed land just behind the barn. Although given free range with no fences, Arabella never wandered away, much preferring to laze in the wallow she made along the riverbank or sleep in the shade of overhanging trees. Her very best enjoyment, however, came in the early evenings, when she wandered up to me as I sat on the stump of a maple tree, treats in hand.
My father had a hammermill, so now and then I pilfered a pail of chop to feed my porcine pet or gather acorns that accumulated on the front yard in fall. Corn cobs were also a favorite.
Arabella sat on her behind, munching down the cobs with the juice dribbling down her chin. At one point she uprooted the rhubarb patch and my mother despaired of ever again having any to use. Wherever it fell to ground it took root, however, and not one, but several rhubarb hills sprang up, much to her delight.
The first spring we had Arabella, my mother took me to the barn one morning, where she had mysteriously confined Arabella a few days before. There in the straw was a whole litter of small pink piglets noisily slurping up breakfast, their tails tightly curled as they nursed and Arabella grunting with contentment. As I dumped some chop into her trough, some of it stuck to her eyelashes like mascara and I pictured her wearing a bonnet and lipstick.
As friendly as she was with me, she was not at all hospitable to strangers who tried entering her pen when she had young. That privilege was granted solely to me.
She was also intolerant of the neighbour’s dog, a big German Shepherd. Its owner bragged that there wasn’t a braver dog in the community. Obviously, it had not met Arabella.
The day it wandered onto our farmyard and came face to face with her, she let out a roar such as none of us had ever heard. The dog tucked its tail between its legs and fairly flew down the lane, Arabella in hot pursuit.
Arabella’s litter meant I now had several pigs to tame, and they accompanied her wherever she went. I’d scratch them with a big chip from the woodpile while sitting on my stump and they flopped over on alternate sides in pure bliss. As they grew, having a line-up of hogs each jostling for a turn to lie on my bare feet meant I was not going anywhere soon.
And then one day it happened. One was missing.
We surmised it may have wandered off from the others and found itself among the neighbour’s herd. My mother questioned him about it when they met in the local store, but not being the most honest of fellows, he deftly sidestepped her question.
That evening, when we saw him drive past our farm on his way to town, my mother and I went for a walk. Approaching the neighbour’s farmyard, we saw his herd of hogs. I called, and one came running to the gate. No doubt it helped that I was carrying a pail of “treats” as an enticement. Mother opened the gate just wide enough for the pig to squeeze through. It trotted along beside us, crying “wee, wee, wee” all the way home, just like in the toe-counting rhyme.
And Arabella was there to meet us, grunting with pleasure that her prodigal pig had returned.
