Chapter I

It was mostly during my first two years on the farm that things happened. Unfamiliarity sharpened events into adventure. Later the unusual gradually flattened into matter of course. For this reason I am glad that I looked over my wild-hog claim during the first year of possession, a time when I fed on explorer’s elixir, and knew not plain bread and meat.

I can still see Sam, a clear-cut figure, swinging from an overhead bough which he had grasped just in time to save himself from the plunging, foam-scattering boar that in another second would have had his life. But the beginning of the day was calm enough. For some time I had heard talk of my claim as a fund-producing property which, if looked after as it should be, would enable me to buy out the County Bank as soon as I chose. My predecessor had imported a few Berkshires and Poland Chinas to mix with the wild breed, and the result, Len assured me, was “the best mixtry in the mountains.” Quality had been improved without unfitting the hogs for hardy life on the ridges. Acorns were abundant; sprouting chestnuts could be uprooted until late in the spring. By taking the hogs in midwinter, before the mast began to grow scant, one could find them fairly fat, and two or three weeks in the pen, with plenty of corn to crunch, would make the meat sweet and marketable. Whenever things looked expensively blue on the farm there was always some one to remind me cheerfully of my wild hogs that could be “fotched in an’ cashed quick as nothin’.”

We were having some bright, windless days in January, and Len said to me wistfully: “Ain’t this the hog-huntin’ time, though?”

I was getting close to the wall as to ways and means, so I answered: “Very well, Len. Tell Sam about it and get ready for a round-up to-morrow.”

He was delighted. “I jest been achin’ to git into the woods,” he said. “There’ll be a lot o’ young-uns to mark. ’Course you know what yer mark is, Mis’ Dolly?” I didn’t, and he apologized for my ignorance in a matter so vital. “A woman kain’t be expected to know ever’thing ’bout the hog business. Yer mark is an undercrap in the right year an’ two main smart slits in the top o’ the left. Ag Snead’s got a mark nearly like yorn, only they’s a slit in the right an’ a crap too. It’s a top slit, an’ ever’ hog that’s got the top o’ his year torn off ol’ Ag drives in fer his’n. An’ they’s mainly yorn, Mis’ Dolly.”

“But how do they get their ears torn off?”

“Dogs. We have to ketch ’em with a dog, an’ he gits ’em by the year. Sometimes a blame hog’ll leave part of his year with the dog an’ go on. I’ve hearn ol’ Ag’ll sic his dogs onto yore mark, hopin’ to tear a year off an’ claim the hog, an’ I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“That’s rascality, Len, and Mr. Snead is a deacon.”

“Law, when a man goes hog-huntin’ he puts his ’ligion in the cupboard, so it won’t git hurt while he’s out.”

“Those hogs are mine. I’m going to have a talk with neighbor Snead.”

Len was startled. “Lord-a-mercy! This here’s a country where you kain’t call a man a hog-thief an’ git home by sundown.”

“I won’t call him a thief.”

“No, I reckon you’ll jest inquire ef he’s got any o’ yore hogs in his pen.”

Noting that I duly crumpled, he became protective as usual.

“You see, Mis’ Dolly, they ain’t any way to ’proach a man on sech a subject, less’n yer carryin’ a good gun.”

“We’ll meet at Sam’s,” he told me, “round about ’fore good daylight. There’ll be pap an’ my Ben, an’ we’ll take Burl ’cause he’s got a big dog.”

Burl was a cousin of Coretta’s, staying at Sam’s and trying, with fluctuating success, to court Len’s oldest girl. “A good hog-hunt,” said Len, “will show ef he’s any account, him an’ that dog o’ hisn.”

I managed to reach Sam’s the next morning while the smoky lamp was still burning on the kitchen table. As I approached I heard voices, zestful and happy, but when I appeared in the door there was surprise, then a troubled silence.

“You needn’t been afeard I wouldn’t git ’em off early,” said Coretta. “I been up sence three o’clock, an’ Len an’ Ben come at four. We’d done breakfast, an’ was jest chowin’ till light broke.”

“I’m not hurrying you. I was only afraid that I wouldn’t be in time myself.”

“You’re not going?” all questioned at once, and plunged into talk of the cliffs that I would tumble over, the thickets I couldn’t crawl through, and the “straight-ups” I couldn’t climb. I did not doubt their concern for me, but felt that more was behind their opposition than desire for my safety. In some subterranean way they knew that crafty hints had reached me of their having now and then spirited hogs to neighborly markets, forgetting to share the proceeds with the owner; they knew too, by the same invisible channels, that the tainting insinuations had been indignantly discouraged; yet they suspected me of wanting to keep on their track. After getting up at an heroic hour to prove my full comradeship, it was depressing to run against suspicion, as cold in my confident face as the frosty air of the dawn. But I innocently urged that I was bound for the hunt, that our lives were of equal value, and I would share all risks. After some minutes of talk--genuine even as it veiled the core of discussion--the springs of good humor began to flow, doubt was put to cover, and we were on the road.

Serena was with us. She had come with Len to the meet, and I had heard him insisting on her accompanying me. “You won’t have to go fur,” he said. “She’ll turn back ’fore we git to Broke Yoke Gap.”

Granpap also was of the party. “He kain’t run,” said Len, “but he’ll he’p us more’n you’d think. He caught a big feller last year all by hisse’f, ’cept what little ol’ Bub could do.”

“All right, granpap,” I said, feeling gay and generous as the sun began to warm our mountain, “you can have all you catch to-day. I won’t take any toll from you.”

There was no answer--no thanks. Everybody looked straight into the woods, ostensibly concerned with nothing but sighting a hog; and I knew thereby that my words had been taken seriously.