Welcome to the “My Place” page
 My name is Scott
I run the Rope and Wire website.
My original idea for this page was to give those living in the country the opportunity to tell others about the things that made their farm or ranch so special.
Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that either no one likes to brag or no one lives on a farm or a ranch. Whatever the case, no one submitted an article so I felt it was high time to try something different.
So for now this will be literally “My Place.” I’ll use this page to post a western blog or short articles. They will either be mine, or possibly one from a contributing R&W community member.
The theme will remain Western but the content will change weekly, or there about.
If you click on any of the links to past blog's, you can return to this page by clicking on the My Place button across from my picture.
I hope you enjoy it but if not, might I suggest you “stroll the grounds.” Read a story or watch a movie.
Thanks for visiting.
Scott
Requiem for a Pig
By Charles T. Whipple
In the spring of '46, my Dad still drove the '37 chevy we called Jezebel. That same spring, the old sow had nine shoats. Problem was, she only had eight spigots, so the runt got bunted out of the way when his siblings rooted for milk.
We had a fireplace in the front room of the old house on the hill. That was our central heating. That's where my older sister taught me to read first-grade books. That's where I drew pictures of clipper ships and horses. And that's where Dad found me when he came in with the runt.
He set that cardboard box down beside me in the warmth of the fire. Curious, I peeked over the edge. One of Dad's old shirts was bunched up in the bottom, and on it lay a little pink pig about the size of my Dad's right fist.
"Think you can take care of this little feller?" Dad asked.
My heart took to pounding and I had to swallow a couple of times before I could squeak out my most confident "Sure."
Trix Merrell hit my dog Lucky and killed him, so I was without a companion until Dad brought the runt in. I named him Oinkment.
Oinkment was all pink except for a little black muffler around his neck. He and I got along fine. He knew I was the source of that warm milk that made his tummy feel good. I knew he knew, and together, we grew.
Sis and I - Sis was five years older - slept in the same bedroom. Sis had a regular bed, but I still slept in a crib, not that I let any of my friends know.
The crib sat up against the east wall of the bedroom, with Sis's bed across the way. At the end of the crib, iron bars went from the top all the way to the bottom, right down next to the floor. But on the side away from the wall, there was a thing made of bars that you could lift up to keep a baby or a toddler from getting out if it woke up and wanted to go somewhere on its own. Let down, the bars turned the space under the bed into a cage.
Oinkment and I became busom buddies. He followed me everywhere I went, and I let him. In fact, I figured good buddies ought not to be separated, even at night. So I sneaked him in and stuck him in that cage under my bed.
At bedtime, I went without the usual "Ah, Ma, not already. How come I gotta go to bed and Sis is still up?" I knew my buddy was in there, so I went right away. I scrambled into my peejays, gave Oinkment a couple of scratches back of the ears, and settled down for a good night's sleep.
All was well until Mom came in to say good night. I knew enough to keep my eyes shut and breathe deep and slow. Oinkment wasn't that smart. He oinked. And that prompted a family council meeting.
I held that there was no reason my buddy and I couldn't sleep together.
Mom held that no pig was going sleep in her house (except when he was so little that he couldn't get out of the cardboard box).
I argued.
Mom refused.
I said if my buddy couldn't sleep inside, I'd go outside with him.
Dad offered a compromise. "There's that new load of hay in the barn," he told Mom. "Let Charlie sleep out there."
So we got put out in the soft hay.
Mom says she went out with a flashlight to check on me before going go bed, and that my buddy Oinkment and I were fast asleep -- me with an arm thrown over his neck and him matching me snore for snore.
About a year and a half later, Oinkment had grown to 300 pounds or so. His turn came, and unlike Charlotte's Web, the pig didn't escape. We
ate him.
# # #
Charles T. Whipple
Charles Whipple is a native of Show Low, Arizona. He writes full time and publishes Western novels under the pen name of Chuck Tyrell for Black Horse Westerns.
|
