BUTTER WICK'S PIG.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 153, 27 June 1908, Page 13

BUTTER WICK'S PIG.

BY MAX ADELEB._ "We bought that pig." said Mr. Butterwlck to mc, alluding to bis small experience as a pork-raiser, "as a matter of economy. Mrs. Butterwick said we could feed him on any odds and ends of old slop that sccamulatcd, and at the end of thj season we could get enough meat. out of him to last us all winter. But there was no;money in lt. and I often think that the reason was that when I bought him I picked out a pig whose gastric Juice was too active. I didn't think toast the man about the pig's gastric Juice. -,)--.,

"He was the hungriest pig : I ever saw. There was something supernatural about his appetite. -I'd. take him down a" conple. ot buckets of slop, and when he'd eat it, I'd chuck in half a barrel of rotten apples, and he'd stow them away; Then I'd give him holt a bushel of,corn and three or four gallons of sour milk, and when they were down he'd look up at mc as much as' to say, 'Ton ain't half a man, to be starving a poor, miserable little brute like mc to death.' He would cat four times his bulk every twenty-four hours, and then, besides, he'd gobble up : any cats, or. chickens, or stray dogs -that wandered into his pen.

"One time. I know, I told Mrs. Butterwick that I was going to give that pig one square meal, if it: put mc into bankruptcy. And so I carried him up into the granary and set him loose among eight bushels of apples and eleven bushels of unshelled corn.

"In a day or.two I dropped in to.see how he was making out, and I found that he had cleaned up the apples and the corn, had eaten the cobs, and was about half through with the wooden part of a mow-ing-machine. I know mighty well he'd "ye eaten up the granary from the foundation to the shingles If he'd only had time. And the next day, when Miles, the butcher, was over here, he took a look in the pen, arid he says:

" 'ButterwicKrthafs a nice pig, but you ought to fatten him up; he's falling off for want of feed.' .

j "And then, you know, the blamed pig'd get so. hungry at night two or three hours after eating a barrel of slop, that he'd eat la board out-of the side of the pen and go roaming round after something to stay his stomach till morning. Maybe he'd drop in l on Pitman's potato patch, and root out every in the "entire plantation, or, he"d call at Keyser's. arid eat up twelve hundred .head of cabbage or something. And they'd find him in the morning leaning up against the fence, trying to think where Ihe could go to scare up a decent breakfast. IHe was the blamodest pig I ever saw.:- (

"Then they'd send for mc, and I'd tie n string to his leg and try to lead him home. If I wanted'to go south, he'd feci an impulse to go north; or if I wanted to proceed eastward, he.felt it to be his duty to pull toward the west And if he saw. any corn in a field en the way home, he'd push in under the fence' before I could stsp him. Then, when I'd climb over so's to humour him, he'd change his mind, and crawl out and get the i-ope all tangled In the fence,' And, when we came to a tree, he'd always walk around lt "seven or eight times and wind.himself up tight;.and then he'd'seem.to think the only way to get loose was'to cat something, and maybe he'd put away a couple of bricks or a paving stone.

"But he kept growing thinner. I dunno how it was. P'rhaps he had something ou his mind, or he felt remorse! Anyway, somehow he fell oft in Cesh; brit the way he kept up his appetite was amazing. Xow, how does a pig eat a tub full of things, and .then when you measure hini he won't halt fill the tub? it gets mc. 1 don't pretend to understand it. Only I know mighty welt 1 there;? no money in it. Lemme see/ that pig cost mc. about—less, -see; counting corn, .and apples, and milk, and- damages, and 1 trouble, I should, say -about eight- hundred dollars.. I paid four for. him--that's eight hundred and. four. Well, when we killed j him he panned out I'should say about fifteen dollars' : worth jof '< the meanest :hain3, and sausages, and shoulders you ever laid your eyes .on. Absolutely ■ not enough fat on theni-to grease a griddle rwith. ; We had to buylai-d to fry the sausages with.- Positive fact; that meat cost us* about twenty dollars a pound, too. So. that let's';me out on cogs. ; I raise no'more-stock. The only time that pig ever did get to a decent size was one day he upset a bee-hire, hunting for honey, and all the bees turned" in and stung him so that be swelled iip all over. I wish I'd a sold him then. But that chance Is gone. And no more pigs for mc, if you please. I'll buy my pork slaughtered. Now, wouldn't you, if you was mc?" ,-.••■■'■

-1 don't vouch for Butterwlck's story. ' I <mly:repeat It as he r*«*e it t» mc.