[Granville-Hough] 29 Jun 2009 - Big Sow

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:25:48 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Big Sow - 29 June 2009

BIG SOW AND HER PIGLETS

Recently I have been watching televisions shows about the feral hog 
invasions of the Southern woodlands, and other places as well. Hogs, it 
seems, will go feral very quickly and act as if they never knew humans. 
Actually, when I grew up, my parents had lived most of their lives on 
the open range, and all their livestock was semi-feral, especially hogs. 
They had, at great expense, built a hog proof fence surrounding a 
quarter section of land (160 acres.) With our strong fence, we could 
keep our own livestock at home and other livestock out. They became 
tamer and more accustomed to being fed and watered and they actually 
knew their own humans and would come on call. Our hog call was not very 
original but the hogs knew it well enough. It was something like: 
ôQuoooo-Opp, Piggy-Piggy,ö with our hands cupped around our mouth to 
carry the sound. We would call four or five times and we would see our 
pigs coming out of the fields and woods toward our feeding trough and 
salt log.
In the 1920Æs and early 1930Æs we had not learned about winter cover 
crops, so we used our livestock as natural gleaners of the harvest. For 
our hogs and other livestock, we included hog goobers (a form of peanut 
which left its seed in the ground, chufas (a ground nut with a parent 
plant looking like swamp grass), fall peas, and wild foods. If we missed 
an ear of corn, they found it. In cotton fields, they found wild 
maypops, succulent grasses, and in old meadows, they could dig out 
crawfish. Of course, the original piney woods rooter fattened on pine 
mast, the big seeds of the longleaf pine which could blow very far from 
the parent tree. Some hogs got very good at cracking wild pecans and 
hickory nuts.
When we began making molasses, our hogs had just about finished their 
gleaning duties, and they loved the smell of sweet molasses being made. 
Every evening we gave them water at our cane mill and we let them have 
the dayÆs skimmings, generally a tub full of all the debris which was in 
the cane juice, bits of stalk, twigs, dirt, and random debris which we 
skimmed out with a skimmer from the top of the boiling juice.
It must have been in the fall of 1935, when we had a very fine and 
gentle hog we called ôBig Sow.ö Someone came by and saw her at the cane 
mill and offered my father $25.00 for her. That would be like a thousand 
dollars today. She weighed about 200 pounds and was ready to give birth 
to piglets. We small Hough boys, 11 to 6 years of age, would rub her 
sides with a stick and she would lie down contentedly and grunt to the 
piglets waiting to be born. One evening we could see that she had given 
birth, but it was too late to go into the woods to rescue the piglets.
The next day we went to school as usual, and my father was cooking the 
cane juice, my brother Dueward was grinding cane, and Uncle Coley 
Richardson and a hired man Roy Austin were taking care of the chores of 
moving the piles of cane, clearing away the ômashes,ö of bagasse, and 
keeping the fire going. My father asked Coley and Roy if they would go 
find where Big Sow had placed her piglets. He had prepared a protected 
place in our hog pen where she could nestle her brood in safety All 
sorts of animals in the woods would attack small piglets. So Coley and 
Roy thought this would be a fine diversion. So they took a washtub in 
which to rescue the piglets. They had been working with pitchforks 
clearing away the cane mashes, so Coley suggested to Roy they might need 
a pitchfork to gather some of the nest straw for the bottom of the washtub.
They soon found Big Sow and the piglets and matter of factly went about 
putting the piglets in the washtub. Big Sow did not quite see it the 
same way. Here were two strange humans putting her babies in a washtub 
and moving them without her permission. She made a terrible ruckus and 
charged. She weighed about 200 pounds and had mean looking teeth. Uncle 
Coley Richardson went up the nearest tree, but Roy Austin was not so 
lucky. Roy was cross-eyed, and did not see clearly. He thought he could 
fend Big Sow off with the pitchfork long enough to get up the next tree. 
As Big Sow came around the tree in a huge lunge, she caught the 
pitchfork on her head and it pierced through into her brain. She fell to 
the ground and died in a quivering mass. So it was two sad and 
bewildered men who went back to the cane mill and reported to an 
infuriated Elisha Hough, who gave them the tongue lashing of their 
lifetimes.
More than 65 years later, my brother Clifford Hough died and my younger 
brother Donald Hough and I attended his funeral. As we passed through 
Mize, Donald stopped to get gasoline. He said a very old cross-eyed man 
asked him who he was and when he said Donald Hough, son of Elisha Hough, 
out came this old manÆs passionate story of how he, Roy Austin, 
accidentally killed Big Sow. He had never again felt so badly, and he 
had never again had such a tongue lashing. Donald could only say he had 
never heard the story and was sorry it had happened. When Donald related 
the story to me, I could remember it all too well. I ask GodÆs 
forgiveness for my fatherÆs violent temper and words, for I never heard 
he ever touched another person in anger. If Roy Austin lived more 
carefully and thoughtfully among his neighbors as a result of this sad 
accident, I am thankful for that.
(P. S., at the time, I thought I could have gone into the woods, alone, 
found Big Sow and her family, and talked her into following me to the 
hogpen. Now, I have some greater knowledge of a motherÆs instincts, and 
I am thankful I did not have the opportunity. Feral hogs do not take 
kindly to human intervention. I think a safe admonition is: ôDonÆt try 
to teach a hog to sing: you get no music, and you get a very annoyed 
animal.ö)