Five
__4 __ FIVE THE MULES were mine now. I had paid Mr. Ford all lowed him. They were beginning to slow up, not prancing as much, The hard work of pulling the scrapers was showing on them. I had the hostler to add more grain to their feeding and be sure they got their regular dosage of Dr. Legear's worm and kidney powder. Work stock have to be kept wormed. If their urine begins to look real golden, their kidneys are not right. They need to pass clear urine. It was beginning to turn cool now. It was about the middle of October. The coal mines were idle, all the northern factories were closing. Nearly all the teamsters had left the coal mines and were taking any kind of hauling they could get. I wanted to go to school this winter, but owning my team of mules and trying to keep JoJo with me, I couldn't see how I could manage to go to school and keep jobs lined up. I was paying Mrs. Walters $9 a week for my keep, and $55 to the livery stable. The blacksmithing sometimes ran as high as $75 a month. Uncle John had stopped charging me for harnessing my mules. I had wasted over a hundred dollars buying two big western saddles from Uncle Hamp Huff, but JoJo and I got a lot of pleasure out of them. We would take a ride somewhere nearly every Sunday. On November 15 we drove out to Mr. Ford's. It was butchering day. Let it come rain or shine, he would not fail to butcher on this day. He would hire four good strong men to help him. He would slaughter twenty to thirty big fat hogs and from six to eight beef cattle. The people in town depended on him for a lot of meat. I drove into the wagon yard, tied my team down good, and thought I should look in on the lame Morgan. Nearly all the horses were in the barn or running in the lot, but I could not find Old Bob. I heard someone call from up on the hill above the barn. I looked up. There was Old Bob coming down the hill dragging a large 36 bunched-up pile of poles behind him. He looked completely healed. The man behind him was calling out commands to him to go gee or haw, directing him to drag the load to where a big fire was blazing. Mr. Ford and the other men had four big hogs dressed and hanging upside down from a big rafter log at the harness shed. They had three huge vats of water boiling. As they killed each hog, they would lower it into the boiling water, then raise it out and lay it on some large, wide boards, and Mr. Ford would start scraping and pulling the hair from the head. The other men, with long sharp knives, would begin scraping the feet. After the feet and head were cleaned, the hair on the hams, shoulders, and side would just about fall off. They kept thick feed sacks laying on these parts while they were cleaning the head and feet. Mr. Ford would be pouring scalding water over the sacks. It was something to watch, how smooth and skilled these people were, going about their work. I had brought my wagon to haul the dressed beef back to town, to the town's only meat store. The five beefs I loaded were just about all my team could handle. I had some steep hills to go over. The old man who owned the meat store was some kind of a foreigner. I think he might have been Hungarian or Greek. After we hung all the meat, the old butcher paid me for hauling it. He said, "I guess this will put me out of business. I've got all my money tied up in this meat and the United Mine Workers' Union have come out on strike. I just don't know what I'll do. I wish I hadn't left my country, but all I canna hear, 'go to America, go to America,' thisa all I canna hear. You wanna buya my shop7" I sure felt sorry for that old man. He would let anybody buy all the meat they wanted, no matter if they had the money or not. He trusted them to pay when they got a...
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