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1 The Suddy Sow The horses of Achilles are said to have wept when they saw Patroklos dead, their immortal natures outraged. So why can’t a porcine sow lament her own heritage and destiny? His eyes were sharply focused on the objects of a lifelong avocation , which had, in the Great Depression, become a source of family subsistence and income. The hogs’ wary eyes reciprocated his focus. Both sides, having made their calculations, appeared content with this moment of mutual accommodation. His cracked and calloused hands shelled corn, which he had shucked at the farm crib. He tossed the empty cobs into a bucket, so they could be used later in our outhouse as the next best substitute for the Sears and Roebuck catalog. With one strap from his Big Ben overalls unbuttoned and the bib folded open, he shelled the corn alternately with right hand and left, scattering it in a circular pattern. The hogs were gathering, some in the bush well away from us, others in front on a grassy knoll in the clearing.The horn of our Ford Model A had brought the hogs running. The honking always started, and continued intermittently, as we descended the hill through the blackjack oaks, dodging stumps and an occasional sinkhole. The horn had replaced his vocal chords as hog-caller, penetrating more effectively into the woods and the far reaches of hog habitat. It got the attention of every hog within earshot. Sound equals food, they quickly learned, for hogs are the brightest of farm animals. That day, a Sunday afternoon in September 1935, a large herd had sensed that a good feeding awaited them. It had been a long, hot, and dry summer in Greene County, Mississippi. Wild food was scarce. We could see that several sows had brought with them their late summer pigs and spring shoats, which dodged the aggressions of two Beginnings 2 young boars. The boars fought for turf and advantage. Hogs are very knowledgeable about power and strictly respect its use. Being semiwild , most were cautious about coming close to us. Occasionally, he tossed a whole ear into the bush to one of the larger animals. One sow seemed to be his favorite, the one he called the “Suddy Sow.” This is one of my most vivid images of Joseph Levi Jefferson Hillman, my father, known locally as “Bud” Hillman. (How those beautiful given names got exchanged for “Bud” I did not know and still don’t.) While feeding his hogs, he appeared almost transfixed, studying each animal, its size, shape, coloring, markings, including earmarks, even its eating habits and personality. Sunday afternoon hog feeding was part of a weekly routine that had evolved over the years for males in the clan of Charles Hillman, my grandfather. (Such feeding escaped the Victorian condemnation of Sabbath violation accorded to playing sports or shopping or going to the movies. Whenever we had to catch a hog on Sunday, my father would say, “The ox is in the ditch,” and we did it.) My father’s capacity for recording details about hogs was the keenest in the community. Each was an individual to him, often with a name, or a descriptive reference, and in many cases there developed a certain symbiosis between man and animal. Hillman hog tales grew naturally out of particular animals and incidents . The Suddy Sow became a part of our hog lore mosaic, along with others like the “Listed Shoat,” the “Spotted Gilt,” “Widow Smith’s Blue Boar,” and the “No-yer’d Bar.” Several years later in some idle conversation during my animal husbandry class at Mississippi State College the Suddy Sow came to mind. I wanted to know what breed or type she was, other than a “Bear Branch” hog, but the professor couldn’t determine it from my description. I was confused about the word “Suddy.” It wasn’t in the dictionary, and only after I asked Father about it that Christmas did I get an explanation. “Aw! You remember!” he said. “She was that old gray-black sow that we fed for many years at the foot of the hill of Sand Ridge. The old Suddy Sow—a real rakestraw, not an easy-living swamp hog like the No-yer’d Bar. No bloodline, but always dependable for a litter o pigs. Finally, she was about worn out and we trapped and spayed her, put her over in the potato patch and fattened her.” I surmised the rest...

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