Big Litter

by Bobbie Shafer of Troup, TX

We had lived out on our farm on the Rusk Highway for about three years and in those three years I had watched the chicks hatch, a foal born, and on one Sunday at our regular fried chicken dinner, Daisy, our favorite milk cow delivered early in the side yard right outside the dining room window. Grandma was extremely upset, but Daddy Joe, my grandfather, just smiled and said that Mother Nature must not have any respect for human beings’ meal times.

It was deep into fall where the nights were downright chilly even though the days were warm to hot. East Texas was located in a strange part of the country to ever predict weather. You might could pack away your winter clothes in April, but you never packed your summer clothes away. Daddy Joe said the south was the only place where you turned on your fans one day and build a fire in the fireplace the next day.

Mrs. Sprat was Daddy Joe’s prize sow and when she gave birth late that fall, my grandfather had her stall insulated, padded, and fit for a queen hog. He came in one evening and with a wide grin on his face, announced that Mrs. Sprat had eight pigs and there were still more on the way. Later that evening she had four more and Daddy Joe was elated.

Now, Mrs. Spratt might have been a prize sow and she might have been a queen hog, but Mrs. Sprat was a failure at motherhood. When Daddy Joe checked her before breakfast, there was only one little pig alive and he was the runt. My grandfather walked sadly into the kitchen holding the tiny little naked creature in a towel close to his chest and he had tears in his eyes. He told us that the rest of the litter hadn’t made it through the night. Mrs. Sprat had smothered them and the only one that lived wasn’t big enough to snuggle in with the rest. She had been pushed away and she had burrowed in the hay to keep warm. Grandma said she was hoping it would be a big litter, but it looked like the big litter was one scrawny little piglet.

My grandfather looked at me and then at Grandma. My eyes grew large with hope and when Grandma nodded, Daddy Joe held out the tiny squirming critter who squealed when I grabbed her and held her close.

I named her Big Litter as a joke, but the name stuck. The weather turned cold and Big Litter had to stay in the house. Grandma thought she’d be a nuisance, but I promised to care for her and clean up after her. Daddy Joe showed me how to litter box train her and I was surprised that pigs are so smart. We had to bottle feed her for about six weeks and then wean her off of milk and onto regular hog food which consisted of grain and table scraps. At first she just ate bread and grain soaked in warm milk, but it didn’t take long before she was eating everything that she was offered. On the days when the sun warmed the air up, I would put a little sweater on her that Grandma made for her and take her out while I gathered eggs, slopped the hogs, and fed the chickens. She loved to explore, but never complained when it was time to go back inside. She had a bed by the fireplace, but sometimes I would walk into the living room and find her snuggled down beside Daddy Joe in his big overstuffed chair while he read the paper.

I noticed that when I went to groom Amigo, my horse, Big Litter never wandered away. She would follow me into the stall and root around in the hay while I brushed and groomed him. Amigo was a gentle and patient horse even though he had been trained to race in south Texas on the small privately owned tracks. A slight injury had finished his racing career and although he insisted on staying in the lead when I rode with my friends and always wanted to race back to the barn at the end of our ride, he was a beautiful riding horse as long as you reminded him who was boss.

When spring finally arrived, Big Litter was ready for the outdoors, but being raised with humans and a horse, she couldn’t or wouldn’t adjust to the pig pen. She would start squealing the second you put her in the pen and wouldn’t stop until you let her out.

During chores or when I was away at school, Big Litter stayed in the barn with Amigo or trailed along after him when he was let out to pasture. As the temperature got hotter, she learned to walk in Amigo’s shadow or under his belly, rooting along as he ate.

The bus arrived at my stop around four-thirty or four forty-five and Amigo and Big Litter would be waiting at the front fence of the pasture in front of our house. Big Litter would scoot under the fence and walk home with me and Amigo would follow along on the other side of the fence. I always saved the crusts of my sandwich and fed them as we walked along to the house.

We lived on the Rusk Highway farm for another five years and when we moved into town because of Grandma’s bad health, I sold my horse to our neighbors, Mr. Wisenbloom and his wife, Arlie, who owned a dairy and we gave Big Litter to them as well. They knew the close connection between Amigo and Big Litter and promised they would be comfortable the rest of their lives.

They were true to their word. When Mr. Wisenbloom turned the dairy over to George, his son, several years later, we rode out to see them and when we pulled into the yard, the first thing we saw made us laugh out loud. In the field next to the milking barn was Amigo, grazing along with a couple of other horses. Waddling along beside him, criss-crossing under his belly now and then, was Big Litter, rooting and grunting happily. They didn’t see us and I thought it was best. They were happy in their new home and that’s all I needed to see. They were my best friends at a time when they were all I needed. Now, all I needed was to know they were happy and well cared for. I could see that they were and I left teary-eyed but satisfied. I had seen my old friends and they would always be with me in my memories.