Tales of Uncle Ernest – (Continued) Section 3, “The Pig” – Chapter 6

Tales of Uncle Ernest – (Continued)

Section 3, “The Pig” – Chapter 6

Then Uncle Ernest headed in for a night on the town, and I was left to watch night descend and listen to the sounds of another dying day. I got to feeling kind of miserable for some reason, so I walked over to where the two locust trees stood beside the back of our house and thought about what happened there last summer. The two trees were about the same size, sisters probably, nearly thirty feet tall and a foot or so in diameter. I remember how I used to tie a rope between them and throw a blanket over the rope to make a dandy tent. I played in there with all sorts of things, and Wiggsey would always creep into the tent to keep me company.

The summer before, Nina, Old Dave McNolt, the farmer who tilled our fields, was burning off some brush and almost burned our stable down. I remember how the flames flickered up the corner of the stable as Old Dave and Pop threw buckets of water on them. They caught it in time, but some of the boards were charred black. They’re still there, Nina; I’ll show them to you if you like.

Now, the incident I want to tell you about happened that same summer. McNolt had horses, mules, cows, and many other domesticated farm animals. The cows he’d graze on our fields at times, but the mules and horses were there often. Well, one of the horses he had was a bad one. You know, Nina, some animals can be bad just like some people.

At any rate, this horse, a large, brown stallion named Jack, was wild and hard to manage, and one evening, before McNolt returned to his farm with the other mules and horses, he had tied Jack to one of the trees that I used to hold my tent. Jack snorted, whinnied, and stomped the ground that evening before bedtime.

Let me tell you, Nina, when I woke up the next morning and looked out the upstairs hall window, I saw the strangest sight. Jack was lying dead on the ground, strangled on that tree, with his eyeballs bulging out and his purple tongue dangling to the ground. He had twisted himself around and down to the bottom of the tree trunk until he had no where to go, so that his head and neck were snug up against the trunk. He had struggled valiantly—in one direction only. His enormous body (remember he was a large work horse) lay fully across the area where I had pitched my tent a few days before.

And do you believe that Old Dave McNolt didn’t bother to remove the carcass. In a couple of days the body swelled up to twice its size, its belly especially, bloating up like a gigantic hairy balloon and stretching as taut as a bass drum. I remember how nifty it was to look up at the prostrate Jack as I stood there on the ground, but it was even better to see it from the hall window upstairs, where I could take in the full absurdity of it all.

But, do you know, Nina, that as a kid I didn’t think it was that bad, because my buddy, Junior, and I would climb to the top of that belly and slide down it. I can still feel my bare feet stepping on that distended belly, and still feel my fingers digging into that taut, hairy horsehide as I struggled to reach the top. Yep, we lost an unusual sliding board, which I’ll bet no other kid ever had, when the flies and the stink got so bad that Pop had to pay a skinner to haul it away.

Standing there that evening, hands on hips, thinking about Jack’s misfortune last summer, I had lost track of time. Night had fallen and a hoot owl from the deep woods broke my trance with his question; I bolted for the house, and after leaping up the steps and entering, heard the screen door slam behind me, punctuating the end of another day.   [To be continued Friday, 2/24/2012]