My brothers Jim Farley, Jerry, my cousin Denny L. Dennis
and I spent at least two weeks on our grandparents' farm in South Dakota
in the summertime when we were between the ages of 5 until Jim was 10
years old. We moved to Washington in 1952. We helped our Grandparents
and played in the farmyard. Grandma had chickens and we had to collect
eggs, we carried corn cobs from a pile in the yard in baskets into the
house, because grandma burned corn cobs instead of wood for the kitchen
stove. We carried heavy pails of water from the well into the house and
we watched grandpa milk the cows. I helped grandma churn butter and it
was hard work.
Grandpa
loved raising pigs because they were good money makers. One year he had
a sow who had a large litter of piglets. There were several little
pigs competing for her milk and one of them was very emaciated. It kept
getting shoved aside by the other piglets. Grandpa started making a
mash of cow's milk and some kind of meal. He poured into a long wooden
trough while the piglets stood on their hind legs to eat it. Again
the smallest pig didn't get anything to eat because it was crowded out.
One of the boys realized that there was something wrong with it's eyes
because it seemed to bump into things and had drainage or pus around
one of them. They decided it was blind.
Being kind hearted they decided they were going to make sure that the
piglet got something to eat. They started throwing corn cobs at all the
piglets to keep them away from the feeding trough. Jim climbed into
the pigpen, picked the starving one up, and put him right into the fed
trough. The boys kept throwing corn cobs at the other piglets until it
looked like the blind pig had enough. I do not remember if they lifted
the piglet out of the trough or if it climbed down by itself. I know
they did this on more than one day and the little pig started gaining
weight. As I remember, Jim and Denny took turns climbing the fence
into the pig pen while the other boys covered him with corn cobs. I
watched the heroes like a girl should do.
Grandpa
usually put the sows in a caged part of the hog shed when he fed the
piglets to keep them from eating the food. One of the sows was very
agitated when the boys were feeding the pig and pelting the others with
corn cobs. One time this huge pig was screaming and trying to climb
the barrier that was keeping her in the hog shed. She seemed very angry
and was probably the mother of the piglets. Grandpa didn't seem to
object to the boys doing this but Grandma was terrified that the sow
would get loose and attack one of them. Fortunately after a few days
the 'blind pig' seemed to regain it's sight and could compete with the
others. So grandpa told them to stop, but they knew they had saved the
piglet's life and cured it's vision and they probably did.
