Part 53 (1/2)
”Never in a Pork-haouse?”
”Never.”
”Wall, yeou've hearn tell--of Ohio, I reckon?”
”Oh, yes! got a daughter living out there,” was the answer.
”Yeou don't say so?”
”I have, in Urbana, or near it,” said the old gent.
”Urbanny! Great kingdom! why I know teu men living aout there; one's trading, t'other's keepin' school; may be yeou know 'em--Sampson Wheeler's one, Jethro Jones's t'other. Jethro's a cousin of mine; his fa'ther, no, his _mother_ married--'tain't no matter; my name's Small,--Appogee Small, and I was talkin'----”
”About the hog crop, Cincinnatty Pork-houses.”
”Ye-a-a-s; wall, I went eout West last fall, stopped at Cincinnatty--teu weeks. Dreadful nice place; by gravy, they do deu business there; beats Salvation haow they go it on steamboats--bust ten a day and build six!”
”Is it possible?” says the old gent; ”but the hogs----”
”Deu beat all. I went up to the Pork-haouses;--fus thing you meet is a string--'bout a mile long, of big and little critters, greasy and sa.s.sy as sin; buckets and bags full of sc.r.a.ps, tails, ears, snaouts and ribs of hogs. Foller up this line and yeou come to the Pork-haouses, and yeou go in, if they let yeou, and they did me, so in I went, teu an almighty large haouse--big as all aout doors, and a feller steps up to me and says he:--
”'Yeou're a stranger, I s'pose?'
”'Yeou deu?' says I.
”'Ye-a-a-s,' says he, 'I s'pose so,' and I up and said I was.
”'Wall,' says he, 'ef you want to go over the haouse, we'll send a feller with you!'
”So I went with the feller, and he took me way back, daown stairs--aout in a lot; a-a-a-nd everlastin' sin! yeou should jist seen the hogs--couldn't caount 'em in three weeks!”
”Good gracious!” exclaims the old gent.
”Fact, by gravy! Sech squealin', kickin' and goin' on; sech cussin' and hollerin', by the fellers pokin' 'em in at one eend of the lot and punchin' on 'em aout at t'other! Sech a smell of hogs and fat, _brissels_ and hot water, I swan _teu_ pucker, I never did cal'late on, afore!
”Wall, as fast as they driv' 'em in by droves, the fellers kept a craowdin' 'em daown towards the Pork-haouse; there two fellers kept a shootin' on 'em daown, and a hull gang of the all-firedest dirty, greasy-looking fellers _aout_--stuck 'em, hauled 'em daown, and afore yeou could say Sam Patch! them hogs were yanked aout of the lot--killed--scalded and sc.r.a.ped.”
”Mighty quick work, I guess,” says the old gent.
”Quick work? Yeou ought to see 'em. Haow many hogs deu yeou cal'late them fellers killed and sc.r.a.ped a day?”
”Couldn't possibly say--hundreds, I expect.”
”Hundreds! Grea-a-at King! Why, I see 'em kill thirteen hundred in teu hours;--did, by golly!”
”Yeou don't say so?”
”Yes, _sir_. And a feller with grease enough abaout him to make a barrel of saft soap, said that when they hurried 'em up some they killed, scalded and sc.r.a.ped ten thousand hogs in a day; and when they put on the steam, twenty thousand porkers were killed off and cut up in a single day!”