Lovers of western stories might remember the opening scene in Lonesome Dove where Gus steps onto the porch and spots his two pet pigs waging a tug-of-war with a rattlesnake. When Gus and Captain Call start the herd moving north to Montana, the hogs fall right in step at the rear. They must have been agreeable to the journey because they stayed with Gus and followed the herd the whole distance. He liked them for their great perseverance and thought they were more intelligent than some of the men he’d known.
Speaking with pride about his pets, he said, “Why, they’re the first pigs to walk all the way from Texas to Montana. That’s quite a feat for a pig.” If you’re into such things as analyzing a story and finding themes, it can be said they represent the circle of life. How so? Gus died from the infection caused by the arrows shot into his leg. Then with him no longer alive to be their champion, the cowboys saw them as a delicious change of menu and butchered them for a big pork Christmas meal. In the end, they were simply food.
Naysayers might say that’s a good story, but that it could never happen in real life, that a pair of hogs couldn’t walk that far. Readers can be assured: it could have happened because it did in this area. Here’s the story told and recorded in the WPA files by an old timer named Gilbert Nordhagen.
“I was born in Iowa, in Worth County, and in the early spring of 1878 my father and two neighbors, Mr. G. Nistul and a Mr. Thor Mostul, both family men, started out from Worth County, Iowa in farm wagons (covered) and pulled by big oxen.
“They had a few farm implements, like plows and drags, some household goods, and they drove all their cattle behind the wagons, about 40 head, and a 600 pound hog (sow) walked all the way. This old sow pig gave them more trouble than all the cattle did. It would not follow, and then it got sore feet from the walking, but Mr. Nystul would not part with it.
“Then they came to the Minnesota River which was very big on account of the spring raise and the ferry men wanted too much money to take all across, so they drove all the stock into the flooded river, even the great hog.
“They were lucky though, and did not lose anything, even the hog swam over all right. They came to Fargo in the last part of April, 1879. Fargo was just a small town then, about 500 inhabitants, the N.P.R.R. was just built in there. Dad and the two men with him filed on a quarter of land (preemption) about 35 miles S. W. of Fargo. There was not a house between our house and Fargo, and there was no road of any kind. The low places, sloughs, were all full of water and there were many lakes all full of water and which are all dry now.
“Dad and the two neighbors helped each other and built small log houses and log barns. There were millions of mosquitoes. This pest was so terrible it drove stock and people crazy. It was almost impossible to do any work with the oxen. They got five acres broken on each quarter, put in wheat, sowed by hand. This was hand cradled, and they got over fifty bushels to the acre. In the fall of 1879 Dad disposed of his pre-emption and took a homestead two miles east of where Enderlin is now.”
We find no further mention about the sow that walked along from Iowa, but it can’t be doubted that at some point it died and completed its circle of life.
No comments:
Post a Comment