River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1893-04-06
The PIG.
Nonsense About n staId and Respectable
Member of Animal Soefefr.

y
Member OF Anims, Society.
The pig is fitting; evaneseent quad
ruped that runs through the circuit of
his life in a few brief moons Before
he is hardly aware of it he has become
distended, full-blown hog, hedged in
by many limitations and beset by many
difficulties.
lie steps with alacrity while he is
young and tender. and always takes
the cake when he is on his mettle.
He is the cynosure of ali eyes for the
languid droop of his eyelids and for his
peachy cheek and white complexion,
Even in dewy youth he is possessed of
a voice of remarkable timbre, and can
render an aria in the key of A. three
sharps or four flats without an effort,
and is an adept on the tremolo and
demi-semiquavers.
His capacity for close, compact stor-
age is unparalleled. He will swallow
a trimming pail of milk, and then you
can chuck him into the pail length
wise and he won't fill it more than half
full.
He can fiatten himself out and crawl
under a gate when a weasel would
scoot around tc the gap.
In the fore end of his career he is q
glowing. throbbing creature, almost
quaint and altogether hntic,
Nature gave him the eff 81 grace III
his tail, but made such boteh in the
inside of his head that a fellow man is
sometimes dubbed pigheaded; however,
this is often more than the average pig
can stand.
Time wings him along with a swift
swipe until he finds himself suddenly
transmitted into blase hog with but
one impulse, and that is to get all he
can and keep all he can get.
A hog is q hog and you lose time in
trying to dilate on him. for he wants TO
do all the dilating himself.
Many years ago some brilliant mind
formulated an atrocious libel and flung
into the faces of the herd this taunt-
Root. hog, or die" Now if he had only
said:
Swine inspire
otherwise expire
there would have been both rhyme and
reason in it, for it would have stood the
test of science and it would have got its
feet into the trough of poetry, where
they approximately belong. Besides it
would relieve the hog of the necessity
of exertion and it might have bumped
along the corridors of time, sending out
sparks of truth and harmony.
A hog likes to lie down and do moth
ing industriously for hours at time
| might say for hours on the stretch,
only my phrasiug would imply too
much tension. You can better under
stand why | don't stick closer to my
subject when you consider how soon
the pig fliclSers out and is as though he
never was,
When n hog leaves off being pig he
wants to go somewhere as of yore, but
almost always he finds himself too big
to squeeze In. so he lies down in the
mud until supper time, unless he is
coerced. recall wildly an instance
of coercion when town boy visited
country boy and they drove the
hog into the orchard and took
turns riding him all through the
long sultry hours of a July afternoon.
When their exercise was finished the
hog was also finished. They performed
Il lay in concert, though it was some-
what different in character. When the
hog lay down in the mire it was = soft
lay, and long lay, but when the irate
farmer lay on it was hard lay and
the blisters stayed by for some time.
When the hog reaches his ultimate,
and is securely cornered, he has been
known to make IA many as two braces
of billionaires in day.
Vive fhogie. Tom Taylor, in Cleve-
land World.