HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 107 



Five pigs of two hundred and fifty pounds 

 weight were put through their paces; twenty 

 plump hams and shoulders and twenty strips 

 of brown sweet bacon hung in our smokehouse, 

 in the smudge of green hickory chips. Don't 

 you like that smell? I used to go out in the 

 chill of the early mornings and hang around 

 the smokehouse for a while and sniff, to 

 get up an appetite for breakfast. There 

 were big cans of sweet lard in the store- 

 room, too. For a while, at butchering 

 time, we lived, let me tell you! Rich spare- 

 ribs no butcher shop ribs, with a thin shred 

 of meat discovered now and then between the 

 bones, if you're lucky; but ribs with real meat 

 on them, coming to the table crisped and odor- 

 ous, so that for all one's town-learned manners 

 he couldn't to save his life keep from oiling his 

 face from' ear to ear. And home-made sau- 

 sage, seasoned with sweet herbs gathered fresh 

 from the garden and dried between clean 

 cloths! Honestly, I'm sorry for the man who 

 hasn't experienced real farm sausage. Ple- 

 beian? Is that what you think of it? Indeed 

 and it's not! I wish you might sit down just 

 once to a Happy Hollow breakfast in Janu- 

 ary, when a hot platter comes to the table filled 



