94 Next to the Ground 



nobody could doubt that, after seeing them, 

 as he did, fight over the ripe horse-apples and 

 sweetings, the while utterly neglecting the sour 

 winter windfalls, although they were sound 

 and well-colored. He saw them, too, when 

 they were cloyed with juicy fruit and melons, 

 rush at the piles of seed from the peach- 

 drying, and stand for half an hour craunching 

 up the hard shells, and dropping them out of 

 their mouths, yet keeping in the rich almond- 

 flavored kernels. They could also distinguish 

 between ripe melons and sickly ones from dead 

 vines. But none of all those things were so 

 odd as their preference for sulphur water. 

 There was a sulphur spring in the woods 

 pasture, close on the edge of the creek. The 

 sows would come racing to the creek, with a 

 string of pigs behind, wade across, sometimes 

 dropping to wallow if the day was very warm, 

 then come on to the spring which was nause- 

 ously strong, and drink and drink until they 

 almost drained the little rock basin. The taste 

 for sulphur water, was, he at last decided, an 

 acquired one. The Berkshire gilt, bought a 

 long way ofF, sniffed it when she saw the 

 others drinking, but turned up her nose at it, 

 and waddled on to the creek. 



The fattening hogs were put up at White 

 Oaks early in September. They were not 

 really penned until cold weather came. Major 



