Zeke perked up. “Hog killing. Did you all know Bud Stokes was going to have a hog killing today?”

“No.”

“Of course,” Ruth said, scoldingly. “How can you live right here and not know somebody was having a hog killing? Nosey as you is?”

“You all want to stop?” Jimmy looked at his watch.

“No.” Ruth looked the other way. “Seen enough hog killings to last me another ninety-two years. Sides. I wants to get this here trip over and done with. Don’t like no long trip in no car, no how.”

“You, Uncle Zeke?”

Zeke looked out at the busy yard with the yearning of a sailor for the sea. “You heard her, boy. Drive on.”

Soon the car turned off the dirt road onto the highway and drove on.

ADVENT
(or The Beginning of the End)

You’ve been to a hog killing before, haven’t you? They don’t happen as often as they once did. People simply don’t raise hogs like they used to.

Once, in this very North Carolina town, practically everyone with a piece of land kept a hog or two, at least. And come the cold months of December and January folk would begin to butcher and salt and smoke and pickle. In those days a hog was a mighty good thing to have, to see you through the winter. But you know all this, don’t you?

Remember how excited all the children would be on hog-killing day? Running about, gnawing at cracklings. A tan-and-black mongrel would be snarling and barking and tugging with a German shepherd over some bloody piece of meat. People would be rushing about, here and yon. The men would crowd about the hogpen, the women would stand around long tables under a shed, and somewhere in the yard huge iron cauldrons full of water would boil and boil, stoked with oak and pine timber. The air would be thick with smoke and the smell of sage and pepper and cooked meats and blood. You can even smell it now, I’m sure.