Wednesday of the following week was hog-killing day for Jerry. Joe Barnaby came over to help him butcher. From the kitchen window Judith could see the men going about getting things in readiness, putting up three sets of crossed poles from which to hang the carcasses, arranging a scraping table, setting up the scalding barrel at a convenient angle and building a fire under a large, flaring iron kettle. It was a gray, frosty morning and they had their caps pulled down over their ears. Their breath came in white puffs.
Inside she had a roaring fire and the wash boiler on the stove to make more scalding water; for the hog-killing kettle that they had borrowed was not a very large one.
"There hain't no day I like better'n hog-killin' day," said Joe, warming his hands over the fire while they waited for the water to heat. "Some folks hates to see butcherin' day come. But I say to dress a hawg clean an' neat is as nice a job as there is a-goin'; an' it's a job a man kin put some heart into, 'cause he knows he hain't throwin' his work away. More'n that, he's got company by his side, an' that means a hull lot."
Joe's long, melancholy face showed its nearest approach to satisfaction, as he went out with Jerry, who had the sharpened butcher knife in his hand.
Judith stood over the wash tub rubbing out children's clothes. The baby crawled about on an old quilt spread on the floor. Billy, as was his three-year-old habit, had been spending his time getting from one mess of mischief into another. His latest adventure had been to fall backward into the slop bucket, from which he emerged with deafening screams. She had had to take off all his clothes from the shirt out and put on clean ones. The dirty clothes had gone to join the others in the tub. The heat and stale smells of the kitchen made her feel faint and sick. Her head swam dizzily. She wished she could go into the bedroom and lie down.
She heard the shrill squealing of the pig as its throat was cut, and, a little later saw Joe and Jerry carrying it to the scalding barrel. Billy in his red cap bobbed excitedly behind. Snap and Joe Barnaby's dog careened alongside, Snap with loud barks of joyous excitement, the strange dog silent and respectful as befitted a dog not on his own ground. Then men came hurrying in for the boiler of hot water.
"Fill her up agin, Judy—not full, jes half," Jerry called back, as he hurried away after bringing back the empty wash boiler.
She threw an old jacket over her shoulders and went out to the well for water. Coming back into the stuffy heat of the kitchen from the fresh, frosty air, the place seemed more foul and stinking than ever. Her stomach heaved tumultuously. Her knees trembled and she sank for a few moments into the old rocking chair.
Through the window she could see the men sousing the hog up and down in the scalding barrel, pulling him half way out, turning him a little and plunging him back again. The steam from the hot water rose up into the frosty air like a cloud of white smoke.
The baby began to cry and she got up wearily and warmed some milk for him, then crumbled a corn cake into it and fed it to him from a spoon. Having put him into dry diapers, she set him back on the quilt and went again to her washing.