Far down the ridge Tillie Bocock was up early too, for already the sun was bright and there was corn to hoe. Tillie and the children had washed the dishes, and she had carried out the soapy dishwater with cornbread scraps mixed in it and poured it in the trough for the pig. “Spotty,” they called their pet. The Bococks had no planks with which to make a separate pen for the spotted pig so they kept its trough in a corner of the chicken lot.
“Mazie, you and Saphroney go fetch a bucket of cold water for Spotty,” Tillie called to her two eldest. “A pig likes a cold drink now and then same as we do.” So off the children went with the cedar bucket to the spring. When they returned they poured some of the water into the dishpan and Spotty sucked it up greedily while they hurried to pour the rest into the mudhole where the pig liked to wallow.
The sun caked the mud on the pig’s sides and legs as it lay grunting contentedly in the chicken yard.
And when Tillie and the children came in from hoeing corn at dinner time Spotty still lay snoozing in the sun. An hour later they returned to toss a handful of turnip greens into the pig. But Spotty didn’t even grunt or get up, for on its side was a sleek black cat. A cat with green eyes stretched full length working its claws into the pig’s muddy sides, now with the front paws, now with the hind ones.
The children screamed and stomped a foot. “Scat! Scat!” they cried but the black cat only turned its fierce eyes toward them.
Hearing their screams Tillie came running out. She fluttered her apron at the cat to scare it away but it only snarled, showing its teeth, lifting its bristling whiskers. Then Tillie picked up a stone and threw it as hard as she could, striking the cat squarely between the eyes. It screamed like a human, Tillie told afterwards. Loud and wild it screamed, and leaping off the pig it darted off quick as a flash.
When the cat reached the cliff halfway up the mountain that led toward Pol Gentry’s it turned around and looked back. With one paw uplifted it wiped its face for there was blood pouring out of the cut between its shining green eyes. It twitched its mouth till the black fur stood up.
“Come, get up, Spotty!” Tillie and the children coaxed the pig. “Here’s more dishwater slop for you. Here’s some cornbread!”
Slowly the pig got to its knees, then to its feet. It grunted once only and fell over dead.
After that old Pol Gentry wasn’t seen for days. But when Tillie Bocock did catch sight of her, Pol turned off from the footpath and hurried away. Even so Tillie saw the deep gash in Pol’s forehead oozing blood right between her eyes. She saw Pol Gentry’s mouth widen angrily and the black hair about it twitch like that of a snarling cat, as she slunk away.