PADUTCH-LIFE-L Archives

From: "Vee L. Housman" <>
Subject: 33-Two-Legged Pigs
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 12:32:09 -0400

TWO-LEGGED PIGS

Have you ever asked yourself how many different kinds of pig
there are in the world? If you haven't, let me tell you. There are
more kinds than anyone would have thought. They are divided into
two classes: the two-legged and the four-legged. Four-legged pigs
have an advantage over two-legged pigs in that they can be fattened
and slaughtered, but the two-legged variety has absolutely no
redeeming features whatsoever.

You could live in the same town for twenty years without
knowing that you walk the streets daily with pigs until you get a
chance to spend some time living with one. Some of the pigs are as
sour as vinegar and as mean as dirt in their homes--abusing their
wives and beating up their children. They have no good words for
anyone or anything, but out on the streets they seem so self-assured
that you could even mistake them for gentlemen.

There is one type of pig which thinks that the sun shines and
the rain falls solely for its glory. Everyday it worships God for
itself, and if it could regulate the wind and the rain, it would turn
its
farm into a garden and that of its neighbor into a desert. This sort
of pig is never too tired to create a burning hell just to accommodate
those persons whom it would enjoy to see in agony.

There is another kind of pig--the man who hangs around
taverns and who is always ready to accept a drink, yet never has
enough money to set up his own drinks. This pig bums chewing
tobacco, smokes the cigars, and drinks the whiskey that others pay
for. Later it brags about how much richer it is than those from
whom it has been accepting all the free gifts. I have no objections
to a man who spends too much of his money in barrooms, but
supporting a drinking habit with another man's money is a different
matter.

Another type is the railroad pig. A railroad pig is a man who
is not satisfied with having just any seat in a railroad car. He
spreads himself and his baggage across four seats, making ladies and
the elderly stand when the car is full. Such animals usually take
everything which is offered them for food, and yet, as quietly as a
mouse, they'll pack away any food of their own and share it with no
one. In a tavern this pig will eat once a day, and what it cannot load
into its muzzle it will stuff into its pockets to feed upon later as the
urge arises.

One more type and I'll be finished. This is the pig who always
has to be first--who will crawl over ladies and children, leaving them
in the dirt, just so it can carry its snout above everyone else.
Perhaps there are more of this pig than any other, and it's impossible
to exterminate them. Education and refinement only makes them
worse and more acceptable--since a polished pig can crawl into
many high places that a common pig, fresh out of its pen, would not
dare reach.

* * *

Note: This collection of Boonastiel stories was written by H. A.
Harter in the original Penna-Dutch dialect and were published in the
Keystone Gazette, Bellefonte, PA, between 1894 and 1904. They
were translated and transcribed by Bob James of Alaska and they
are being posted to this PADUTCH-LIFE mailing list with his
permission.

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• 33-Two-Legged Pigs by "Vee L. Housman" <>