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By Root 1431 0

pigs, they are red-and-brown, and have bristly spines like razorbacks. Vernon fattens them; instead of feeding them corn, as domestic swine are fed, he feeds them the diet of razorbacks: acorn mast and wild fruits, all they can eat. One of the Chism boys up on the mountain is still distilling Chism’s Dew, and Vernon asks permission to haul off the corn mash that is used in the distillation process, and he feeds this also to his pigs; there is enough alcohol in it to keep his pigs constantly happy. In hot weather, when most pigs suffer, and wallow in mud to alleviate their suffering, Vernon regularly showers down his pigs with cold water from a hose, which makes them actually smile and grunt with pleasure. All of this contributes to a superior type of pig. When the gilts are old enough to go into heat, Vernon breeds them to their father, producing pigs that are even more razorback than themselves. Normally, wild razorback sows farrow only four to six pigs, but Vernon’s hogs have become so contented and domesticated that they farrow eight to twelve pigs each.

Vernon’s great-great-aunt Drussie Ingledew, ninety-eight years old, is on her deathbed, but before she dies she tells Vernon how people used to cure ham back in the old days when there were still razorbacks at large, but Vernon refuses to share his secrets with us. He will not reveal the special time of year when he slaughters his hogs, nor will he reveal the arcane but humane method he uses to slaughter them. He smokes the meat for an amount of time that he will not reveal, using smoke from burning objects the composition of which is a closely guarded secret. Many spies try to learn his secrets, but they do not succeed.

“Ingledew Ham” is the best stuff in the history of ham-making. There is nothing else comparable; it practically melts in your mouth, and is much sweeter than ordinary ham. At first Vernon sells his total output to the supermarkets of Jasper and Harrison, but the demand for it keeps forcing the price up, until the local supermarkets cannot carry it, and it becomes a mail order item affordable only by the wealthy. Vernon’s five sisters, who are married to, respectively, a Whitter, a Chism, a Coe, a Plowright, and a Stapleton, help him raise and process his hams, as do their husbands; it becomes an increasingly large operation. Vernon branches off into smoked sausage, cased in cornhusks the old-fashioned way, and far superior to commercial sausage. Then he branches off into sugar-cured and smoked bacon; also spareribs and head cheese, letting nothing go to waste.

One day he takes his watch to Harrison to be repaired. The watch repairman examines it, declaring he’s never seen one like it. The repairman gently opens the case, and shakes his head; he says it will take him months, maybe years, to find replacements for the damaged parts and to put the watch back together. “Take your time,” Vernon assures him. He is only eighteen years old. (It’s really too bad about that watch. I had planned to tell Vernon what the next step was: he was to go away to college, to the University of Arkansas, where he would play football, becoming a “Razorback” himself, making the first string in his sophomore year, as a defensive end, and becoming the best defensive end in the history of the Razorbacks, making All-American in his senior year. That would have made a great sports story, which we could call simply Razorback, but the watch is broken and we cannot get to him to tell him about it. So he does not go to college. But he studies.)

On the same trip to Harrison to take his watch to be repaired, he discovers a store that sells a kind of book with soft covers called “paperback.” The paperback more than the razorback is a momentous discovery for Vernon. He buys a handful of paperbacks on astronomy, geology, genetics, anthropology, linguistics, and architecture, which he takes home and reads in his spare time when he is not supervising his swine industry. Periodically he returns to Harrison to see if his watch has been repaired, and finding that it hasn’t, he buys more paperbacks,