"The Larkin Liles Saga" Part 7 - The Hog Story

 

THE HOG STORY

The following incident was told about Larkin Liles by the late Corbett Knapp, who was distantly related.

In those days it was the customer for hogs and other stock to run wherever they wished.  There were few, if any, fences in the rural areas one hundred and twenty years ago.  It seemed that one party had a very pernicious hog, which delighted in going any distance in order to get in Larkin Liles’ garden, where it uprooted sweet potatoes and played havoc generally.  Larkin had protested several times to the owner of this hog, who in turn acknowledged the hog’s guilt but claimed he was absolutely unable to keep it up ---that it would uproot or tear down any kind of fence in which it was confined.

One day, returning from a squirrel hunt, Liles passed by this neighbor’s cabin.  Finding the neighbor aforesaid sitting on a fallen tree trunk at the edge of the road.  He was greeted cordially and urged to ‘sit a spell’, which Liles did.  In the course of the conversation, Liles, who had his squirrel rifle laying across his lap with its muzzle pointing toward the neighbor, managed to maneuver the gun into a suitable position.  All at once the gun suddenly fired.  The bullet barely grazed the belly of the neighbor.

“My God, Larkin, you came pretty near killing me,” cried the neighbor, as he ruefully rubbed where the bullet had barely burned his skin.

Larkin, too was on his feet, examining the lock of his gun, with astonishment.  “Boy, that was a close call,” said Larkin.  “Can’t imagine what got into this fool gun!  I’m going to have to examine that fool hammer. Appears like it ain’t catching right.  Well, a miss is as good as a mile, I reckon.”

Larkin started on down the road toward his house, but paused and turned after taking a few steps.   “But now that I think of it, you sure are going to have to do something about that hog.  I just can’t have my garden rooted up any more.”

With that he silently disappeared down the road.

However, within the hour, the neighbor, three or four grown boys, and all the women folk were working like mad building a hog pen that took on the appearance of a block house of the Old Indian days, with huge sharpened posts driven into the ground two or three feet deep.   We presume Larkin’s garden was not again rooted up.