Chapter 7

On Monday, I had Harlow drive the team pulling the freight wagon. The windlass had been transferred to the new wagon, and having Harlow along sure did make it easier to load the dead hogs. I had all four dogs along with us because I wanted to use this as a training session for Judy as well as getting the hogs I needed for my customers.

For the first hog, I sent all four dogs out hoping that Judy would do what the other dogs were doing, kind of as a way to let her get the idea of what her job was. Of course, I depended upon Sam to direct her actions and to keep her out of trouble. It seemed to work because she was a part of the pack when they chased a fat sow toward the wagon.

The only error I saw from her was when she didn't stop went the others did to let me get my shot off. Sam took care of that by running against Judy and knocking her down before she could get into the line of fire. She got up looking rather indignant, but it was time for me to shoot before she had a chance to do anything else. Harlow said that it was almost a case of her jumping out of her skin when the shotgun boomed. That cowed her, and she took the noise as an admonition for her to do what the other dogs were doing.

Again, I sent out all four dogs, and Judy seemed to be paying more attention to the other dogs this time. She stopped chasing the sow when the others did, and she didn't jump this time with the noise from the shotgun. The mules took the noise more in stride, too, so it looked like we were making progress on all fronts.

One more trip with all four dogs, and Judy seemed to have the routine down at last. She did not overreact with the shotgun's noise this time, so I sent her out only with Sam as a test of how well she had the proper idea of what she was supposed to do. Judy did well, so I sent her out with Sarah this time. They were out just a shade longer than before, but it just may have been a case of rookie uncertainty. They did deliver a sow as expected, so I had no complaints.

I figured that it was time for Judy to rest, so I sent out Sam and Eve. They came back with a fifth hog very quickly, and we were well on our way to making our day's quota. I wanted at least 15 adult hogs from today's efforts because we had to deliver 20-22 to Baker on Thursday. Seven of these hogs were going to Mr. Benson in Winslow tomorrow, so that many were unavailable for Mr. Malone and Mr. Frody on Thursday. Making sure that I had enough hogs for each customer was getting complicated.

Next, I sent out Sam and Eve, and they came back with a sow. Now for the acid test: I sent out only Sam and Judy. Sam was not easy to please, and I wondered just how well Judy was going to measure up to Sam's demands. Apparently, Judy did well because they were back as fast as Sam and either Eve or Sara usually were. She did everything correctly, so I figured that she had mastered the basics as long as she had an experienced dog to emulate.

Okay, that was enough for Benson, so any more adult hogs could be ear-marked for the two butcher shops in Baker. I rotated the dogs around, sending out two at a time, until we had a total of 17 adult hogs. All of the dogs seemed to be in great shape, so I sent all four out for pigs. I made a point of giving the different command to Judy so that she could hear the difference, though she had no idea of what the new command meant.

All four dogs took off, and Eve and Sarah returned shortly with pigs. However, Sam and Judy were out somewhat longer, and I wondered what was holding them up. Eve and Sarah were not concerned—they lounged in the shade cast by the wagon. That was encouraging, but it was about 10 minutes after those two came in before I saw Judy coming in chasing a pig. She stopped where she had stopped before, so there was no danger to her when I shot the pig that she had been chasing. A couple of minutes later, I saw Sam coming in, and I know that he was showing off because he was chasing two pigs. That would not have been practical if they had not been running in a furrow, but they were readily guided to me to shoot them.

That gave me five pigs, and I figured that was enough for today. The dogs were still pumped up from the fun of chasing hogs and pigs, so they did not want to ride in the wagon. No problem, they just followed us home. On the way, we stopped long enough to give a pig to Mrs. Hanson and another to Mrs. Jenson. I didn't have one for Mary and me, but we had smoked pig and a couple of rabbits, so we were not in need.

Harlow and I hung up the kills for the day, and I had him take the buckboard and Edna with him so that he would have an easier time commuting from his home. I did ask him to tell Ed, Jr. that I needed him for tomorrow, so he should come with Harlow if he was available.

My idea was that Harlow had proven that a helper with me to get the dead hogs pulled into the wagon made loading move a hell of a lot faster; therefore, it made the whole operation move faster, and that was going to be needed from now on. My plan was for Ed to take the farm wagon pulled by Dun on Tuesday to make the deliveries in Winslow while Harlow stayed with me to help in the hunting. That made Harlow available to manage the team of mules for me.

That was the way we handled the work distribution on Tuesday, and it worked out well. The three of us worked to get the farm wagon loaded with seven hogs and two pigs, and the job went amazingly fast. We saw Ed off to make the deliveries in Winslow before heading back to the Hanson farm to bag the rest of the adult hogs we needed for delivery to Baker. We needed 12 more adult hogs, and I figured that we would have to move to another field to get the full complement. There were only just so many adult hogs in one grouping.

To my surprise, we managed to take six hogs in the first field, but that was all that the dogs could come up with. We moved to the next field in line and took six more hogs much more quickly than I had expected. This was enough, so we headed home and met Ed returning from Winslow. He led the way home, and we quickly got the hogs hung up to bleed out.

The two washed out the blood from the two wagons and put them up as well as taking care of the draft animals. My two employees went home, and I let them use the buckboard for transportation. I still had some daylight left, so, with Mary's help, I measured the proposed sheds for the wagons so that I would know how much wood to buy. Mary brought me up short by suggesting that I go ahead and plan for a second freight wagon, and go ahead and build enough of a shed to store the three wagons safely out of the weather.

I don't know why, but I had not thought of a further expansion of the meat business, but Mary was right that I would need another freight wagon if I did anything to expand our operation. Mary further suggested that we organize Allgood Meats as a regular company. She could handle the finances and I could be in charge of everything else. I thought that was a brilliant idea because I simply hated to be worrying about money. All I wanted to know was did I have enough money to cover a current project. Beyond that, I was just not interested.

Mary next pointed out that we would need a lawyer to make sure that we did not screw things up. That kind of shook me up some more because I had the usual layman's distrust of lawyers. Mary pointed out that I would just have to bite the bullet and find a lawyer whom I could trust. I asked her how I was going to do that, and she said that I could start out by asking Mr. Benson and Mrs. Adams if they could recommend somebody. That I agreed to do the next time I was in Winslow. I figured that I could also ask Jeb Hanson and Ed Jenson if they knew of a trustworthy lawyer.

Well, Thursday finally came and it turned out to be a busy morning. Both Harlow and Ed showed up, and it took us all to get almost 4,000 pounds of hog carcasses loaded into the freight wagon. Harlow left for Baker as soon as the load was ready, and, with that much weight to contend with, I didn't expect him home before late afternoon. It was a good thing that the road was in good condition because a 4,000 pound load was really too heavy for only two mules. Dammit, I had to do something about that right away.

Ed, the dogs, and I headed out to get more hogs for the Friday delivery using Dun and the farm wagon. We were a little late getting started because we had to whip up another windlass for the farm wagon. It was late morning before we got away, even though we had been able to find some parts that we could salvage for the second windlass. We headed back for the Hanson farm because there were still some hogs in that last field and another field that we had not even touched yet.

With four dogs, though, things went fast enough, and it was just past noon when we pulled into the yard to hang the hogs and pigs. Mary fed us after we washed up a bit, and I had Ed help me work out how I was going to add two more stalls to the barn to accommodate any new mules that I bought to go with the new wagon. It turned out that we found a place for the two stalls, and we were able to rough them out by the time Harlow returned from Baker.

Okay, I had to bite the bullet and buy another freight wagon and two more mules to make my commitments to Baker. Fortunately, the nearly $400 that Harlow returned with would pay for what we immediately needed.

On Friday morning, Harlow drove the farm wagon into Winslow with the meat delivery and I went with him. I planned on taking care of a lot of business that day, including trying to find a lawyer. The first thing I did when I got Mr. Benson's attention was to ask him about a lawyer. Of course, he wanted to know why I needed one; I was sure that he was worried that I might sue him or some such thing, and he relaxed noticeably when I explained my reason. He gave me a recommendation and I next went to see Mrs. Adams while Harlow was finishing up with Mr. Benson.

Mrs. Adams reacted the same way that Benson had, but she, too, relaxed when I explained why I wanted a lawyer. She recommended the same lawyer that Benson did, so I knew that I was going to see him before I left for home. The next thing I did was to drop in on one of the two livery stables in Winslow. They had some mules, but no freight wagon. About that time, Harlow showed up with the farm wagon, so I got him to drive me to the other livery stable. Here I was in luck as far as a wagon was concerned, but he had no mules. Okay, that could be managed. I bought the freight wagon and some traces, etc. before returning to the first livery stable for two draft mules.

These two mules were both hulking brutes much larger than the first pair that I had bought in Baker, but I was assured that they were even tempered. The mules looked like just what I needed, and Harlow assured me that he could handle them, so I bought them. We led them back to the second livery stable and hitched them to the new wagon. Harlow drove that home while I stopped by to talk to the lawyer. We talked for a few minutes, and I gave him $1 to bind him to me as a client. I made an appointment with him for Tuesday morning to go over what I wanted in detail. I was going to bring Mary with me for that meeting.

Okay, it looked like I had covered Allgood Meats' business, so I could go home. However, I stopped by the train station to check on the sewing machine. It had been delivered yesterday! Whoopie! I had a great surprise for Mary. The station master helped me load it into the wagon and I drove directly home. Mary was ecstatic when she saw me delivering the package for her. Harlow was still there, and he helped me get it moved into the house. For the moment, we left it in the living room because that was the biggest room in the house.

We ate dinner before we unpacked the sewing machine. Mary could hardly wait, but she did manage to whip up a good dinner before she let her enthusiasm take over. Harlow and I unpacked the sewing machine and set it up for her. She couldn't wait to try it out, so the living room became the temporary sewing room.

We left her playing with her new toy while Harlow and I went to the barn to complete work on the two new stalls. We definitely needed them because of the two new mules, and we also discovered that we would have to rip out the two newly planned stalls because they were not large enough for the new mules. Well, by feeding time, we had enough of the work done on the two new stalls to accommodate the new mules, but the stalls still needed some work to complete them. I was also going to need some more feed because of the added livestock. That would have to be picked up on Monday by Ed.

We had a couple of hours of daylight left when we finished the minimum necessary for the new stalls, so I asked Harlow to give me a driving lesson with the new mules and the new wagon. By the time we quit for supper, I could handle the new team well enough to get by in a pinch, but I was no expert mule skinner by any means.

That evening, I was able to break Mary away from her new sewing machine long enough to eat warmed leftovers and to tell her what I had arranged with the lawyer. She was thrilled that I had scheduled her to attend the meeting at the lawyer's with me. Women were normally not included in business affairs, but I knew that Mary's years of experience just in living would help keep me from screwing up.

Saturday, both Harlow and Ed came over to work with me. I sent Harlow with a freight wagon and the new mules to the saw mill to buy some of the lumber that we would need to finish the stalls and to start on the wagon sheds. Meanwhile, Ed did some more of the work on the new stalls with what little wood planks I had left. I worked on that and also helped Mary clear one of the spare bedrooms to become the sewing room. The easiest part of that work was getting the sewing machine moved to its new place of honor near a window for the light. At the rate she was going, Mary was going to have legs stronger than mine from pumping the treadle on the sewing machine!

When Harlow got back from the sawmill, we unloaded the wagon and had time for Harlow to give Ed his first lesson in driving the team. My plan was for both wagons to go to Baker on Thursday with the load split between the two of them. That would make it a lot easier on the mules and the drivers. Actually, driving a two-mule team was not that much more difficult that driving a single draft animal; most of the problem was in gaining the confidence to do it firmly enough so that the animals knew what you had in mind. Properly trained mules were smart enough to drive themselves if they just knew what you wanted them to do.

Monday came bright and early with all of us raring to go. Harlow went to the sawmill with a freight wagon to pick up another load of the wood needed for the wagon sheds. Meanwhile, Ed, the dogs, and I went for the hogs needed for the delivery on Tuesday. By this time, Eve was back to being a normal dog, and she worked with the others just the way she originally had. This time, we picked up our quota of hogs and pigs in less than three hours and were ready to leave.

That was when Ed asked me when we were going back to the Jenson farm. His dad was beginning to have as much trouble with hogs as before I had worked there. Okay, that settled things on priorities. It looked like we would go there when Mary and I got back from Winslow on Tuesday. The 22 hogs I needed to take on Tuesday and Wednesday should help to thin out the crowd.