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Another pair of gates I well remember was those that closed in the platform scale on which Dad weighed the hogs, bulls, and occasional barren cow before selling them to "Yenk" Skaggs. Yenk was a shrewd livestock buyer for Bill Brian and could "guess" surprisingly close to the weight of an animal, but Dad always wanted to have a bit of "insurance" when he called him out.

One time Dad had traded for a big old Berkshire sow that had the longest legs and vilest disposition that one could imagine. She seemed to have an affinity for the Vanatta place, and would jump over the supposedly "hog proof" wire fence to go a-visiting, and I would have to go down and, with Old Bowser, try to corral the old gal and head her home. This went on for half a dozen times. Since she didn't seem to have any interest in being a mother, and (though she ate like a hog) she ran off all the fat she was supposed to put on, Dad decided to sell her to Yenk.

When Yenk came out in his Model T with the hog crate on the back, he backed it up by the chute at the scale and they rounded up the old sow and finally, after a half a dozen attempts, got her coaxed onto the scale by throwing ears of corn to her. She didn't like it much, but her gluttonous appetite prevailed and Dad got her weighed in. Yenk promptly deducted 20 pounds for the corn she had just wolfed down and carefully counted the greenbacks which Dad just as promptly stowed away, and then the fun began.

With her belly full, that old girl decided that she wasn't about to climb the stairs into Yenk's truck, no sirreebob! She refused to go up that chute. It was quite a sight: Yenk, with his cane and pig board trying to shush her toward the chute, and her so full the extra corn didn't appeal to her. She ran around in a circle, and just as it looked like maybe she was going to head up the chute, she wheeled, and with those long legs a flyin', she leaped into the air and came smack down on the corner of the scale gates, smashing not one but both of them into splinters, and took off for the Vanatta woods. The last time we seen her, she was still heading north with old Yenk cussin' and a pantin' as he chased after her.

I don't know if he ever caught up with that old sow, but I do know that it cost Dad a heap more in time and money to repair the damage she did to those scale gates than he got from Yenk.

If you ever doubt that a Berkshire sow can't high jump, well, I can tell you right now that you have another think acoming' - yes sirreebob!

The late Perry Piper was a columnist for newspapers in Indiana and Illinois for more than 12 years. His columns, reprinted here from his personal memoirs, appear in Farm Collector with the permission of his family.


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