A Day No Pigs Would Die

Last night I finished A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck. It's one of those required reading books in school, and I think I have a vague memory of some of the action in this book. However, re-reading childhood's requirements always give me a better perspective on the lessons they were supposed to teach us. This is a very short journey, only 139 pages, but Mr. Peck sure does pack a lot into those few.

I was in the mall sometime around the middle of October looking for a present for Rachel. Recently a little used book store opened right in the middle, and I can't resist looking for a good book. I pulled this gem out and read the back. This edition has only reviews on the back, but they're what sold me.

"It will leave you better than it found you." - Book-of-the-Month Club News

"A lovely book....Honest, moving, homely in the warm and simple sense of the word. ...It isn't trying to move mountains and it has no quarrel with life.... It is perfect!" - The Boston Globe

"A small, rich, wise book full of pathos and an essential home-bred humanity that is becoming more and more scarce in the world. It lights up a way of life that is not so long past and shows...how very much we have lost." - Winston Graham

I'll say that it catches you off guard. Even though it's a young boy's coming of age story, it is in a large way, autobiographical. It shows a depth of character that few have and even fewer find. In today's society of fear and victim-culture, this book rings out with self-reliance. The father works his hands to the bone at a pig butchery and comes home to run a farm too. He teaches his boy the hard truths of farming and life in general. They are hard lessons, but this man's words are more real and sobering than today's idealized and romantic notions of running a farm.

The boy, Rob, has an innocence that most children at his age (12), don't have now-a-days. It's sad to see and even sadder to realize. One of my very favorite parts of the book comes from Rob, on his way to the fair, when he thinks of something to ask his neighbor, Mr. Tanner, who is taking him to the fair, but thinks better of saying it out loud:

"Never miss a chance," Papa had once said, "to keep your mouth shut." And the more I studied on it, the sounder it grew."

I know I never miss a chance to open my mouth, and it often gets me in trouble, or I come across as a know-it-all. I'll be taking this to heart.

The boy, Rob, gets a pig as a reward for helping a neighbor, and becomes friends with that pig, whom he affectionately names Pinky. He even takes her to the fair, where she of course wins a ribbon for best behaved pig. Most of the book is the innocence of childhood personified in Rob. Even so, we see the subtle grooming of the boy to become a man like his father. It is mentioned a few times in the book that the only reason Rob's father (Haven Peck) goes to the slaughterhouse everyday is so they can buy their farm and own it outright, and they only have five more years before it's theirs.

Another quote I found particularly intriguing is when Rob is talking to his neighbor, Mr. Tanner, after Mr. Tanner has asked him about school. Miss Malcolm is his teacher:

"She says I have potential. It means that someday I could do a lot. Miss Malcolm says that I could be more than a farmer."
"More than a farmer?!" Ben Tanner looked a bit red. "What better can a man be? There's no calling higher than animal husbandry, and making things live and grow. We farmers are stewards. Our lot is to tend all of God's good living things, and I say there's nothing finer."

Rob has to learn hard lessons. It's so difficult to read and not think of how young he seems; not put yourself in his place. I promise your heart will break for this family. It's an excellent book. Heart breaking and heart warming at the same time. It doesn't hold back. Farming reality is not hidden or sugar-coated, but neither is it illustrated to extreme. It is quite beautiful and I would highly encourage you to read it.

Until next time,