noon
There was not much time to speculate about future work , there was much to be done in the present , and before noon five limp bodies had been dragged from the pens to the scalding barrel , plunged into the steaming water , turned , twisted , turned again , and after being churned back and forth till every inch of the black hides was ready to shed its coat of hair and scarf-skin , were drawn out upon the wheelbarrow . Then a gambol-stick was thrust through the tendons of the hind legs and the hogs were suspended from a cross pole about six feet from the ground , where they hung while the great corn-knives scraped and scratched and scrubbed and scoured till the black bodies gradually lost their coating and became pink and tender looking and perfectly clean . They were then drawn and left to cool and stiffen . The sloppy , misty weather made the work hard because of the frozen earth under the melting snow , and the steaming , half foggy atmosphere was too warm for comfort of men working over an open fire and a steaming barrel of hot water , but by noon the butchering was finished . To the new man it was a journey back to childhood . How well he remembered the various features of preparation : the neighbours asked in to assist , the odours pleasant and unpleasant , the bustling about of his mother as she baked and boiled and stewed for the company , the magic circle about the pens from which he was excluded when the men went forth with the rifle , and the squeal which followed the rifle 's crack , and the fear which gripped him when he thought the poor pig was hurt , but which was explained away by his father , who , proud of his marksmanship , assured him that `` that pig never knew what hit it . '' In addition to the fact that the man had spent his childhood on a farm , he had the happy faculty of entering into the life of the people among whom he found himself .