I got Stubby when I was 10 years old. He was the runt out of a litter from my uncles sow. He was so tiny that my uncle was going to kill him, because he said it wouldn't live anyway. I found out and begged my grandma to please get him for me. She offered my uncle ten dollars for him and we brought him home.

I guess things are done a little different when one grows up in the country. My pig had a bath everyday and slept right in my bed with me every night. He put up with a lot being my baby. I dressed him up in baby clothes, fed him with a bottle and put bow's around his neck. He was even potty trained! I really think he though he was a dog rather than a pig! I had never seen a pig so cute. He was pink all over and didn't even weigh five pounds when I got him. That changed real quick! I would read him a story or sing him to sleep every night. He would rut around under my covers until he got right next to me and slept with his head under my arm. When the day came that he was to big to sleep with me anymore, I remember crying myself to sleep. I begged and begged to no avail. He looked so tiny to have to stay in the barn all by his self.

I had two cousins that I know were devils in disquise! They were placed on earth just to torment me. They were meaner than junk yard dogs! After Stubby went to live in the barn they made it their mission in life to torment him too. I came home one day and found them throwing fire crackers in his pen with him and they tied cans to his legs. A big fight was on! I got beat up pretty good but I managed to get a few good licks in too. When I told on them I got another beating from them, but it was worth it. Stubby was never the same after that! He wasn't sweet or loving anymore.

I remember crawling over his stall one evening to feed him some slop and the next thing I knew, he was attacking me. He had me up against the pen and mauled me over really good. I tried to fight him off and make him stop but there wasn't a chance. I ended up falling over his stall and had to almost crawl back to the house. I had huge black and blue bruises all over my rear and legs and some on my arms. I couldn't believe that he would turn on me like that, but he did! He was about a year old then and that was the last time I went that close to him again on purpose. His pretty pink stage was gone and he was now white with a big black stripe over his sholders. I think the things my cousins had done to him drove him crazy. No one was safe around him! If he broke out, everyone ran for high ground. My grandmother was the only one brave enough to make him go back in his pen. She was only ninety five pounds and under five foot tall but she carried a big stick. At fifty years old, she was lean and mean when times called for it. When all of us grandkids were either up a tree or on top of the house, she was down there hitting him on the butt trying to make him go back in his pen.

My uncle tried to buy him back several times. My runt had grown to be over 400 lbs! Grandma wouldn't sell him because my uncle wanted to make sausage out of him! I think the most I ever heard my grandma cuss was when Stubby was out and she was chasing him with her stick. I grew up and left home and still she kept Stubby. My uncle couldn't stand seeing how big he was and knowing that it was all going to waste. Stubby's last day was not unlike some of his others in that he was out of his pen again. The only difference was he tried to tree grandma and she wasn't having it! She had a 2x4 in her hand and hit him several times trying to get him to move away and go back in. He was just as determined to eat her. Four hundred pounds against her ninety five and her 2x4 and he loss! She hit him on his nose and down he went like a wet noodle. She broke a bone in his nose and it went into his brain! 

My uncle came over to help her move him thinking now he would get his sausage. Man was he wrong! Stubby was to old and way to big for anything more than making sausage out of, but grandma wouldn't have it. To my uncles dismay, she insisted on burying Stubby. He refused to dig the hole so she did it herself. Let me tell you that was one BIG hole! I even saw her shed a few tears over that over-grown hog. He had started out my baby and ended up her hog. He was over ten years old when he met his maker thanks to one determined old lady and her 2x4!

The moral of this story is; leave the pigs and animals to the barn, and never but never try to corner my grandma. She might be small but she packs a hell of a punch!