The Books: At the Altar: ‘Them Notorious Pigs’ (L.M. Montgomery)

Daily Book Excerpt: YA/Children’s books:

At the Altar – ‘Them Notorious Pigs’ – by L.M. Montgomery

Okay – so let’s get back into the daily excerpt thingie. Lucy Maud still chugging away!!

This story is really cute (and you can tell it will be funny by that ridiculous title). John Harrington is a well-to-do bachelor farmer – who pretty much despises women. He has no use for them at all. This story was originally published in 1904 with the name “The Nuisance of Women”. Poor Harrington. Trapped in a world of women. Silly little things. So anyway – Mary Hayden, a young widow with 2 small children, has moved in next door. Harrington doesn’t pay much attention to them – until … Mary’s pigs keep escaping from their pen, and running over into Harrington’s yard, wreaking their pig havoc. Harrington is in a blind rage about this. Why can’t that dern woman figure out how to keep her pigs locked up? He sends messages to her through his hired man – “could you please keep your pigs out of my garden?” Meanwhile, what he’s thinking is: This is what happens when women try to run farms. She sends apologies back to him through her hired man, and says that it won’t happen again. Then, whaddya know, the next day, the pigs get out, run into Harrington’s yard, and totally kick up the dirt in his brand-new vegetable garden. So now Harrington has had it.

He stomps over there to give her a piece of his mind. And you can pretty much tell what is going to happen from their first encounter, although they take a while to get to it.

Excerpt from At the Altar – ‘Them Notorious Pigs’ – by L.M. Montgomery

Harrington had never seen his neighbour at close quarters beforte. Now he could not help seeing that she was a very pretty little woman, with wistful, dark blue eyes and an appealing expression. Mary Hayden had been next to a beauty in her girlhood, and she had a good deal of her bloom left yet, although hard work and worry were doing their best to rob her of it. But John Harrington was an angry man and he did not care whether the woman in question was pretty or not. Her pigs had rooted up his garden – that fact filled his mind.

“Mrs. Hayden, those pigs of yours have been in my garden again. I simply can’t put up with this any longer. Why in the name of reason don’t you look after your animals better? If I find them in again, I’ll set my dog on them, I give you fair warning.”

A faint colour had crept into Mary Hayden’s soft milky-white cheeks during this tirade, and her voice trembled as she said, “I’m very sorry, Mr. Harrington. I suppose Bobbles forgot to shut the gate of their pen again this morning. He is so forgetful.”

“I’d lengthen his memory then, if I were you,” returned Harrington grimly, supposing that Bobbles was the hired man. “I’m not going to have my garden ruined just because he happens to be forfetful. I am speaking my mind plainly, madam. If you can’t keep your stock from being a nuisance to other people you ought not to try to run a farm at all.”

Then did Mary Hayden sit down upon the doorstep and burst into tears. Harrington felt, as Sarah King would have expressed it, “every which way at once.” Here was a nice mess! What a nuisance women were – worse than the pigs!

“Oh, don’t cry, Mrs. Hayden,” he said awkwardly. “I didn’t mean – well, I suppose I spoke too strongly. Of course I know you didn’t mean to let the pigs in. There, do stop crying! I beg your pardon if I’ve hurt your feelings.”

“Oh, it’s isn’t that,” sobbed Mrs. Hayden, wiping away her tears. “It’s only – I’ve tried so hard – and everything seems to go wrong. I make such mistakes. As for your garden, sir, I’ll pay for the damage my pigs have done if you’ll let me know what it comes to.”

She sobbed again and caught her breath like a grieved child. Harrington felt like a brute. He had a queer notion that if he put his arm around her and told her not to worry over things women were not created to attend to he would be expressing his feelings better than in any other way. But of course he couldn’t do that. Instead, he muttered that the damage didn’t amount to much after all, and he hoped she wouldn’t mind what he said, and then he got himself away and strode through the orchard like a man in a desperate hurry.

Mordecai had gone home and the pigs were not to be seen, but a chubby little face peeped at him from between two scrub, bloom-white cherry trees.

“G’way, you bad man!” said Bobbles vindictively. “G’way! You made my mommer cry – I saw you. I’m only Bobbles now, but when I grow up I’ll be Charles Henry Hayden and you won’t dare to make my mommer cry then.”

Harrington smiled grimly. “So you’re the lad who forgets to shut the pigpen gate, are you? Come out here and let me see you. Who is in there with you?”

“Ted is. He’s littler than me. But I won’t come out. I don’t like you. G’way home.”

Harrington obeyed. He went home and to work in his garden. But work as hard as he could, he could not forget Mary Hayden’s grieved face.

“I was a brute!” he thought. “Why couldn’t I have mentioned th ematter gently? I daresay she has enough to trouble her. Confound those pigs!”