hauled 'em daown, and afore
yeou could say Sam Patch! them hogs were yanked aout of the
lot--killed--scalded and scraped."

"Mighty quick work, I guess," says the old gent.

"Quick work? Yeou ought to see 'em. Haow many hogs deu yeou cal'late
them fellers killed and scraped a day?"

"Couldn't possibly say--hundreds, I expect."

"Hundreds! Grea-a-at King! Why, I see 'em kill thirteen hundred in teu
hours;--did, by golly!"

"Yeou don't say so?"

"Yes, _sir_. And a feller with grease enough abaout him to make a barrel
of saft soap, said that when they hurried 'em up some they killed,
scalded and scraped ten thousand hogs in a day; and when they put on the
steam, twenty thousand porkers were killed off and cut up in a single
day!"

"I want to know!"

"Yes, sir. Wall, we went into the haouse, where they scalded the
critters fast as they brought 'em in. By gravy, it was amazin' how the
_brissels_ flew! Afore a hog knew what it was all abaout, he was bare as
a punkin--a hook and tackle in his _snaout_, and up they snaked him on
to the next floor. I vow they kept a slidin' and snakin' 'em in and up
through the scuttles--jest in one stream!

"'Let's go up and see 'em cut the hogs,' says the feller.

"Up we goes. Abaout a hundred greasy fellers were a hacken on 'em up. By
golly, it was deth to particular people the way the fat and grease
_flew!_ Two _whacks_--fore and aft, as Uncle Jeems used to say--split
the hog; one whack, by a greasy feller with an everlasting chunk of
sharpened iron, and the hog was quartered--grabbed and carried off to
another block, and then a set of savagerous-lookin' chaps layed to and
cut and skirted around;--hams and shoulders were going one way, sides
and middlins another way; wall, I'm screwed if the hull room didn't
'pear to be full of flying pork--in hams, sides, scraps and greasy
fellers--rippin' and a tearin'! Daown in another place they were saltin'
and packin' away, like sin! Daown in the other place they were frying
aout the lard--fillin' barrels, from a regular river of fat, coming aout
of the everlastin' biggest bilers yeou ever did see, I vow! Now, I asked
the feller if sich hurryin' a hog through a course of spraouts helped
the pork any, and he said it didn't make any difference, he s'pected. He
said they were not hurryin' then, but if I would come in, some day, when
'steam was up,' he'd show me quick work in the pork business--knock
daown, drag aout, scrape, cut up, and have