Free Gump & Co. by Winston Groom

now, we has got more than ten thousan hogs, an that number is expandin ever day. By the end of the year, Mister McGivver say we ought to have upwards of twenty-five thousan hogs an, at about two pounds of pig shit per hog per day . . . well, you can see where this is leadin to.
    Anyways, Mister McGivver is sellin the hog shit for manure at a pretty fast clip, but at this point he is about run out of folks to buy it, an besides, the folks in town are complainin louder an louder about the smell we are creatin.
    ‘We could try to burn it,’ I says.
    ‘Hell, Gump, they already bitchin about the odor as it is – How you think they’d react to a bonfire of fifty thousand pounds of pig shit ever day?’
    Over the next few days we kicked around a few more ideas, but ain’t none of them gonna work, an then one night at the supper table when the conversationturned to pig shit again, little Forrest piped up.
    ‘I been thinkin,’ he says, ‘suppose we use it to generate power?’
    ‘Do what?’ ast Mister McGivver.
    ‘Look here,’ Little Forrest says, ‘we got that big ole coal seam runnin right underneath our property . . .’
    ‘What makes you think that?’ says Mister McGivver.
    ‘Cause one of the miners tole me so. He says the coal mine goes for nearly two miles from where the entrance is in town right across this land where the hogs are, and stops just before it gets to the swamp.’
    ‘Is that so?’
    ‘It’s what he tole me,’ little Forrest says. ‘Now, looka here . . .’ He pulls out a composition book he has brought an lays it out on the table. When he opens it up, damned if it don’t contain some of weirdest drawins I have ever seen, but it look like little Forrest might have saved our asses again.
    ‘My God!’ Mister McGivver hollers after he has looked at the drawins. ‘This is wonderful! First rate! You deserve a Nobel Prize, young man!’
    What little Forrest has come up with is this: First we plug up the entrance to the coal mine back in town. Next, we drill holes down to the shaft under our property an bulldoze the pig shit into it ever day. After a while, the pig shit will begin to ferment an give off methane gas. Once that happens, we have a vent for the gas that runs through some kind of machinery an stuff that little Forrest has figgered out, an in the end winds up in a big ole generator that will produce enough power not only to run our farm, but it will run the power for the whole
town
of Coalville!
    ‘Just think of it,’ Mister McGivver shouts, ‘a whole
city
run on pig shit! And furthermore, it’s so simple an idiot can run it!’ I am not so sure about this last statement.
    Well, that was just the beginnin. It took the rest ofthe summer to get the operation goin. Mister McGivver had to talk to the city fathers, but they come up with a government grant to let us start the deal. Pretty soon we got all sorts of engineers an drillers an EPA people an equipment drivers an construction workers millin around on the farm, an people are installing the machinery in a big ole blockhouse they built. Little Forrest is named ‘honorary chief engineer.’ He is so proud, he is about to bust!
    I gone on about my duties sloppin hogs an cleanin barns an pens an so on, but one day Mister McGivver comes an says for me to get the bulldozer, because it is time to start shovelin the pig shit into the mine shaft. I worked at that bidness for a week or so, an when I am done, they put a big mechanical seal over the holes they has drilled an little Forrest say now all we got to do is set an wait. That afternoon as the sun begins to go down, I watched him disappear over a little hill that leads down to the swamp, ole Wanda trottin along beside him. She’s gettin big now, an so is he, an I ain’t never been prouder of anythin in my life.
    A week or two later, when it is almost the end of summer, little Forrest come an say it is finally time to start up the pig-shit-power operation. He took Mister McGivver an