Free Cherished by Barbara Abercrombie Page B

to her for warmth. There was barely space for them all, and they tumbled over each other, snorting, their eyes closed tight. Despite myself, I had to laugh at their antics.
    â€œHere, May-lee. Hold one.” And my brother put a piglet in my hand.
    It was warm and squiggly, unable to hold still, only slightly longer than my hand, but heavier than I’d expected.
    â€œThey’re cute,” I admitted.
    Then my brother went to the pump to wash the after birth and blood from his arms.
    The next day at dawn, I went out to do the morning chores with my brother as usual. The best thing about August was that the early mornings were still light but not as hot as July. Soon enough we’d be rising before the sun, and the mornings would be growing cooler, then cold, then bitter cold. But late summer was a perfect time of year. And for the first time in a long time, my brother seemed happy as we headed into the barn.
    The piglets were nestled up to the sow’s teats, pullingfrantically. Then the sow stood up, all four hundred pounds rising faster than I would’ve thought possible. The piglets dropped off, squeaking, and she shook her head, flapping her long ears. She trotted off to the far side of the barn to poop, leaving her piglets to huddle together, crying for her piteously. Then we saw them. Three piglets squashed flat on the concrete floor. Their mother must have rolled over on them during the night.
    â€œWow,” I said.
    â€œShe probably didn’t know they were there behind her. They probably couldn’t fit on the other side.” My brother was trying to sound tough, trying to sound like a farmer, but I could tell he was sad. He was the animal lover, not me. Now he grabbed a shovel. “They must have died instantly.”
    â€œYou’d think.” I turned away to start watering the chickens. I didn’t want to watch him scrape the piglets’ bodies from the floor.
    By that afternoon there were more problems.
    The sow couldn’t drop her milk. We visited the veterinarian, who diagnosed mastitis and sold us syringes and oxytocin. “That should do the trick,” he said.
    But it didn’t. Two days later she still couldn’t nurse. The piglets were visibly thinner. They squealed pitiably. A few tried to stand, but fell over, their heads too heavy for their ever-weakening legs.
    By day three, the vet paid a call. It was worse than we thought. He recognized the sow when my brother said where he’d bought her. She was a dry sow, meaning she had incurable mastitis. She was unable to nurse her piglets.
    My mother and I drove to the grain elevator and bought bags of Purina Pig Milk, chocolate-flavored formula for piglets, as well as giant plastic bottles and plastic nipples from the farm supply store. My brother and I mixed the formula, but most of the piglets were too weak to drink. We sat on the floor of the barn, piglets in our laps, dribbling the chocolate milk across their tongues, trying to encourage them to suckle.
    By the end of the week, all but four of the piglets were dead. We sold the sow to pay for the vet bills and formula, all these added expenses my brother hadn’t anticipated. His friend, the self-proclaimed pig expert, suddenly bowed out of the whole project, announcing his parents wanted him to run his own night crawler business out of their garage instead. And my brother, perhaps overtired from spending all his days and nights watching over the dying piglets, came down with a fever. He was bedridden now.
    My brother begged me from his bed to take care of them. His room was right across the hall from mine, and even though I tried to ignore him, pretend I couldn’t hear his raspy voice, he called to me, “Please, May-lee. Don’t let them die.”
    And so I became the caretaker of my brother’s piglets.
    I got used to mixing their formula after I’d fed and watered the chickens, the Holsteins, and goats. I crouched in the barn