The Big Pig
By Tom Wilkes
Once upon a time there was a farm. The farm was a very happy and prosperous place. The farmer and his family worked very hard, and had built a fine home for themselves and all their animals. The barns and buildings on the farm were fine places indeed. And the fields and orchards provided an abundance of food for the farmer’s family and all the animals.
All the animals were very happy there. They did their fair share of the work, had a nice place to live, and everyone had plenty to eat.
One day the pigs had a visitor. It was a friend of one of the pigs. And it was a really big pig. The next day the Big Pig began talking to his friend and the other pigs. He told them that they were much smarter and worked much harder than the other animals and because of this they were not getting their fair share. He told them they deserved to have more.
So the Big Pig and the other pigs began taking food from the other animals and putting it in their trough. Pretty soon the pigs began to grow. They became bigger and fatter, just like the visitor.
Some of the other animals began to notice how the pig’s trough was over flowing with food and some of the other animals were running out. A few animals began to question the pigs about what was going on.
One of the most vocal was the donkey. He came over and told the Big Pig that he knew what was going on and that it was not fair. The donkey explained that all the animals worked very hard and did their share and deserved to have the food the farmer and his family provided for them. A few of the chickens and cows were standing nearby and overheard this. They became curious and moved closer to hear what was being said.
The Big Pig told the donkey to go away and leave them alone. A few of the other pigs who had by this time grown quite big and quite fat joined the Big Pig in chasing the donkey away.
The other animals who had overheard what the donkey had said came over to the big pig and asked him what was going on. They said that they had heard what the donkey had said and it sounded about right.
The other pigs gathered around to hear what the Big Pig had to say.
The Big Pig explained to the few chickens and cows, now inside the circle of pigs, that the donkey was wrong. And that his thinking was faulty. The Big Pig told the crowd that the donkey was just stupid and weak for thinking the way that he did. And that the donkey was not really a donkey but was instead a mule, but nobody knew it. He then told them that the half-breed mule was just a trouble maker that wanted to take away what they worked hard for and deserved to have. The Big Pig also told them that this is how all mules are, and if they were not careful the mules would take over and take away all their food.
The few chickens and cows listened attentively. Then one of the chickens said that she had noticed that lately there was less food in the chicken coop and some of the chickens were not getting enough to eat. The Big Pig explained to the chicken that it was their own fault, and if they were working hard and were smart enough they would not be left hungry. A few of the cows and chickens appeared skeptical and questioned the Big Pig. The Big Pig then offered them a deal. He told them that since they were obviously smarter than the other chickens and cows they deserved more.
The deal the Big Pig offered, was to let them in on the extra food if they would help the pigs out. In exchange for helping the pigs get into the chicken coop and the cow barn to take food when no one was around, the Big Pig and the other pigs would allow the few chickens and cows who were there to eat any food that fell out of the pig trough when it overflowed. The chickens and cows thought this was a good idea and they all agreed.
Pretty soon the pig trough was not only full, but it began to overflow once in a while. The chicken and cow accomplices liked this a lot, and began hanging around the pig trough quite often. This was especially helpful since there was no longer enough food in the chicken coop or cow barn for everyone to eat.
Seeing this, the Big Pig was unhappy. While the help of the chickens and cows did allow the pigs to get even fatter, he did not like the idea that some of his food was falling out of the trough.
The next day some new big pigs showed up at the farm. They were friends of the Big Pig and had come when he told them about all the extra food he had. The big pigs had a great time. They ate and ate and ate. Since there were more big pigs now, less food was falling on the floor and the chickens and cows that were hanging around the trough were not getting very much. The Big Pig told them not to worry and that the big pigs would leave soon and they would once again have food falling on the floor for them to eat.
But instead of the big pigs leaving and the overflow from the trough returning, it remained only half full for a while. This was because the Big Pig had told his friends to take some of the food back to their homes with them when they left. After a few days a little bit of food once again began to fall from the trough and the chicken and cow accomplices were happy once again.
But his only lasted a few days, for the big pigs returned and once again they ate and ate and ate, and then took much of the food with them when they left. Again the chickens and cows waiting for the overflow didn’t have much to eat for a few days.
They began to get hungry and complained to the Big Pig. The Big Pig told them to be patient and keep working and pretty soon they to would have all the food they wanted. Because these chickens and cows were hungry during the times when the big pigs would visit and cart away the overflow of food, they would often go back to the chicken coop or the cow barn to eat with the other chickens and cows.
But when they went back, there was nothing to eat. The other cows and chickens had eaten the little bit of food that was there. And since there was not nearly enough to go around, the other chickens and cows were hungry and did not look so good.
The donkey, very unhappy with what he saw the big pigs doing to the other animals began talking to the other animals and telling them what was going on. Seeing this, a few of the biggest and fattest of the big pigs began to yell and shout very loudly.
They each chose a different corner of the barnyard and would sit there all day long and yell and shout about how wrong the donkeys were. They would make up stories about the donkeys, call them names and say awful things. They even told the other animals that all donkeys were bad and nothing but trouble makers who wanted to take their food away. Soon the big pigs began to call the donkeys “half-breed mules”. “Half-breed” soon became synonymous with donkey, and became a very bad thing to be. The big pigs saw this and were very happy.
Some of the other animals began gathering around the big fat pigs in the corners and listening. When one of them would ask questions or say anything nice about the donkeys, the big pigs would shout and yell and chase the animal away. The only animals they would let talk were the ones that said things that agreed with what the big pig had been shouting and yelling.
The farmer soon began coming to the chicken coop and cow barn more often. He had noticed that there were less eggs being laid, and less milk being produced and was concerned. After spending just a little time checking on his animals, he noticed the chickens and cows seemed like they were loosing weight and did not look very healthy. Being a farmer who cared about his animals, he decided to call the veterinarian.
The veterinarian examined the cows and chickens and told the farmer they were not getting enough food. So the farmer and his family began working harder to produce more food. Since the farmer only had so much land to grow food for his animals, and it was all being used, he had to go to the bank and borrow money to buy more land.
It was hard for the farmer and his family to grow the extra food. They had been able to farm the land they had for many years, but to plant and harvest the extra land they had to buy to feed their undernourished animals meant they had to work that much harder. Instead of being at home together to eat dinner as a family as they always had, the farmer and his family often had to work long into the night and on the weekends.
Now this made the Big Pig very happy. With all the extra food now being produced he and the pigs had even more food to eat. The trough quickly began to overflow every day now instead of every few days. This of course made the chicken and cows who were helping the pigs very happy. They were once again able to enjoy the overflow scraps that fell to the floor from the trough.
This did not make the Big Pig very happy. He saw all the food that was falling on the floor and was angry that he was loosing some of his food.
He was also concerned. He was concerned because it was getting harder and harder for the pigs to carry all the food they were taking from the chicken coop and cow barn to their trough. And he knew if the pigs did not continue carrying enough food he would not have enough for all the visiting big pigs he invited to come and eat and eat and eat.
The first problem he saw they were having was, that since the farmer and his family were working so hard and producing so much more, there was just a lot more food to carry. The second problem the pigs were having was that they all had become very fat from all the extra food they were eating and were having trouble carrying food from the coop and barn. In fact, he noticed, some of the pigs were so big and fat that they were having trouble even getting through the door.
The Big Pig had an idea.
So one day he gathered up the chickens and cows that had been helping the pigs get into the chicken coop and cow barn at night. He told them that if they wanted to have more food, they would have to begin helping the pigs carry the extra food to the pig trough. They liked the idea. They got especially excited when the Big Pig told them that they would soon have all the food they needed, and maybe even some extra food to store away for them selves. This really excited the chicken and cow helpers.
For the first few weeks this plan worked out really well and the chicken and cow helpers were soon eating all they could. They even had a little extra on some days which they took and hid under one of the other buildings.
One day, one of the chickens asked if he could have some of the food to share with his friends back at the coop who were once again not getting enough food. The Big Pig was furious. “NO, NO, NO!” he said.
The other chickens and cow helpers quickly joined in. “NO” they screamed, “this is our food; we worked for it and deserve to keep if for our selves”. “Besides,” they went on “it is not our fault the other chickens and cows do not have enough to eat”. “If those other animals had worked as hard as we did and were as smart as we are they would not be hungry” they shouted.
The Big Pig smiled. He was very proud, and very happy. He also had another idea.
He told the chicken and cow helpers if they wanted even more food, he had an idea about how they could get it. He went on to further explain how they could use the extra food to get the other animals to do things for them. The chickens and cows were very interested in hearing more about the Big Pig’s idea.
How the chickens and cows could get even more food, he explained was for them to take over the carrying of all the food from the coop and barn to the pig trough. If they did this, he explained, then they could have more control of how much they put in the trough and therefore insure that it was always overflowing. The helpers quickly agreed.
As they walked away, the little chicken who had asked about sharing some of his food was unhappy. While he liked the idea of having extra food to use to get things, he felt a little bad about all his friends who were already working so hard and did not have enough food to eat. When he mentioned this to the other chickens, they just looked at him like he was crazy. He decided not to mention it again.
The next day a larger than normal group of big pigs showed up at the farm. There were the friends of the Big Pig, and some of their friends too. The Big Pig had told the other big pigs that there was now a lot of extra food and to bring some of their friends along if they wanted to carry more of the food back with them.
The big pigs then ate and ate and ate with the Big Pig and the other pigs on the farm.
With all these extra mouths to feed there was less food falling out of the trough. This meant that the helper chickens and cows had to work even harder to keep the trough filled.
When the visiting big pigs left, they took a lot of food with them. They were very happy. And so was the Big Pig. He was happy because the other big pigs had brought him all kinds of presents and things in exchange for letting them eat and eat and eat and then take food back to their homes.
By this time, because they no longer had to carry food to the trough, all the pigs had gotten very fat. Several of them could hardly move, and just lay around the pig pen all day long.
The helper chickens and cows were getting a little fat too. Since they now had all they needed to eat, they began using the little extra food they had hidden away to get help from some of the other animals to carry food to the trough. The other animals were more than happy to do this since they did not have enough to eat back in the barn. They also were grateful to the chickens and cows that let them help, and were excited about the possibility of one day having some extra food that they could hide away.
While the helper chickens and cows had told them about this possibility, it would never happen. The helper chickens and cows were always very careful to only give the other animals just enough food to eat so they were not hungry, but no more.
The Big Pig and the other pigs were all very happy. They just sat around all day and ate and slept. With all the animals working to fill their trough, they had not a worry in the world. It was not the same for the farmer.
He and his family were working all the time. They hardly had enough time to sleep. Unfortunately, in one way this worked out okay for the farmer, since he was having trouble sleeping anyway these days. He would often lie awake at night worrying about his animals.
Even with all the extra food he was growing, many of the animals were still not getting enough to eat. The bills for the veterinarian were also getting larger and more frequent since many of the animals were getting sick more often. The veterinarian said this was because they did not have enough eat. This was confusing and worried the farmer.
He was also very troubled by the larger and larger payments he had to make to the bank for the extra land he had to keep buying to grow the extra food for his animals.
It was not long before the farmer had to sell his farm to pay off the debt to the bank. He and his family were very sad when they had to leave their home and their animals. All the children had been born on the farm, and so had the farmer.
The new owner was a farmer from another part of the state. He had recently moved to the area and was very happy to have found such a fine farm for his family.
After just a few weeks, however, the farmer began to notice that some things were not quite right on the farm.
Having grown up on a farm with many fine donkeys the farmer went and asked one of the donkeys what was happening on the farm. Now the donkey he asked just happened to be the donkey that had confronted the Big Pig a while back. The donkey gladly showed the farmer what was going on with the pigs, and especially the Big Pig.
The farmer told the donkey that he had seen this before when he was a little boy. The same thing had happened to his father. The strange part was that his grandfather had seen it too and told his father, but his father did not believe him and insisted that the pigs were really okay, He especially liked the big pigs.
It was not until it was too late, and the pigs had nearly bankrupted him that the farmer’s father saw the very thing the grandfather had told him about. Unfortunately, his father was a very proud man who was never wrong and was very sure about what he believed. He would not admit the big pigs were ruining him, and eventually he lost his farm.
The farmer was determined to not have that happen to him. He was also committed to not having his sons and daughters, and all the farm animals, become victims to the same thing in the future. He saw that the reason the big pigs were able to do this over and over and over again, was that they would just wait around for most of the people who saw what they had done to leave or forget before they did it again.
So the first thing the farmer did was to show his children what was going on. He then introduced them to the donkey and taught them how to listen to what he had to show them.
Next he sent the Big Pig away, and then built a fence to keep the other big pigs from the other farms from coming back onto his land. To make sure none of them came back to eat and eat and eat and then take food away with them, he put the donkeys in charge of guarding the gate and the road leading to the farm.
This did not bother the Big Pig at all. He knew he could just go stay with the other big pigs he had made fat with the food he gave them. He also knew that he would merely do what he had done in the past. He would just to wait until everyone forgot what he had done, and then he would go back to the farm and do it all over again.
In the mean time, many of the chickens and cows that had helped the Big Pig were afraid of what would happen to them now that the Big Pig was gone, so they left too. They followed the Big Pig in hope of finding another trough to feed from.
Soon the farm was getting back to normal. The animals were all getting enough food, and everyone was doing their fair share of the work again. The farm was once again a happy and prosperous place.
One day the farmer gathered all the farm animals and told them the story of what had happened. He asked them to pass along the story to their children, and their children’s children. “This is the only way to keep the big pigs from taking over again”, he told them.
It was a lot of work and took a long time for the farmer to straighten out the mess made by the Big Pig and his friends. He was grateful for the help and guidance he received from the donkeys.
He remembered the lesson of his father, and how his grandfather had gone through the same thing when he was a boy. He only hoped that the lesson he had taught his children would keep them and their children from making the same mistakes and allowing the big pigs to take over the farm in the future.
“It is unfortunate”, he thought “that the big pigs keep showing up every generation to wreak their havoc on the other animals, and the economy of the farm”. While he could accept that there were pigs who wanted to have more for them selves, he found it hard to accept that the big pigs would find so many ways to take more and more and more and more, and leave the other animals with so little. He was also angry that the big pigs thought it was more important to have more and more and more and to be a big pig with the other big pigs, than it was to do their fair share and to be part of a happy and prosperous farm. He was also sad that this was allowed to happen over and over just because no one remembers that it had happened before.
But he was hopeful that the lesson he learned and passed along to his children, would be passed along to their children too. “This” he thought, “is the only way to keep the big pigs from waiting around for people to forget what they did and then coming back and selfishly empty the trough again in the future”.
The End
(or is it just until next time?)
(This has been a tale of Republican politics, government contracting, and trickle down economics. I hope you have enjoyed it; and for the sake of those who follow, have learned something too.)
