Dig a Hole, Cook a Pig

Let the Fun Begin!

It’s the week before Labor Day. My daddy is digging a hole in the ground – a rectangular hole about three feet by five feet and maybe two feet or more deep. This pit will be used to cook a pig for all the folks who worked on his tobacco crop during the harvesting season. For me it was a fun day to hang out at the barns with my father and watch him dig the hole and talk about all the folks who had worked on his tobacco crop. This annual pig-pickin’ was held at the tobacco barns under a shelter, as a way to thank the workers. As he carefully shaped the hole and scooped out all the loose dirt, he told stories about memorable moments of the tobacco season and talked about the preparations for the coming celebration.

The tobacco was out of the fields but still had to finish curing in the last of the harvested barns and then it had to be graded, tied into bundles and stacked on grading sticks, placed in a press to make each stick of tobacco the same size.

That work would be done in the pack houses where each leaf was looked at, felt, and placed in a stack on a grading bench. Each leaf was carefully graded and put in a separate pile because some grades of tobacco brought more at the market than others. I remember the yellow color for a grade, different shades of yellow and orange, the thickness of the leaf, a leaf with some green, the brown spots on some leaves, the burnt or damaged leaves, leaves damaged by too much water and some by too little water, some damaged by disease, and finally the lowest grade was the burned or scrap tobacco. It all had value but there was a big difference between the top grade and the scrap tobacco. Some called it floor sweepings.

Not everyone was trusted to grade the tobacco leaves. I remember Lucille, Aunt Ada, Mag, Peg, Mama, Daddy, Johnny, Essie Mae, Nettie, Mammy, Aunt Gladys, Pete, and a few others could grade the leaves. The rest of us could take the tobacco off the sticks and pile it on the grading benches to be graded. We could pick up the leaves and most of us were trusted to tie the bundles but the bundles had to be neat and securely tied. We could count the empty sticks and tie them up in bundles of 25. These bundles were stacked in a corner of the pack house ready for the harvesting of next summer’s tobacco crop.

There were at least four or five grades and each grade was tied separately by gathering a “handful” of tobacco leaves and tying that bundle with another leaf of tobacco. The bundles were to be the uniform in size. Those tobacco leaves were handled with care and protected from damage from the time the small plants sprouted on the plant beds all the way to market. Some of the things we heard at the tobacco barns were “pick up those leaves,” “don’t step on those leaves,” “don’t lean on the tobacco truck and break the leaves,” “make the bundles the same size,” “hold the string firm but don’t hold the string so tight it will cut the stalks.” Each leaf was precious and had value because it was the Wilson County money crop.

The workers in the pack house were an entertaining group. They talked about everything from family matters to having seen ghosts in and around their houses. The ghost stories were my favorites. I remember Nettie telling about seeing a ghost in their house. The ghost, she said, was a little woman dressed in black and she came into the room through the keyhole. She said the ghost woman floated around the room for a while and then left through the same keyhole. That story told by Nettie was almost 80 years ago and I still remember the curiosity I felt about that ghost woman. Others in the pack house spoke of ghosts they had seen but still think about that little woman dressed in black going in and out of that keyhole.

When the tobacco was graded, and pressed out in neat piles, it was loaded on a truck or trailer and taken to market. My father sold his tobacco in Wilson but almost all towns in Eastern North Carolina had a tobacco market with buyers for various companies. The farmers lined up with their loads of tobacco waiting for their crop, which represented months of hard work, to be weighed and placed on the floor to be bid on by the companies.

The tobacco warehouses had their sales days. Tobacco companies had buyers who bid on the piles of tobacco. Those buyers looked at the piles of tobacco and once again those precious tobacco leaves were looked at, felt of as the buyers placed their bids. The auctioneers sang out the bids offered by the buyers for the various companies and I do remember going to a few of the sales with my father and the auctioneer saying “Going once, going twice and SOLD SOLD to American, Legget and Meyers or Phillip Morris” or other companies. The warehouses cut the checks made payable to the farmers and the farmers could then begin to pay their suppliers for fertilizer, equipment and other expenses of growing the crop. It was payday and the merchants in Wilson and other towns were stocking their shelves with clothing, school supplies and Christmas gifts in anticipation of some of that money being spent at their stores.

All those things will be done in the pack house soon but today is a celebration of the end of the harvest portion of the tobacco season. My dad has dug the hole and now he has pegs all around that hole and is stretching a piece of wire across the hole or pit. The pig has been slaughtered and dressed and sometime during the night my dad will start a fire with oak wood and let it burn so that he has oak wood coals to place in the bottom of that hole. When the oak coals are hot enough, the pig is placed on the wire and the cooking begins. I do remember a piece of tin being a few inches away from the pig on top of the cooking pig and coals on that piece of tin so the pig is cooking on both sides. He has prepared the barbecue sauce consisting of vinegar, salt, red pepper flakes and black pepper and maybe some other ingredients and he has a stick with a cloth mop on it and he mops that cooking pig with the sauce.

While my dad is doing all this, my mother is at the house cooking potatoes, making cornbread and slaw to round out the celebration menu. We are all excited knowing that we will be seeing all the folks we worked with all summer. Some worked every day and some just a day or two but everyone who helped even one day were invited. Also there were others who came that were friends. It was a special day.

Some folks came early and sat on tobacco stick benches. Tobacco sticks were placed in the racks to make the seats for the guests to have a seat and watch the cooking of the pig and tell their stories. The atmosphere was festive and the conversations were lively. They told jokes, spread a little gossip and talked about everything. No subject was off limits. There was a lot of laughing and some kept making a trip to their car for a drink of spirits. Whiskey was not served but that did not mean that there was none available for those who wanted a drink. If a teenager felt the need to learn about life and round out their education these celebrations would fill in some gaps.

Make shift tables were set up using sawhorses and boards. When the pig was well done, it was taken off the fire pit and placed on a chopping block and chopped. The ribs were usually eaten first by those lucky enough to be around early while the rest of the pig is being chopped and is put in a wooden tub for my dad to add more of that vinegar and pepper sauce. Someone would go to the house and my mother would load them up with the large pot of potatoes, gallons of slaw, pans of cornbread and gallons of iced tea. She made some cakes for those who wanted dessert. A lot of work went into making this gathering a success but it was a fun and exciting day. The folks who attended this were all ages and colors. People who worked brought their children. Everyone was in a good mood and having a great time. We had worked together on the harvesting of this crop and today we were partying together. It was a special day.

I don’t know how other folks in other locations celebrated the end of the tobacco harvesting season of hard work but this is a little bit about how it was done at Pender’s Crossroads.

Montress Greene