Mom told me this story a when I was little, so I hope I have it right.
She said that when she was a kid, Grandpa brought home a little dogie lamb for them to raise. They had to feed it with a bottle. They loved this lamb and thought of it as a pet. It would run after the kids and play with them like a dog would.
However, Grandpa had brought the lamb home to raise for meat. He had other animals for this purpose, too - pigs, cows, chickens. He tried to be as self-sufficient as he could.
So the day came when he butchered the lamb, which had grown into a sheep. The first time they sat down to eat the mutton, the kids all sat around the table with tears running down their faces, refusing to eat, despite Grandpa's urging them to. Grandpa took a bite of his mutton to be the example, but he had a hard time chewing.
Finally he set down his fork. He went down the street and asked a neighbor, who had also butchered a sheep, if he would trade him meat.
He had a softer heart than he wanted people to know sometimes.
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3 comments:
I'm afraid that lamb was too many years before me to remember, but I remember Grandma and Grandpa raising other lambs. It was so fun to call them,"Here, Lambie, Lambie, Lambie!" The would come running over while we fed them milk from the big bottle.
It was when Mom was little.
I do kind of wonder if he really swapped meat, or just told the kids he did, though. :0)
I heard that story too. I remember feeding lambs in the field next to Aunt Reva's house. We always used a pop bottle with a nipple on top. I remember how hard it was to hold the bottle because they would jerk it when they sucked on it.
I also remember once when I was living with Grandma and we were over at the school house quilting. Aunt May came over and told us to come if we wanted to see a lamb be born. We all went over and when we got there we found she had already had it, but she had had twins! I also remember Uncle David one time saying to me, "You think these lambs look soft, don't you? Come here and feel it." I was surprised at how scratchy and wirey their coat is. Another time when I was a teenager, they had butchered a sheep and he let me ride in the back of the truck while they took the innards to the dump. He warned me that whatever I did, not to touch the stomach because it would burst. I wasn't nervous riding back there until he told me that! :)
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