Marus Doyen came straight from the heart of Maine to Wakarusa. His
family consisted of himself and wife and an old mother who had made
the journey with them. It did not take him long to provide
comfortable habitations for himself and one horse and a cow, and he
interested everyone by the ingenuity with which he constructed his
buildings, so tight that even the Kansas wind could not blow through
them, and as though he were calculating on the same kind of
temperature during winter time that his home State produced.
He looked about him and got acquainted with his neighbors, and soon
concluded that he should buy a hog to fatten up for the small amount
of pork and lard that his family would need. Big Aaron Coberly sold
him a fine, husky pig, and when he delivered him he found that the
Yankee had made a good pen for him, not very big, but stout, and with
a warm bed fixed in one corner that was well sheltered. A few days
afterwards, one of the neighbors came by, and Doyen called him over
to see his hog, and said:
"He's surely got the right name, because he eats more than the horse
and cow both. By George, he is a perfect hog; and he hasn't any sense
about his bed; has picked up every straw and carried it over to the
other corner of his pen, and keeps it there. He's also making trouble
by digging into the ground with his nose, and has one hole where he's
dug so deep that he nearly stands on his head when he's working in
it."
The neighbor advised him to cut the hog's nose in slashes or put
rings in it, but told him that the more of a hog the hog made of
himself, the better hog he would be. The Yankee scratched his head as
he received this advice, and said nothing; but a few days afterwards
the neighbor was going near his place and heard a terrible squealing,
and went over and found the Yankee hanging onto the fence of the pig
pen with a hoe in his hand, and he noticed that the hog's face was
covered with blood where the Yankee had been trying to slash his nose
with the hoe ground sharp as a razor. When the neighbor stopped to
observe the proceedings, Doyen told him that this hog was the trial
of his life; that he hated to cut his nose, but had finally concluded
he must do so, and that he couldn't throw him down and handle him
himself, so he had sharpened up his hoe and was trying to fix him so
he couldn't dig in the ground. Resting on the hoe for a minute, the
Yankee said:
"He's one of my troubles, sure enough; but we've had others. My
wife's had an awful time trying to wash our clothes. The water will
turn all sorts of colors and mix up like buttermilk every time she
puts soap in it, and finally someone told her that she had to break
the water. I've heard of breaking horses and colts and oxen, but I
never heard of breaking water; but, by George, that's what we're
having to do!"