Largo Potter

August 1, 1948

Every summer when the harvest was getting ready, the Boss and Alicia would come with their little ones over to the farm. A lot of memories came out of these visits, but there's one that really sticks in my mind.

This was when they were all pretty small. Isara, the oldest, was only eleven at the time, and my own granddaughter Lilly was four. I remember that day being a fine day, even for the summer. The berries that year were particularly good that year, I remember.

Watching the kids run over was the cutest thing ever. There was Isara, the oldest one, looking more and more like her mother. Theimer, the brainy one, was closely following her, and Liesl was already running towards her godmother Elle. I picked up Lilly as she ran to me, twirling her around before gently setting her on the ground. And of course, Faldio, the littlest one of them. My own son Milo joined them, the second oldest of them.

Then I saw trouble: They had brought Hans, that stinkin' porker with them. Now don't get me wrong, I love Hans. But that little guy was a real troublemaker. The year previous, he got into my garlic patch and rooted up a half of my crop before I caught him. If I hadn't bonded with that burglar so much during the war, I would have roasted him into a rasher of bacon on the spot. Gruff, the swineherd who lived across the creek, later told me as we surveyed the damage that porcavians love two things—garlic and truffles—and the scent of both are like magnets to them.

I was still wondering how I was going to keep the porcavian out of my garlic when I noticed that he didn't seem his usual self. Usually he was all perky, always ready to run around and flap his wings like crazy. But here he was, shuffling slowly over with his head down. He looked perfectly miserable.

The kids were a little disappointed to see Hans so blue. "Uncle Largo? Do you know what's wrong with Hans?"

"Can't really tell, Liesl. He looks real down."

"But you're a farmer, right?" Lilly asked.

"Whoa, whoa, kid. I'm a veggie farmer, not a swineherd," I replied. Then I had an idea. "Say, maybe Gruff over the creek can help. He's the pig man around these parts. He owns a couple of porcavians. You kids get settled in, and I'll take you kids over to Gruff's place."

A bit later, I had a trail of kids following me, crossing the bridge over to Gruff's farm. It was a good day to take a nice walk. Hans wasn't too keen on walking, but he was way past the age to be carried around like when he was a runt. So we had to lead him along. He cheered up a bit following me, I guess, but whatever was bothering him still made him gloomy.

Gruff's home was a nice little stone building on the edge of the woods. He lived alone; his wife had died a long way back in the flu pandemic after EWI, and his adopted son was already grown up and out of the house. I knocked at his door.

"Ah, Largo. What might ya be doin' here?"

His real name wasn't Gruff, but I think that even the kids could realize where he got the name. He had the jowls of a bulldog, and the look on his face was a dour one by default. He was a good man, if not prone to fits of rage when he was annoyed.

"Hey, Gruff, I've got a bunch of kids here with a pet porcavian and I was wondering…"

I didn't even need to finish my sentence. Gruff had already spotted Hans, and was really giving him the checkup.

"MOIONK!" Hans squealed as he was grabbed by a gruff-looking stranger and pinched and prodded everywhere. Looked pretty invasive, but I trusted Gruff to do his stuff.

"The porcavian's an old one, innit?"

"It's twelve years old now," Isara spoke up.

Gruff's eyes grew wide. "WHAT?"

I was scared for a bit that he would rage all of a sudden, but I think even he knew to tone it down in the presence of six children.

"What's the matter?" Theimer asked.

"Well, it's pretty simple. Your porcavian is lonely. The males mature after two and a half years, not to mention twelve!"

Hans "moinked" miserably, but nodded as if he was agreeing.

"So," I ventured. "You're saying that the pig is—err—lookin' for some female companionship?"

Gruff pulled out a clove of garlic from his pocket and fed it to Hans, stroking his head. The porcavian sniffed it suspiciously and then munched it slowly. "Well, that's all he needs, provided you guys are willing to keep another porcavian outside. Come over here."

We walked out to what appeared to be a bunch of doghouses in the back. Gruff whistled, but it wasn't your average whistle. It sounded like a sequence of notes or something, like a little tune. I assumed he had a special call for each porcavian, because only one porcavian trotted out from their house and stood at attention.

"This here's Imelda. She's five or so years old, and I haven't decided who to pair her up with yet. You can take her with you and keep the two of 'em together for two weeks, give or take."

I thanked Gruff and was about to leave with the two porcavians and the kids when one of them asked me the question:

"Largo, what's Hans and Imelda going to do with each other?"

I froze in my steps.

"Well! Uh…umm…err…" I was breaking into a sweat. Lilly was looking up at me with extremely curious eyes, and the other kids were watching me with similar interest.

"Uhh…well, kids, they…uh…"

I looked helplessly at Gruff, who for once didn't look so angry. He looked like he was going to laugh, actually.

"Go on, carry on."

"Maybe he can stay here?"

The kids replied in protest. "Aww, Uncle Largo!"

"Err, okay, okay. Come on, Hans, Imelda!"

The two porcavians had been nosing each other funnily, but at the sound of my voice they trotted over to me. In retrospect, it was pretty cute, but I was worried out of my wits.

As the kids and the two porkers started to walk back I whispered to Gruff: "Porcavians are nocturnal, right?"

"Well, they are, but I've no guarantee they'll do their business at night. If they're pretty attracted to each other, like I think these two are, who knows…maybe in broad daylight…"

He laughed, not because of porcavians, but at my face as my eyes went bigger than saucers. I was pretty darn creeped out.

All that day, I was out of it. Normally I'd be drilling the Boss Man hard in the carrot and cabbage patch, but my mind was so preoccupied on keeping a look out on those two pigs (who were now running and playing with each other) that he worked even harder, afraid that something was up. At the dinner table, even though Alicia cooked, I barely had an appetite, instead looking out the dining room window at those two darned pigs hopping around the field.

For the night I decided to let the dog in and let the two take the doghouse. That should be safe…but I still felt uneasy. What if one of the kids decided to get a drink, and looked out the window, and the two pigs were outside doing—

"Largo, you really need to calm down," said Elle with a chuckle as she got into bed beside me.

"Sorry, Elle, but I'm just worried. It's those…pigs! What if my little Lilly looks out and sees…"

"Sees what?"

"Sees those pigs…err…doing something!"

Elle laughed out loud. "Oh, Largo, you're so silly sometimes. Just don't worry about it. I'm sure if the kids see something, then Welkin will gladly offer them the kid-friendly explanation of it all. Don't be such a worrywart!"

I sighed. "Fine, fine. I'll go to sleep."

The next morning, we all sat together at the breakfast table.

"Did you kids have a good night?" Alicia asked as she laid a plate of steaming blueberry pancakes at the table.

"Yeah!" Lilly said. "I saw something really cool happened last night!"

I sprayed my milk I was drinking out of my mouth, spluttering.

"Umm…Largo? Are you okay?"

"Oh, umm, yeah, I'm fine Lilly. What did you see?" I was getting really anxious. Elle was giving me a bit of a reprimanding look, but I ignored her.

"I was kinda thirsty and I went downstairs to get a drink, but then I looked out the window and saw…"

"Saw what? What did you see?"

"I saw a white-winged moth on the window!"

I stayed there for a brief moment all tensed up, and then I relaxed. Whew! Crisis averted.

And of course, now it was Welkin's turn to get all excited. "Wow! A white-winged moth?"

"Yeah! I wanted to catch it but I didn't have a net, and it was kind of cold outside. I think that's why Hans and Imelda were all running around and wrestling each other outside. They were probably just warming up."

I dropped my mug this time.

"Oh…umm…sorry! I'm kinda clumsy today, heh heh…" I said as I tried to recover. "Here, I'll pick it up."

"That's interesting too, Lilly. I guess they like each other enough to depend on each other!"

"Yeah, they did it for a while, but it looked like Hans won in the end. Then they went back to go to sleep, I think."

As I swept the broken shards into a dustpan, my mind was doing damage control. I had to get to Gruff today…

Later, I arrived at Gruff's place by myself with Hans and Imelda. It seemed that they couldn't stop looking at each other. Lovebirds.

"Ah, Largo! How are Hans and Imelda?"

"Terrible, Gruff! I think my sweet innocent Lilly just got corrupted!"

Gruff's face showed his incredible amusement again. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah, she said those porcavians were wrestling each other last night. What was going on there?"

He laughed. "Relax, Largo. It's a courtship ritual. They wrestle each other, and if the male wins, then they go back to their den and mate. I should have probably told you that they only do that in their den when no one's around."

"Yeah, you would have saved me ten years of my life," I said sourly. "So…is Imelda returning to you?"

"Nope, she's going wherever Hans goes now. Once they're together a female porcavian always stays in the territory of the male. They hit it off surprisingly well, I think."

Hans and Imelda were nuzzling each other, happy. It was actually pretty cute.

"Tell the kids to take good care of them. Domesticated porcavians get pretty loyal with one another, not like the wild ones. Oh, and Largo?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for the laugh. I think even an old grouch like me can sometimes be humored pretty darn good!"