My thoughts wing back to the eleventh of November—St. Martin’s Day—usually considered the first acceptable day to butcher in those pre-refrigerator days of the early thirties. It was also a day that I was allowed to stay home from school to help.

What an array of sights and sounds that day provided! As my duties were mainly of the run and fetch order, I was able to see it all and smell it all. I watched Grandmother scrape the intestines for the next day’s sausage stuffing. Cloth sleeves were already sewn for sausage stuffed in this manner.

All this time, over an outdoor fire, Grandmother cooked the hog’s head and other bones in a large black iron kettle with feet. I got the task of scraping off every fleck of meat. Not a shred was to be wasted. When I had approximately two pounds, I added five cups of water, one teaspoon salt, one-half to one teaspoon freshly ground pepper, one quarter teaspoon sage from the herb garden, and two cups of white corn meal. The mixture was simmered, put into a flat pan, and then chilled in the icehouse. While I was doing this, Grandmother would make "puddin," blood pudding and souse.

I was allowed to turn the handle of the sausage stuffer-grinder and it fascinated me to see the intestines plump up. Every five inches, Grandmother would give a twist of her hand and make a link. Father and Grandfather carried great loops of sausage into the smokehouse---Oh the smokehouse. By this time of day it began to grow colder but you could snitch some cracklins and dash into the smokehouse with its hickory smelling fire.