This particular Sunday evening in 1968, I was at our church with our CYF youth group, where I served as their sponsor. The younger children were at home with their Daddy. Jonny was 7 and Owen was 3 years old. Jonny was our quieter and ornerier son. His theory seemed to be “While Mama is away Jonny will play”…with matches that is. He was playing in the hay barn between some bales of hay where he and Owen had crawled through a narrow opening. He was lighting fire to the loose hay and then putting the fire out while little Owen watched. Next to the stack of hay was a large white pig that was penned inside of the barn to be fattened.

One of the matches that Jon lit fell between the bales and before he could get to it, a fire had sparked and was too far along for him to put it out. Jon was so frightened he backed up through the tunnel in the hay as he pushed Owen who was close behind him to the opening. He ran to the house past his Daddy who was napping on the sofa and on upstairs to his room. Now you must know that when Wayne is napping, you do not awaken him for just any reason. Little Owen soon followed Jon into the house and started patting his Daddy's knee, knowing full well you do not disturb Daddy. Wayne just kept on napping while Owen was patting harder and harder and repeating over and over "Daddy, Pig gonna' dit hot, Daddy, pig gonna dit hot."

Finally… it registered with Wayne that Owen was trying to tell him that something was wrong. He opened his eyes and asked "Is the barn on fire?" Owen nodded his head "yes" Wayne ran to the barn, but it was too late as it was all aflame. He drug out the water hose and kept the fire from spreading to the other barns.

Jimmy came to the church to alert me of what happened. I dismissed my group and drove home to witness the barn was already gone, the tin was melted and the hay was still smoldering. The pig pen was gone as well as the pig.

We looked for Jon in the house and found him hiding upstairs with the covers pulled over his head. I had assumed Wayne would give him a new red "tail light", but he never said a word to Jonny. I thought this was unusual, until much later I found that when Wayne was the same age he had also burned a haystack down and almost the same way.

We were all feeling so badly about the poor pig burning up, until several days later, the pig just showed up at the barn, a bit hungry with nothing wrong except a scorched tail. Seemingly, the pig had jumped the gate of its pen when the flames came near him....

This is the end of a pig's tale.....scorched that is!