A Day No Pigs Would Die (1972) is a novel based on Robert Newton Peck's own childhood experiences. Rob Peck is a boy coming of age in rural Vermont on his poor parents’ farm. It is one of the first books to be categorized as young adult fiction. Its sequel is A Part of the Sky.
Plot[]
The story is set during the presidency of Calvin Coolidge, in the hard times leading up to the Great Depression. The Peck family, parents Haven and Lucy and son Robert Newton (Rob), whose sisters have grown up and married, own and run a small farm in rural Vermont. The family is very poor, working from dawn to dusk to scrape a living. They grow apples, hunt game, raise and slaughter animals, and sell what they can.
The story opens with Rob playing truant from school to wander the countryside. He comes across a neighbor’s cow, Apron, which is struggling to give birth to a calf. Rob throws himself into helping the animal, tugging the calf out with his own hands. He saves both Apron and her calf, but the cow reacts violently and Robert is left injured and exhausted.
The cow’s owner, Mr. Tanner, is deeply grateful, and rewards Rob with a young piglet, which Rob names Pinky. Pinky is not just a farm animal, but a beloved, intelligent companion and pet. Rob dreams of breeding Pinky so she will have piglets of her own, and he treats her with affection in an otherwise stern and practical farm world.
Rob’s father, Haven Peck, is a hardworking Shaker farmer and butcher. He is stern, quiet and deeply religious, with little room for frivolity. He is loving but shows it through sacrifice and example rather than words. Like all the adults in the family Haven is illiterate. He wants Rob to grow into a responsible man who can provide for his family and continue their way of life, but he also wants Rob to better himself, to "read and write and cipher."
As the months pass, Robert learns that Pinky is barren (cannot have piglets). This discovery is heartbreaking, because it means she is of no use to the family’s survival. Piglets can be sold or raised up for slaughter, but a barren pig is a burden. That year is particularly difficult, with the apple crop failing. Robert pleads with his father to keep her as a pet, but Haven reminds him that sentiment cannot outweigh necessity.
Whew winter comes, Haven and Rob slaughter Pinky. The slaughtering and butchering is described graphically in its entirety. For the only time in Rob’s experience, he sees his father fight against tears.
Haven dies in his sleep the following May. Rob himself digs the grave in the family plot in the orchard, and at the funeral;, his neighbors introduce themselves with their first names, recognizing that Rob, at thirteen years of age, is now head of the household. The novel closes with Robert having assumed responsibility for all the duties of the farm.
Characters[]
- Robert Newton Peck (Rob): The protagonist and narrator, Robert is twelve at the beginning of the story, and thirteen, and a grown man, at the end.
- Haven Peck: Robert’s father, a poor farmer and butcher, stern, illiterate, but deeply moral.
- Lucy Peck: Robert’s mother, practical, nurturing, and quietly supportive.
- Pinky: The piglet given to Robert by Mr. Tanner, one of the most significant “characters” in the story.
- Mr. Tanner: A kindhearted neighbor who owns Apron, the cow Robert saves in the opening chapter.
- Aunt Carrie: Lucy Peck’s sister, who lives with the family and helps with household chores.
Recommendations[]
If you enjoyed "A Day No Pigs Would Die" you may enjoy these uncompromising stories of coming-of-age in hard times.
No One Went To Town A story of frontier life in New Zealand.
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Set in rural Florida. Jody Baxter raises a fawn as a pet but must later confront harsh realities of farm life.
Old Yeller by Fred Gipson. A Texas frontier boy learns responsibility and sacrifice through his relationship with a stray dog.