Summary

Malone turns to narrating the life of the Lambert family, which consists of a mother and father with two children that live at a homesteading farm. He calls the father “Big Lambert,” describing him as a toothless “bleeder and disjointer of pigs,” who was highly in demand over the actual butcher because of his low fee, which was often just a request for some of the meat (194). Big Lambert’s wife is afraid of him, and Malone notes that he beats her; the son he describes the son as “a great strapping lad with terrible teeth” (195). Though he is mostly prone to silence, the rare occasions that Big Lambert makes conversation involves the differences and similarities between the pigs he slaughters. Sapo spends time at the Lamberts’ farm, mostly observing them carry on their daily activities. Malone does not specify how he came to...