"Mama will make you a lunch basket that'll be breakfast, dinner, and supper. And you're to do all the Tanners ask of you. And see things to be done before they ask."
"Yes, Papa. I'll sure do good."
"If they judge hogs and judge oxen at the same time, your place is with Tanner's yoke and not your own pig. Promise me, boy."
"I promise, Papa. I'll do proud." (9.108-111)
Wow, talk about pressure. It's not enough to do your duty when it's pointed out to you. You need to go looking for responsibilities that haven't even come your way yet, too? Hey, no one ever said life on the farm was easy.
"Help me boy," said Papa. "It's time."
He put his tools on the ground, keeping only a three-foot crowbar. Neither one of us wore gloves, and I knew how cold that crowbar felt. I'd carried it, and it was colder than death.
"Back away," he said.
"Papa," I said, "I don't think I can."
"That ain't the issue, Rob. We have to." (14.16-20)
Here we get a look at a critical moment in the book. It's time to take out Pinky, and Rob says he just can't do it. Papa reminds him, though, that when duty calls, "can't" just isn't an option.
Quote 6
"We thank you, Brother Tanner," said Papa. "But it's not the Shaker Way to take frills for being neighborly. All that Robert done was what any farmer would do for another. It don't add up to payment or due." (3.39)
Okay, so they keep a respectful distance, but at the same time they're careful to be neighborly, lending a hand when needed (even if that hand ends up being bitten by an angry cow). Sound complicated? Well, in A Day No Pigs Would Die, it's all just part of the bargain.