The Mansion, 371 (Event)

Gavin Stevens says that the town could not figure out what Snopes was up to and why he didn't lock the hog up better. After all, he can't sell it since no one would "give full market price per pound for a hog containing fourteen or fifteen months of Number 10 lead shot" (371). Note: There is another problem with this dating. It "fourteen or fifteen months" of Number 10 shot seems to indicate that this had been going on for over a year. Yet, if this were the case, the dispute would have ended somewhere in later 1947 or early 1948. Given the total order of the novel, this is an impossibility because the novel ends in the fall of 1946. Alternatively, "fourteen or fifteen months" could also be read as figuratively.