Early last winter, squeals pierced the crisp air as the Williams men and the cook, Peggy/Margaret, had slaughtered, cleaned, skinned, eviscerated, and butchered about two dozen, 250-pound, mud-covered, splotchy white hogs. Peggy/Margaret and two of her teenaged daughters rubbed bay salt and salt-petre into the hog parts as a preservative, then they pushed pieces of the pork fat and muscle through a meat grinder. Using well-cleaned hog intestines as casings, they hand-mixed fennel seed, parsley, sage, pepper, and salt into the ground hog meat. The meat-filled casings were twisted twice every four inches to form long sausage links. Peggy/Margaret hung the aromatic ropes in the six-foot square smokehouse, which was located next to the outdoor summer kitchen. The sausages would cure for several months. Everybody knows the sweltering Maryland summer heat makes it impossible to keep food stuffs from spoiling, so meats eaten during the spring and summer months were often preserved the prior winter.