Chapter 31

Sometimes when I am quiet and idle my mind goes back to my life before I come here. Each time it seems more far away and long ago. And it is that life now that seems strange, and the one I have here that grows real.

Much is because of Linda. I have never before been so close to any woman, to any person. Part is because we are so much together, but in wintertime I was often many days with M’kamba all time and with others too and there was never this feeling in me. With Linda I feel right in myself, my life is complete in a way I have never known before. We make love often, and each time seems new and more filling than the time before.

But I grow easier, too, with the world as it has become and with the things of living that surround me. The speech, the language becomes more natural to me, and even my thoughts begin to be in these words rather than the words I learned as a child. And I grow accustomed to the many things, the machines and other tools that are all around me.

Linda and I go more times to the town that is nearby. “Nearby”—I laugh to myself when I realize how easily I may now say this of a place that in my life before would have required two days of hard travel to reach. I laugh, too, when I remember how great it seemed to me on our first visit, how very large and with so many people; now I know it to be only small among the great centers of people that exist now.

Winter is ended and the trees and plants now bloom. In the time when this begins to happen I ask Linda should we not sow the ground in order that we may have some of our food from ourselves and not have to take all from store. She looks at me in great surprise and asks do we do such in my other life.

“Of course,” I tell her. It is the men who must prepare the earth, for it is hard work and needs strength, and because the men must also hunt and spring is best for hunting it is very busy time. Then the women and children lay the seeds and tend to the field, with men to help when they can.

Linda has no seed set by, but she says we may get from store. We go and find many kinds of seed in little paper packs with words and pictures. There are also many other things such as tools for working the ground, tools far better than I know. And there is material that is called fertilizer, so it is not needed to take the body’s wastes and save them for this use.

I see again how truly all things in this world may be had for money, and I think once more that I must find a way to get this money for myself.

As we drive home Linda points to places beside the road where others are working great fields, fields that go further than I can see. It is sensible, with so many people now it must be that vast amounts of food must be grown. She points to other fields where I see animals grazing. People do not hunt for meat now, she tells me, they keep the animals nearby and feed them until the meat is needed. There are barriers to keep the animals from straying.

We have thought of this among my people. A few have wolves who sometimes come to them and help in hunting. We think to do this with deer or other animals that make good food.

But we cannot give them to eat, there is not enough for this. Even the ones with wolves, they must let wolves go to find their own food many times. And deer and such animals are not so intelligent as wolves, if we cannot give food all time they will not return. And when we take one to eat, it will make the others flee. I see that people have overcome this now, and I am pleased to know it can be done in the way my people have thought.

At home I take the tools and use them in a field near the house. It is good to work again. And it is much better than the practice I make to keep my body strong, for this work is useful; if I cannot get money at least we will have food from my work.