Chapter 33

I feel much shame. I have not acted well. I complain always of not working for money, so much that Linda becomes angry with me just as I do with Unkgat for his whining complaints in the hunt, and then when she tells me stop my talk I am so foolish as to use strong drink—alcohol, Linda says is name—to forget what I see as my sorrows.

The alcohol is as stupid as I think when I have seen others use it for that reason, or any reason. At first it gives a little lightness, but soon all seems still worse than before and first the mind and then the body do not work well. Yet I am still more stupid and continue to drink until I can no longer stand and go unconscious.

In the night I wake and must make vomit, it is a bad feeling. And my head still is not right, though I can think enough to wash my mouth with the brush Linda gives me before I return to sleep. But when at last I wake and the light is bright outside, my head hurts badly and my stomach is unhappy.

Linda is patient with all, which shames me more. She gives me water to drink with something in it to make bubbles, and I drink when she tells me and it is better though I am still not right.

Then she speaks to me long and with much feeling. I can work now, she tells me, but only for small money and if I do that I will have less time for learning. But if I wait and learn, then I may have better work and be more proud in that work and receive greater money for it.

As she speaks I think of the hunt and how this is so also then. There are some among the boys who will not practice as they need, who grow too impatient with it and with learning. These are the ones who are always behind in the hunt, or who do not even go; they remain with the women and children to tend the fields and do other such things because they have not the skill that is needed to hunt. It is only through learning and practice that one may acquire such skill.

Am I to be such a one in this new world to which I am come?

There is much to learn, and I am only a small part to where I need to reach. It seems too much now that I can ever learn, but was it not the same when first I picked up spear, when first I took sling to my hand? It is not right that Linda must give all money for our living, but is it not worse yet if I cease my learning too soon so that I may never make proper part in getting this money that is so important in this place?

For now I have my work, I realize, but that work is to learn. It is hard to make work for no gain that may be valued by others, but it is what I must do, and I cease my complaining and use all of my time for this purpose.

There are times after this that Linda must tell me to stop for the day and to be with her. I am glad of it when she does, though.

Many of the things that I learn interest me greatly. There is a way of counting here with symbols different from the ones used to make words, and one may work with these numbers in many ways to make very exact answers.

Such exact answers are important because numbers are part of everything. They are used to build houses and other structures, to make the so-many machines that humans use now, to breed the animals that are kept in the fields and elsewhere, to grow crops for eating and feeding the kept animals, to heal the human body, to know the weather before it happens, to understand the stars above, so many things. Linda says that computer on her table may show pictures and words and make sounds but that all is done through numbers.

I think I could spend all of my learning to understand more of numbers. But there is so much else I must learn.