Chapter 11

Our newly enlarged family got along fine. Tonette fit in with us just like she had always been here. I worked our farms and Mrs. Kornet's garden.

A month after our big fight a couple of men showed up at our farm. I went out to meet them. They introduced themselves as Bert Jelta, and Dent Kesil. I introduced myself and invited them onto the porch to talk. They were from two nearby towns and asked if they could join our confederation.

I said, "I don't think we have a confederation, only a district council. I will ask for a district meeting, to let you talk to our people."

I asked them to stay with us for the few days it would take for the word to be passed and the meeting to be set up. They agreed, but said they would camp out, so they wouldn't disturb our family life.

I hitched up the wagon and went into the magistrate's office and asked him to set up a district meeting to introduce our visitors to our people.

The next week the meeting took place. The two men were very well spoken, and asked that our district take their towns into our group to be self governing.

After a long discussion, it was decided that they would be members of our district government and militia, but that they would have a separate town council that would meet twice a year with us to discuss any big items. They should elect their own magistrate, tax collector and police. We would all form an army and would train separately except for three meetings per year where everyone would train together.

As the person in charge of the militia I was asked to go to the towns and begin training. I decided that I would go to Bert's town first. I would leave in three weeks and stay for three weeks.

I was dreading leaving my family, but when I told them what I had planned they just smiled and began packing to go with me.

A couple of town boys came out and volunteered to take care of our farms while we were gone.

I told Dent to plan on me visiting in about three months to start his town's training.

We got to Bert's town, Torvil, in a couple of days. They had my family a nice house to stay in while I was there. It was not just a town but a district as large as ours.

They had a district meeting to elect a magistrate, tax collector and police as well as introduce me and call on the men to come to join the militia.

This district was also very diverse in its makeup. The magistrate was a Tik, the tax collector was a Grest and the police were a mix of both.

They had obviously been talking to the people in our district; the pay for the public servants was identical to ours. They let me speak for a few minutes and I found that they had four men who had served in the army and knew about melee fighting. I appointed them as corporals, and put them in charge of teaching melee tactics.

Three days later, we met for our first days of militia training. We ran and tested for skills. I was surprised that the turnout was so good. We had 150 men come to join with our militia group.

I had fifteen scouts, forty archers and the rest divided up into eight squads. One squad was one swordsman short.

We worked on conditioning, marching and working as a unit. We also went over what commands we would anticipate using in battle situations. I worked with the scouts and archers mostly. I also worked with the slingers from the squads.

I appointed Jess Harwin as the leader of the local militia and told him to appoint permanent squad leaders after a couple of more trainings.

My wives actually enjoyed the time we spent at Torvil. They met new people, and showed off our children.

Tonette was worse about needing to be in skin contact with me than the other two. She told me that I had to come home twice a day for them to hold me. I would walk in the door and they would all descend on me and hug me for about five minutes before we could talk coherently about things. I really kind of enjoyed the attention.

I held my children and talked to them every day. After two weeks, I got ready to go home. After thanks and reiterating the times we would get together for militia training we went home.

We got home and our farms were in good shape. I gave the boys who looked after our place three copper coins each. They were very happy with the pay and said they would come back and look after the place when we went to Mayton.