'll
be of help on the farm, so strong as he is," he remarked. Then, tugging
his hat down tight, Aaron went outdoors, bashful before this mystery.

The little creek had thawed, and the light of the sun on a man's face
almost gave back the heat the air extorted. Waziri had gone to town
today for some sort of Murnan spring-festival, eager to celebrate his
hard-earned wealth on his first day off in months. The place seemed
deserted, Aaron felt, without the boy; without the visitors he'd played
ball and talked crops with, striding up in their scarlet-trimmed rigas
to gossip with their friend Haruna.

Between the roadway and the house, Aaron knelt to rake up with his
fingers a handful of the new-thawed soil. He squeezed it. The clod in
his hand broke apart of its own weight: it was not too wet to work.
Festival-day though it was to his _Schwotzer_ neighbors, he was eager to
spear this virgin soil with his plow blade.

Aaron strode back to the barn. He hitched Rosina--the dappled mare,
named "Raisin" for her spots--to the plow and slapped her into motion.
Sleek with her winter's idleness, Rosina was at first unenthusiastic
about the plow; but the spring sun and honest exercise warmed her
quickly. Within half an hour she was earning her keep. Though Aaron was
plowing shallow, the compact soil broke hard. Rosina leaned into the
traces, leaving hoofprints three inches deep. No gasoline tractor, Aaron
mused, could ever pull itself through soil so rich and damp.
_Geilsgrefte_, horsepower, was best exerted by a horse, he thought.

The brown earth-smells were good. Aaron kicked apart the larger clods,
fat with a planet-life of weather and rich decay. This land would take a
good deal of disking to get it into shape. His neighbors, who'd done
their heavy plowing just after last fall's first frost, were already
well ahead of him. He stabled Rosina at sundown, and went in to sneak a
well-earned glass of hard cider past Martha's teetotaling eye.

* * * * *

Musa the carpenter brought his son home well after dark. Waziri had had
adventures, the old man said; dancing, gambling on the Fool's Wheel,
sampling fonio-beer, celebrating his own young life's springtime with
the earth's. Both the old man and the boy were barefoot, Aaron noticed;
but said nothing: perhaps shoelessness was part of their
spring-festival.

Waziri a bit _geschwepst_ with the beer, tottered off to bed. "Thanks to
you, friend Haruna,