Guy--Part Eight

Splog # 23

Eight

   Guy sat down across the stump from Splog, who was finishing up his tomato. Splog took the small inedible part from the top of the fruit and tossed it out the opening above him. He then walked over to where Guy had taken a drink and rinsed his hands and took a small sip of water. He took a cloth from a twig sticking out of the wall and dried his hands as he came back to sit with Guy.

   "Where to begin..." He eyed Guy for a moment. "The woman who walked here with us...Perhaps it'd be helpful for you to hear her history..."

   Remembering how much the woman reminded him of his mother, and also the despair and sadness that seemed such a part of her, Guy sat up quite attentively and listened with a look of deep concentration on his face.

   "The lady lives in a small village about three miles away from here, down that path along which you saw her leave. Not long ago, she lived there with her husband and two children, a boy and a girl. The boy was two years old and the girl was five years old. They all lived on a small farm just outside of the village. They had a few cows and every morning her husband would milk the cows and then bring the milk into the village and deliver it to the people who lived there. At home, she would work with the leftover milk, making cheeses and butter and cream. Usually, the milk and its by-products would be traded for whatever the family needed and also an occasional luxury. The villagers didn't use money much. There was some money in the village but it ended up making the rounds from person to person so often that every once in a while someone would recognize a coin by a mark or a dent as one that they had used themselves to purchase something and now here it was, back again, coming from a different person than the one that the original user had passed it to. But mostly people just traded what they made for what they needed. A carpenter would trade his wares to a tailor for clothes. The tailor would trade with the butcher for meat. The butcher would trade with the farmer for vegetables. The schoolteacher taught the children and their parents provided him with whatever he needed. The village was small, only about fifty people, not counting the children and, in general, people were contented with what they had.

   "The farmer would often bring the two children when he went into town with his milk and other offerings. There was a mule he would lead with a can of milk hanging by each of its sides and a large basket on its back. The basket was divided into compartments for the cheese and butter and there was one compartment just the right size for a two-year-old boy to sit in. His father had had the basket weaver of the town put two holes in the basket that the boy could put his legs through so they wouldn't get uncomfortably cramped. The little girl would sometimes ride on the back of the mule and sometimes ride on her father's shoulders. And, while they walked slowly around the village, she sometimes liked to walk beside him holding his hand.

   "So that was the state of things in the village until a short time ago. And then one day the farmer and his children went into town after breakfast and the mother stayed at home. She had butter to churn and there were some cheeses wrapped in cloth that she wanted to remove from one cloth and put into a different cloth now that they were ready for eating. When she finished these things, she went out to take a look at the cows. After being milked in the morning, they were put into a field so they could graze and, each day before she made lunch for her family, if the weather was pleasant, the woman liked to go out to the field and walk among the cows. There were eight of them and they all had names and she would talk to each one for a short time and rub its flanks or pat its head or just stand next to it and lean on it. She felt that the cows gave a lot of themselves to her and her family and, as big as they were (and even though they were somewhat smelly), they were gentle and quiet and pleasant company to spend some time with in the late morning before the activity of lunch began. She never knew if her husband would bring someone from the village to share lunch with them. Sometimes a craftsman would come to work on something around the house in return for a meal. Sometimes one of the villagers would come to help her husband with a task that he couldn't accomplish alone, such as pulling a stump or moving a large rock. And sometimes a family would come to spend the afternoon or a woman would come to share a recipe or a story about one of her children. So she would refresh herself in the field with the cows and renew her reserves of peace and strength that would take her through whatever the afternoon might bring.

   "Now, on this particular morning, as she was walking through the field, she began to sense something unusual. None of the cows were grazing. They were all motionless with their heads up as though listening for something. She stopped walking and stood still.