that boy became a man today," the carpenter said. He
accepted a glass of Aaron's cider. "Today Waziri's wallet jingled with
bronze and copper earned by his own sweat, a manful sound to a lad of
fifteen summers. I ask pardon for having returned your laborer in so
damaged a condition, brother Haruna; but you may be consoled with the
thought that the Mother's festival comes but once in the twelve-month."

"No harm was done, brother Musa," Aaron said, offering his visitor
tobacco. "In my own youth, I sometimes danced with beer-light feet to
the music of worldly guitars; and yet I reached a man's estate."

Offered a refill for his pipe, Musa raised a hand in polite refusal.
"Tomorrow's sun will not wait on our conversation, and much must be
done, in the manner of racers waiting the signal, before the first blade
breaks the soil," he said. "Good night, brother Haruna; and may Mother
grant you light!"

"Mother keep you, brother Musa," Aaron murmured the heathen phrase
without embarrassment. "I'll guide your feet to your wagon, if I may."

Aaron, carrying the naphtha lantern, led the way across the strip of
new-plowed soil. Set by frost into plastic mounds and ridges, the earth
bent beneath his shoes and the carpenter's bare feet. Aaron swung Musa's
picket-iron, the little anchor to which his horse was tethered, into the
wagon, noticing that it had been curiously padded with layers of quilted
cloth. "May you journey home in good health, brother Musa," he said.

"_Uwaka!_" Musa shouted, staring at the plow-cuts.

Aaron Stoltzfoos dropped the lantern to his side, amazed that the
dignified old man could be guilty of such an obscenity. Perhaps he'd
misheard. "Haruna, you have damned yourself!" Musa bellowed. "Cursed be
this farm! Cursed be thy farming! May thy seedlings rot, may thy corn
sprout worms for tassles, may your cattle stink and make early bones!"

"Brother Musa!" Aaron said.

"I am no sib to you, O Bearded One," Musa said. "Nor will I help you
carry the curse you have brought upon yourself by today's ill-doing." He
darted back to the farmhouse, where he ordered half-wakened Waziri to
pad barefoot after him to the wagon, rubbing his eyes. "Come, son," Musa
said. "We must flee these ill-omened fields." Without another word to
his host, the carpenter hoisted his boy into the wagon, mounted, and set
off into the night. The hoofs of his horse padded softly against the
dirt road, unshod.

Martha met the bewildered Aar