Thunder in the Morning: A Novel of Africa

By Olympio Vormawor

A Novel of African Independence!
At last, a book about Africa's first industrial action in Ghana! Secret populist up-rising! The horror, from folk perspective! Africa's public grief! Rural farmer's private anguish! Strike action? Protest? All ineffectual! The only viable alternative for property distribution? Unspeakable! Looting! Radical organized nation-wide liberation of Multi-national Shops!
The story? Akuse-Amedeka, cosmopolitan heaven, hosted all boats sailing the Volta! People comingled and made blissful music. Then, a farmer, started asking pointed questions. Secretary of secret Labor Union, receives a strange gift - a kiss from unusual visitor! A stunning white lady, immaculately Sunday frocked, at his blacksmith workshop!
"Do you see that?" Nomo Adziga, whispered to Maa Adzeley.
"Clear as day light!"
"Nose-rubbing! European merchants are rubbing noses with us!"
Betrayal? Or, solidarity? Enough to challenge folk imagination at the Holy African Traditional Shrine of Thunder, Yeve, teaching proper ethical virtues to initiates!
Mysterious Lady? Seeking what? And what kiss! Interracial long nose, poked into native affairs! Friendly? Pinocchio? Admirer? Or Colonialism's charming alter-ego?
Expatriates, with classical theories of racial profiling, studied the natives.
Natives, also studied their visitors, with one classic - the human heart.
One fine Friday afternoon in January 1948, a kiss was planted near the left ear of Anani Nanor, a blacksmith who worked the forge, at his workshop in Atsukorpe, a quarter of Akuse-Amedeka township, in the Eastern Region of the Gold Coast. This apparently innocuous event which under ordinary circumstances might register no surprise at all, or if it did, no more than a mere passing fancy in the remotest rural enclave, gave rise to a great deal of excitement in the local Akuse-Amedeka area. For an unusually considerable time afterwards, the news sprouted and became the talk of the town. Morning, noon or evening, whenever workers paused to gasp in-between the activity with the pickaxe, the shovel or hand broom, it was on their lips. Whenever the water pot and firewood carriers balanced their enormous head-loads on their heads, and cagily neared each other, it was the main conversation piece. Let vendors and peddlers - those dynamic women with robust voices under the open trays - meet between the market stalls and lower their voices, in-between the lyrical outbursts of the hawkers' cries for attention to their goods, and, it was not far from their muted small talk, nor heated chatter.
There were innocent ones who, peculiar as it might sound, had never seen displayed in public, or presumably experienced in private, the physical phenomenon of a kiss, and to all appearances, had never missed it! To them the gesture was a mere curious cultural oddity whose display presented no magic to charm or shock the senses. These members of the community were not the children - so adept at role playing "Mami and Papa". They were not teenagers who had overgrown "hide-and-seek" as a contact sport and, in whom the thawing life-juices had become as restless as the Volta in floods. They were not young adults, blooming silently like virgin cocoa trees under the shelter of forest timber. The innocent ones were seasoned grown-ups of matured experience, over whom the veil of cultural otherness had cast a different spell. They were those in whom the emotions had ripened but thawed to run in a different vein. These were the folks of nuanced sensibilities, who could tell the different unpredictable flavors of wild honey in cassava tapioca, warmed over open flames, and served on straw mats in swish buildings roofed with peasant hay. These were the folks who could tell the source of the nectar from the movement in the bee's dance at day, and at night, they had mastered the delicate art of scooping the noon heat into their sleep, to bake their dreams. The innocent ones were the folks, who had succeeded to

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 25, 2009
• ISBN: 9781467054089

Olympio Vormawor

Olympio Vormawor Pioneering Founding Father and President of The Debating Society, of Ghana's Temascho, won the annual writing prize for Ghana schools with a short story, The Missing Shilling, published in The New Generation, 1969. He graduated from Oberlin College, USA, and was Captain of the Varsity Soccer team, in 1973-4. He did Post Graduate work in the Department of African and Asian Studies, in Sussex University, Falmer, UK. As Korku Vormawor, he was Editor of that department's AFRAS JOURNAL, 1975-6. He did further graduate studies at University of Wisconsin - Madison. The tutor of English Composition, in Eastern Kentucky University, at Richmond, KY, USA, came to Harvard University, for Independent Research.

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©2009 Olympio Vormawor. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4389-9486-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4389-9487-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-5408-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009905770

Printed in the United States of America

Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

CHAPTER 1 Anani Nanor

CHAPTER 2 Nomo Adzigah

CHAPTER 3 Maa Adzeley

CHAPTER 4 Ayinor

CHAPTER 5 Man From The East

CHAPTER 6 What Midao Horsese Remembered

CHAPTER 7 The Ordeal Of Husunu Sodzi

CHAPTER 8 Beyond The Bitter Neem Tree Fence

CHAPTER 9 Adomi

CHAPTER 10 A Certain Calling

CHAPTER 11 Tefle 44

CHAPTER 12 Vume

CHAPTER 13 Words Of Azanu 48

CHAPTER 14 Bakpa

CHAPTER 15 Mepe 53

CHAPTER 16 Mawu Mawu

CHAPTER 17 Transition

CHAPTER 18 The Rise Of Horsese

CHAPTER 19 Dinner At The Donovans

CHAPTER 20 Meeting

CHAPTER 21 C h o o b o e i!

ANNOTATIONS

Olympio Vormawor,

Pioneering Founder and President of

New Constitution for The Debating Society,Temascho, Ghana

Alumnus of International House, 500 Riverside Dr., New York Foreign Student Adviser, for the YMCA, N.Y. (Summers,1971-73)

Advised

   International Camp Counselors

   Experiment in International Living

   UNO Fellows into USA

Volunteer, of UNO Volunteer Program

Studied at

Oberlin College, BA, (English), 1974, Oberlin, Ohio, USA;

Sussex University, M.A., (African Studies), 1976, Falmer, Sussex, UK

Univ. Of Wisconsin, African Languages & Literatures,1979, Madison,Wisconsin, USA Harvard University, African Studies, Graduate Fellowship Program,1990,

   & Affiliate, Independent Research

Taught at

Achimota School,1975-76 , Ghana

Okuapeman, 1969, Somanya,1969 , Ghana

St John’s Grammar, Ile-Ife, Nigeria,1981,

Onabisi-Onabanjo University, (Pioneer Staff), 1982-85

(Formerly Ogun State University ), Ago-Iwoye, Nigeria.

Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY, USA, 1986

Soccer

Co-Captain, Oberlin College Varsity Soccer Team, The Yeomans

Honorably mentioned, All Ohio, Soccer, 1972, 73.

Volunteer Soccer Coach, Soccer Clinic , 2004-5,

Woburn Youth Soccer Program, Woburn, USA

Inquiries

Email: [e-mail]

For discussions, and comments see Web Page

   thunderinthemorning.angelfire.com

   www. thunderinthemorning .com

CHAPTER 1

Anani Nanor

One fine Friday afternoon in January 1948, a kiss was planted near the left ear of Anani Nanor, a blacksmith who worked the forge, at his workshop in Atsukorpe,¹ a quarter of Akuse-Amedeka township, in the Eastern Region of the Gold Coast.² This apparently innocuous event which under ordinary circumstances might register no surprise at all, or if it did, no more than a mere passing fancy in the remotest rural enclave, gave rise to a great deal of excitement in the local Akuse-Amedeka area. For an unusually considerable time afterwards, the news sprouted and became the talk of the town. Morning, noon or evening, whenever workers paused to gasp in-between the activity with the pickaxe, the shovel or hand broom, it was on their lips. Whenever the water pot and firewood carriers balanced their enormous head-loads on their heads, and cagily neared each other, it was the main conversation piece. Let vendors and peddlers-those dynamic women with robust voices under the open trays-meet between the market stalls and lower their voices, in-between the lyrical outbursts of the hawkers’ cries for attention to their goods, and, it was not far from their muted small talk, nor heated chatter.

There were innocent ones who, peculiar as it might sound, had never seen displayed in public, or presumably experienced in private, the physical phenomenon of a kiss, and to all appearances, had never missed it! To them the gesture was a mere curious cultural oddity whose display presented no magic to charm or shock the senses. These members of the community were not the children-so adept at role playing Mami and Papa. They were not teenagers-who had overgrown hide-and-seek as a contact sport-and, in whom the thawing life-juices had become as restless as the Volta in floods. They were not young adults, blooming silently like virgin cocoa trees under the shelter of forest timber. The innocent ones were seasoned grown-ups of matured experience, over whom the veil of cultural otherness had cast a different spell. They were those in whom the emotions had ripened but thawed to run in a different vein. These were the folks of nuanced sensibilities, who could tell the different unpredictable flavors of wild honey in cassava tapioca, warmed over open flames, and served on straw mats in swish buildings roofed with peasant hay. These were the folks who could tell the source of the nectar from the movement in the bee’s dance at day, and at night, they had mastered the delicate art of scooping the noon heat into their sleep, to bake their dreams. The innocent ones were the folks, who had succeeded to cast their buckets down the shaft of the deep well, to meet the hidden spring in its sweetest flow. And yet, because the physical phenomenon of a kiss, fell outside the realm of their courtship behavior, at first notice, their visual experience of it rebelled against the very foundation of their feelings and sentiments. It challenged and puzzled them; the mixing of salivas could not acquit itself before their eyes in a hurry, as being clinically defensible, and the horror which was the thought of that possibility of its intrusion upon their own persons, affronted them like a major act of class war. About Anani Nanor, the whispers arose,

Oh, she only neared him and sucked in his face with her lips! What is that also for? They would ask plainly appalled. Some were intrigued, "What did she mean by it?"

However, there were some in Akuse-Amedeka to whom the phenomenon posed no great puzzle. Of those, many had traveled far, to catch a glimpse of the wink on the face, of the darker member among the pair of one-eyed angels in the Kama Sutra, when the minarets were silent. Some had gone to the missionary schools, and held their breath, when the catechist’s daring finger fearfully careered among the Songs of Solomon. They had been hit on the head, with the sledge-hammer of text-book romance, and could remember, what Domelevo once confessed to Agbezuge.³

Oh, she kissed him, truly! The hawkers would exclaim their marvels, smiling softly to themselves, yet no less baffled by the total import of it all.

No doubt, in those days, a kiss, this most fancied collector’s item of today’s international exchanges, was very rare in the Akuse-Amedeka public eye. For all practical purposes it was unknown in Atsukorpe. Anani Nanor was the local blacksmith.

The lips of the one who advanced the gesture, which C.C. Ayi Gbedziagble-the local expert and scholar, of Exotic European Manners, Customs and Quaint Behaviours-referred to as the sublime act, was an European expatriate lady, Laura Donovan. If the gesture, of the races, suddenly bending forwards to touch each other in the face, was to count as extraordinary, it was the equally bizarre conduct and timing of the occasion, that was to add fuel to local gossip.

This was a period of great tension and anxiety. Akuse-Amedeka township was playing a significant host in that district to the first national, organized industrial action. No one knew exactly the character of the strike to come, but the voice of the first populist, anti-market uprising in the Gold Coast was known underground as,

"Chooboee!! "⁴

It was being awaited with great anxiety. Anani Nanor was the secretary of the secret Labor Union enjoying massive support among the teeming bucolic crowds, waiting for the signal to strike out for an Independence Movement without precedence in Continental Africa. They were to boycott, and if necessary, break in and sack the shops of the multinational trading companies, to force into the open the need for fairer distribution of the goods. Laura Donovan was the niece of Don Donovan, the accountant, newly promoted as a manager of The Trading Company,⁵ the multinational concern with massive warehouses in Akuse-Amedeka. Viewed with quiet surprise, suspicion, confusion and general untold consternation, the sublime act was no small news.

It was late in the afternoon, at the compound of the blacksmith. Nearby, the embers of the torch were still glowing at the palm wine taper’s puffs at Atsukorpe, a cottage in the Amedeka quarter of Akuse-Amedeka township. The local farmer, Nomo Adzigah, was collecting a hoe from the blacksmith. Maa Adzeley, a fish-monger, had come with two of her children to take away a fish-rack to smoke samna, the shark from the sea, that had arrived by steamboat. Madam Tsinorfe, an itinerant hawker of choice sweets, had arrived with an assorted open tray of the treats: fried brownish balls of bow-floats, sweet-bad, and hard-boiled balls of omotuo, the creamed rice-gun. She had attracted a few customers-children from the compound and from just beyond the hedge. The Gbede himself was behind the dusty bellows. He took a step to hold the tongs, to stir the brilliant flames around a piece of incandescent iron, glowing in a cozy bed of charcoal.

As his fore-arm rallied in tension to lift up the evanescent ingot from its couch in the hearth onto the resonant anvil, the heavy hammer descended to deal the first resolute blow, when the sprightly apparition appeared at the open doorway. Where none had ever ventured before, an unknown white lady in a Sunday frock, suddenly materialized on the doorstep of his workshop, in the heartland of the smithy’s forge. It was Friday, a working day.

There was something remarkable about Anani Nanor’s working habits, which one would need to know, in order to understand his reaction and experience of the incredible spectacle.

He saw her through a corner of his eye, as was his habit, to relate to any eventuality that secreted itself in his presence after the red hot iron was lifted from the hearth. His other eye took her in, in all her completeness-the slippers on her feet, the grass seeds that clung at the edge of her frock, the riotous hair that had escaped from the broad-brimmed hat onto her shoulders, and the sedate gait she struck as she lingered by the doorway, as if unsure to enter. He did not mind that she was beautiful, or that she was unique. But he saw that through the outward forms of the shadows that projected her, she was neat. As she stood there and gazed at him, he knew she did not belong there, for she was not real for him. She belonged to the world of pale apparitions that the feverish brain conjured up late at night to confront the body stricken with fatigue. So instead, he busied himself with the work at hand.

For the blacksmith, the heart always melted at the touch of iron which was bound to give when the hammer descended. His blow dug a groove in the ingot. The repeated blows tapered the edge and flattened the broad base of the metal, so that suddenly, the flamboyant character of the handy farming hoe already took shape. There was a certain thrill in the discovery at the anvil that, hard as iron was, it was also infinitely pliable and manageable to flow under the guide and conduct of a robust will. That was when the bellows had puffed and given their best, when the coals had glowed and proved their worth. That was when the myriad shapes possible, masquerading under the mantle of the ingot, had acquired the self-liberating franchise, to break loose and free in red heat, and to cry out for accentuation and release.

Such a moment, often flashed as crucial, decisive instants. Once his heart had chosen the design to meet the work in hand, when the artistic contours of the implement had called from deep down, and the repeated blows had begun to define and validate the hoe’s fine cutting edge, any other mortal calling was nothing but bootless distraction. For, as is known throughout the ages, there is eternal turbulence, in the soul, fired and provoked by the sight of red hot iron set aglow with warmth and heat. At each repeated blow the soul sets its stamp and imprint on the groove where the hammer treads in its thunderous descent. For, the hammer and anvil have an old song they love to sing out anew in a bold strong voice-

ken! ken! ken! ⁶

-when the ingot arrives between them set aglow in its evanescent transfiguration.

As Anani Nanor’s arm muscles tightened to test the tenor of the ponderous metallic melody, the apparition at his doorstep would not be wished away, instead the mermaid sprang forward as if from a dream, pressed on to touch him. She kissed him on the left cheek, in an expression of pure joy that had significance for her only, for such a gesture had no meaning in his world. As the impulse called forth the gesture, she withdrew. Briefly, she paused, and took a glance at the workshop.

On the counter next to the workbench of the rural cottage, she saw robust instruments in various stages of completion. She saw the spears. There were two kinds-the single-pronged, and the double-pronged-each with little hooks coaxed from the rotundity of the shaft. She saw the home-made knives built with wooden handles steeped in red dye. In a corner against the wall was the formidable outlines of a rough-and-ready home-made gun. By the door were a couple of axes, a mallet and a sledge-hammer. The triumphant entry of friendship chimed in her ears and rankled in her soul as she saw the trigger of the gun poised ready to strike. Before she saw the lyrical assembly of the bells for the spirit medium, the gong-gong and the castanets, she had already moved to withdraw. Even as she tip-toed out of the hut, the guinea fowls in the backyard began a shrill, wild call. A turkey in the compound strutted about, puffed its feathers, prepared for a gobble, and mobilized a terrific gun-like salute. Then the dogs stirred from within, with gruff voices.

Ayinor, Anani’s wife with the baby at the back, hurried to restrain the mongrels, but her own curiosity was beyond bounds. She dragged the bitch by the collar towards her husband and asked in her astonishment,

What does she want?

That was when Anani Nanor himself recovered sufficiently from the close encounter to puzzle out the importance of it all.

Already there were on the compound, children, who had banded together to celebrate the occasion, with the chant,

"Yevu, yevu, de sodzi

Gee gee gee!" ⁷

That is preposterous! Began one of the two male escorts who had accompanied the visitor to the gate. Then they all continued to chatter excitedly in their native English, a language which struck the local folk ear, attuned to tonal inflections, as full of quaint peculiar monotones, which however presented a new challenge. Yet the visitors’ general aloofness, which was the habitual human facade, a shield for displacement in unfamiliar surroundings, did not help matters. For as a group, the visitors came across as curious natives of a different climate seemingly clever in many ways but notoriously inarticulate in local terms, and each time they tried to utter a local phrase, they did so with such atrocious finesse, that it was bound to send the elderly into hysterics. The way they had bridged the gap in communication with a quick utterance of Goodbye! thrilled the tall Tsinorfe, hawker of rice-gun and toogbee, the bow-floats. She said she had heard distinctly from their accents, which to her was bizarre, the words repeated,

"Gugugbayee! meaning, oil-drums!"

Before long she herself, bore aloft her tray and thrilled the air with her hawker’s cry,

"Nuvivi! Nuvivitor!

Nuvivi le Akudzi!

Nuvivi le Akuse!

Dada mayi Akudzi madu nuvivi!"-her declaration that the world’s juiciest, most delightful sweets populated Akuse.

Laura Donovan gathered wild flowers on the way home. Harry Smith and Andre Schwartz, who accompanied her, did not look amused. The local vegetation had a reputation for cobras and crab-sized scorpions. The two males continued the new Game of Wishes.

That tree is mine! Andre Schwartz pointed suddenly to a milk-bush, growing in the field, with strong slender stems, hoisting golden clusters of bell-shaped blossoms, playing host to parasitic cat’s-eyes and lichen.

Well, then that other one is mine also! Harry Smith pointed to a tall silk-cotton tree in whose leaves several weaver birds had come to build their nests. A gentle breeze rose and the tall elephant grass bowed before them. There was peace in the fields.

Well, but why? If so, the field is mine then, from that timber to as far as the river! Schwartz said.

In the late afternoon the river Volta glowed in the sun like molten

silver.

I claim the river! Cried out Smith, and all the forest beyond, including the lions and tigers!

That leaves me the land then! Schwartz gave a roaring laugh. With all the gold and diamonds in it!

All the land! Harry Smith uttered carefully and slowly.

He was not smiling now.

In that case, I take the whole dominium!

You don’t know what I just saw at the smithy’s!

Some secret source of energy flooded Laura Donovan’s mind and body with warmth at her unspoken thoughts, as the men chattered around her playing their favorite Games of Wishes. She thought to herself,

The people are ready! Their axes are ready! Their sledge-hammers are ready!

And she was on their side! Yet she could not breathe a word of what she saw behind the facade of the mud-huts that the thatcher had just roofed with grass, at the cottage.

You are awfully quiet, Laurie!

What more can I say! Laura smarted, You have already spoken for the whole dominium!

Aha! Hurry! Harry Smith encouraged, picking up a giant-size dandelion from the roadside, studying it carefully and carelessly tossing it away, adding,

There are dozens of others left on the continent!

My lips may be quiet indeed, but hardly so are my thoughts! I mean to say- Laura’s eyes followed the fallen flower.

That dandelion is splendid!

It is, isn’t it? Andre Schwartz admitted, pointing to the bush where Smith had flung it.

I must say, began Laura, I like it better attached to its main stem, where it can benefit from nutrition from the roots. Cut and thrown away, it’s bound to have a much shorter life-span.

She went to retrieve the flower.

Oh, who cares about a dandelion? Asked Harry Smith. And what a waste of one’s precious time, if one did? Neither the wind will miss it nor the birds and bees of the fields. You could call it hog-weed for all I care!

I wonder if dandelions even know they are dandelions! Reflected André Schwartz. It seems to me they don’t. If so, why, one could toss them among thorns and they would still remain indifferent to their common destiny.

The lane from the smithy’s cottage was barely wide enough for two to walk abreast, but became wider so that eventually they all three fell in step.

Oh, if it were possible to share in the common destiny of all life forms, what joy! Her words suddenly quieted the two men. After a few steps in silence Laurie continued, referring to the flower in her hands,

"But this dandelion seems special among the lot. The seed must have fallen on good soil and it’s as large as a sunflower. It is a mighty one among the breed.

What if it does know indeed, that it is a dandelion, how do we know? And how also can we know? You and I are content to call it what we may, and make its image into what we wish to be our very own, an image that the dandelion may not care for.

On the other hand, what if it does not know at all that it has the special qualities we see in it-golden, beautiful, fragrant, alluring and delicious-and we have the chance to make it aware of it, Andre Schwartz asked, do we accept the challenge to help make it see what we see in it?

Well, answered Harry Smith, the trouble with vegetables-they may choose to be something different. They may be devious enough to select for themselves qualities other than we think may improve them.

Well, they may choose to be tough, in order to endure longer attached to the main stem. Laura reflected. Which is not a terribly awful wish in itself. Today they may be dandelions, and tomorrow they may be Zulus or Irish, separated from us only by the artifice of mind devised to keep workers in their places, or to make them much worse.

Workers? Harry Smith fumed. Did I hear you say workers? Many of the peasants here hardly work! And the working spirit among the leisure classes may have in it a more persuasive argument to save the human race than any relative ordering of peoples ranked equally, without any guide to tell the lazy from the alert. I am sure that ought to be true for all our overseas possessions, and colonies.

Laura Donovan smiled quietly and said, Persuasive arguments are not always worthy ones. Certainly problems of peasantry are quite similar and comparable anywhere, be they among Zulus or Irish.

Andre Schwartz said finally,

Well, let dandelions remain dandelions, and sunflowers sun-flowers, until enough courage emerges from the group to affirm or deny what we think they are, or wish to be.

Courage? Queried Harry Smith who seemed quite incensed by some personal aspect of the discussion. I should like to see a fair amount of that courage displayed against a well-trained bulldog meant to protect civilization!

They were all quieter suddenly.

They had come to the entrance to the main retail shops. Beyond them, there was a path to the park on the high cliffs above the river, with the warehouses to the far right; beyond it was the Amedeka Police Station. Every evening, a boatman lit a lamp and took this to be posted on a rock in the river, like a beacon to guide the canoes coming to shore.

I am going with the boatman tonight, to take the lantern to the rocks. Laura Donovan said, I feel a fog in the evening dusk.

CHAPTER 2

Nomo Adzigah

Anani Nanor’s hand did not waver from the steady beat-

ken! ken! ken!

Ofo! His wife called to his attention, What do they want?

He was silent for a few moments, allowing the impact of the close encounter to engage his thoughts.

"They? How many of them?"

Three. She pointed to the gate, where the visitors had already withdrawn.

Oh, said Anani, she was the only one who entered my workshop. And I know what she wanted. The other two ... I am not so sure.

What does she want, then?

Anani Nanor considered the question carefully.

He answered, Power.

He repeated, Power from the truth of beauty that endures.

Oh, I know. That is what they all seek, isn’t it?

She took a deep breath at last.

But what does she want here?

I think-she wants to say that she is happy to find it here.

Ayinor did not doubt her husband a bit. She watched him lift the finished hoe from the anvil into the basin to cool it.

I hope she has indeed found it. Ayinor reflected carefully. And I also wish she had found a way to say so more clearly! For, many of them are often too inclined to seek it, only in the things of market places.

Eyeing a broom, in the corner, designed to contain the goat pellets, she stepped out of the hut, her husband followed her with the hoe in hand for Nomo Adzigah, and together they faced the clients.

Did you see that? Nomo Adzigah whispered to Maa Adzeley. Clear as daylight!

Nose-rubbing! The European merchants are rubbing noses with us!

He wondered seriously what it meant. He was not quite pleased. Then he saw the hoe in the smithy’s hands extended in his direction. When he received the farming implement, sharpened and glistening with a purplish metallic luster, his heart warmed to the touch. The size and shape, as well as the weight, were just what he had looked forward to. He was ready to forgive the blacksmith for all the unseemly interracial nose-rubbings in the world!

Narh! He called to his young son and goaded him homewards.

After he put a distance between the cottage and himself, his earlier intrigue returned. A thought occurred to him, to seek out counsel from C. C. Ayi, the local licensed letter-writer, a scholar of European long books, and heavy words, who enjoyed a fair reputation as a local researcher and an authority on the new subject he called Exotic European Manners, Customs and Quaint Behaviours.

Nomo Wahidzagu Kweku Adzigah was a serious farmer. He was not a miserable peasant, born and bred among proverbial corn stalks and cassava sticks in some rural homestead, who had no choice in the matter, and therefore turned to the land to make the best of a bad situation, to eke out of it what living he could. He was not an absentee cultivator, of the land, one who raised grains and crops from a safe distance through hired labor of other workers to sow and reap on his behalf. He took to farming as a special vocation considered among others, and embarked upon after a special calling to the land.

There were some farmers in the neighborhood who tilled the land because they loved growing crops much taller than themselves and each time they bent the tallest stems lower to harvest a fruit, they felt they were in control of it. Nomo Adzigah was different. Whenever he went to the land he made no effort to control it; however he cared very much to be in charge of it. There was a difference. To control the farm one fell back on an old atavistic impulse autocratically, to impose upon it and in that way, to be detached and removed from the feel of the farm. Nomo Adzigah preferred to be in charge because, for one thing, he loved farming, and he loved the spirit of farm.

The spirit of farm was not the God that one worshipped, nor the deity of fortune one carved in graven images and made sacrificial offerings to. It was not the invisible ears of the invisible wall surrounding a farm which one could invoke or propitiate to protect and give it fruition. To him the spirit of farm was the form of a new dialectic, a total complete understanding of the struggling forces that acted and impinged on a farm in its natural lay of the land. To be in charge of it, he had no need for the ways and methods of those over-enthusiastic farm controllers, the mechanics, fresh from sheltered classrooms