During one of the after-semester holidays in my year one in school, out of pressure by my dad, I was forced to travel down to my grandfather's village to help him out with his farm work because they just started the farming season and due to the constant rainfall, grasses would take off over the farm, punching down the crops if not weeded on time.
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On my first day on the farm, I was wowed to see a very big vast of the land used as farm with its ending touching the sky. It is in such a way that all the people in the community own their farm in one area per season and once they're done, they move to another area. Each of them have pegs acting as a demarcation to one's peace of the farm.
My grandpa which we usually call Pa, Law as his nickname carved out from the real name, Lawrence was a very learned person, though his old age was telling on him but he was still fit handling working tools to do work in the farm. His portion of farm have grasses and have attacked the growing maize which was evident making the leaves yellowish while on the next person's farm, the maize and grasses were all greenish and a greenery beauty to behold.
As I set off to the portion to start weeding, Pa Law walked up to me and asked, "Are you seeing that area?" He pointed at the next farm, I knew he was going to compare his farm and the next neighbour's own and I wasn't ready for that because he would start lamenting about why I didn't report earlier to help him weed his farm, hence the reason grasses have attacked his crops.
"Where is that, you mean our space close to the boundary to the next farm?" I asked picking up my wooden tools to go and start working but no, he held me back.
"Are you not seeing that the grass is greener on the other side? I mean the other farm"
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At this point, I was confused because he meant to say 'plants' and not 'grass, so I walked to his face and asked him using my wooden cutlass to point at a guinea grass on the ground close to him, "You mean grass? If it's grass you're referring to, that means the owner of the farm needs to be worried because if grass starts competing with plants, the plants will soon turn like ours".
He hissed and slowly walked away. He was disappointed at how I couldn't decipher what he was referring to, I saw the look on his face and I needed by all means to understand what he meant because I was lost as well.
"Pa Law! Pa Law! Explain what you meant. I don't understand the reason of comparison." My voice was a bit loud enough to make him stop on the spot. Also, I said that in a laughing tone because the way he walked off was laughable.
He stopped, cleared his throat and at that moment, I knew he was about to lecture me about the ancient knowledge of Agriculture. He started,
"A simple knowledge will tell you that the farmland is richer in manure than mine that's why the grass there is green even though it's competing with the plants in the same space. If you observe closely, they haven't weeded their farm, it's just like mine but their plants are not feeling the effect of grass there"
"Okay, thank you, sir"
I quickly left the spot to the corner I was to clear in order not to trigger another lecture. I began to clean, softly removing the grass that had married the plants and I was doing that with my hands and the wooden cutlass and at the same time, my mind kept meditating on the analysis he gave. When I saw that he was no longer on the scene, I dropped my wooden cutlass and walked up the boundary of our farm and the farm in question. I stood there and kept imagining how possible it is for a space in the same area of a farm to be richer than the other and it has to do with boundary.
Well, it remained a mystery to me and I didn't bother to ask Pa Law to avoid his endless sermon.
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STOPYour respect and regard for Pa Law come through clearly. This is the most endearing part of the story. He seems not to be approachable with reasonable explanations, but that doesn't stop you from listening to him and respecting him.
There isn't a lot to this story, and yet we find ourselves liking both characters. You manage to inject a bit of amusement in the piece. That's pleasant also.
Thank you for sharing this experience with us, @cypher09. It was fun meeting Pa Law.