Red-Beard blinked. “I’d forgotten about that, I guess,” he admitted a bit sheepishly.
“Meat and fish are only a part of the food that keeps the people of the tribe alive, Red-Beard. Hunters forget that sometimes. If I happened to be the one who was doing this, I’d be talking with the women instead of the men. Never offend the ones who cook the food. If you do, you might get boiled dirt for supper.”
“I’ll have to see the meadow,” the stout middle-aged woman named Planter told Red-Beard that afternoon. Red-Beard had asked around, and almost everybody in the tribe had told him that the women of Lattash took all their problems to Planter, and she usually solved them. In an odd sort of way Planter was the actual chief of the women of the tribe, largely because she knew more about growing food than anyone else.
She also had a bad temper when things didn’t go the way she wanted them to go, so Red-Beard stepped around her rather carefully. “We’ll talk with my friend Longbow,” he said. “He might have noticed some things I didn’t. I’ll be honest with you, Planter. This new place isn’t nearly as pretty as Lattash, but safe is way ahead of pretty. The tribe must move away from here, or we’ll be drinking melted rock instead of water before long.”
“You speak plainly, Red-Beard,” Planter observed. “That’s a rare thing for a chief.”
“I’m still a little new at it,” Red-Beard confessed.
“You’ll do,” Planter said a bit cryptically. “Let’s go speak with this friend of yours. If time’s as crucial as you seem to think, we’d better hurry.”
Red-Beard and Planter found Longbow in the lodge of his chief, Old-Bear, and Planter cut across the usual courtesies rather abruptly. “Has this meadow ever been worked?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” Longbow replied. “Red-Beard and I didn’t see any signs that any tribe had ever lived there.”
“How high was the grass?”
“Waist-high or so, wasn’t it, Red-Beard?”
“At least that high,” Red-Beard agreed.
“You’d better find someplace else, then,” Planter declared.
“What’s wrong with that one?” Red-Beard asked her.
“Tall grass means thick sod,” Planter explained, “and we’ll have to clear the sod away before we can plant. That’ll take too long. Summer’s almost here, and we should have planted already. If the women of the tribe have to spend half the summer clearing the sod away before they plant, the crop won’t have time enough to grow before the first frost, and there won’t be anything to eat this coming winter.”
Old-Bear squinted at her thoughtfully. “It is my thought that we should find some way around certain traditions,” he said gravely. “If the tribe of White-Braid is to have food to eat after the seasons turn, we will need many hands to remove the sod so that the women of the tribe can plant.”
“There aren’t really that many women in our tribe, Chief Old-Bear,” Red-Beard reminded him.
“Then perhaps those who are not women should help.”
Red-Beard laughed. “That might just be the quickest way for me to get out from under something I didn’t want in the first place,” he said. “If I order the men of the tribe to do women’s work, they’ll find themselves a different chief almost immediately.”
“I am not familiar with the customs of your tribe, Chief Red-Beard,” Old-Bear admitted, “but in my tribe, the building of lodges is men’s work. Is it also men’s work in your tribe?”
“It’s customary,” Red-Beard conceded. “Where are we going with this?”
“When I was much younger and adventurous, I traveled far to the north into the Domain of Zelana’s older brother Dahlaine, and I came upon a place where there were no trees. It was a land of grass only. The region had much game—large deer and wild cows—for there was much grass for them to eat. The hunting was very good, but the absence of trees made the building of lodges very hard. The people of the place with no trees gave the matter much consideration, and a very clever young man had a thought. Since there were no trees, the tribe would be obliged to build the lodges from something that was not trees.”
“I don’t think a lodge made of grass would be very good in the wintertime,” Red-Beard said dubiously.
“It seemed that way to me also,” Old-Bear said, “but I was wrong. The clever young man saw that grass is not stems only, but it is also roots, and the roots of grass cling quite firmly to the dirt from which the grass grows. The result is that which we call sod, and it was sod which the clever young man used to build his lodge. The other men of his tribe saw the wisdom of what he had done, and they also built their lodges of sod. I visited several of those lodges and found that no wind, however strong, can blow into a lodge made of sod, and the winter cold cannot penetrate such a wall. The lodges were strong and warm in the coldest of winters, and the people of the tribe were content. It is my thought that if the men of your tribe were told to build their lodges of sod, they would clear much ground for planting without feeling shame that they were doing women’s work.”
“You are fortunate to have so wise a chief, Longbow,” Planter said with a broad smile.
“The next problem is how to persuade the men of the tribe that sod will make better lodges than tree limbs and bushes,” Red-Beard said a bit dubiously.
“As I remember, the beach near that river was very windy,” Longbow mused.
“It seemed that way to me, too,” Red-Beard agreed.
“A lodge made of tree limbs might not be a good idea in such a windy place. It would be very embarrassing to have one’s lodge blown down in the middle of winter, wouldn’t you say?”
“‘Embarrassing’ might not be the right word, Longbow,” Red-Beard said. “I think it might go quite a bit past that. Winter winds are much stronger than summer winds, though. If we want the men of the tribe to start cutting sod now to clear the meadow for planting, I don’t think we should depend on the summer wind to persuade them that it’s the best thing to do.”
“You and I might need to help the summer wind just a bit, friend Red-Beard,” Longbow replied. “I’m sure she’d appreciate that. If every lodge the men of your tribe have built collapses some breezy night, sod should start to look very attractive, wouldn’t you say?”