Earth Abides

either. Or else the new times needed men who could act, be leaders, without too much thinking. Men, maybe—well, maybe Charlie was really that kind. Me, I only try. I’m not one like Moses, or Solon—or, or—Lycurgus. Those were the ones who made the laws and founded nations. What has happened—yes, what is going to happen to us all—it would all be different if I were different.”

She pressed her cheek against his for a moment.

“Anyway,” she said, “I don’t want you different.”

Well, that was what a wife should say! It was trite, but it was comforting.

“Besides,” she went on, “how do you know? Even if you were Moses, or—one of those others with the funny names—still you couldn’t control what the world does, all of it, pressing in around us.”

One of the children called, and Em went away. Ish rose, and went to the desk, and from one of the drawers he drew out the little cardboard box which the boys had brought back with them from the tiny community near the Rio Grande. Ish knew what was in it, but because of all that had been happening with such incredible speed he had not yet had the time, or the peace of mind, to examine it.

He opened the little box, and put his fingers down among the cool and smooth kernels. He squeezed some of them in his palm, took a handful out, and looked at them. They were red and black, small, pointed at the ends—not the large flat kernels, yellow or white, that he had expected to see. Yet this was what he should have expected. The large kernels were from a highly developed, perhaps even artificially hybridized, variety of corn. The little black and red ones were more primitive, what the Pueblo Indians had always raised.

He took the box back to his chair. Again he put his hand into it; he picked up more of the black and red kernels, and let them run into the box again through his fingers. He played with them, and as he played, merciful forgetfulness moved in upon him, and there was a new peace in his heart. This also had come from the expedition eastwards. In the corn was life, and the future.

Looking up, he saw Joey—ever the curious one—gazing at him from across the room with interest. He felt himself warm toward Joey, and called to him to come and see. Joey was interested, as always. Ish explained to him about the corn. During the passage of the years their own community had delayed so long in trying to raise corn that in the end he had not been able to find any still living seed. Now there was another chance.

Then, even though it seemed a terrible thing to do, Ish took the little box, and went out into the kitchen with Joey. They lighted a burner in the gasoline stove, and took a frying-pan. Carefully, allowing themselves only two dozen kernels, they poured some corn into the frying-pan, and parched the kernels over the flame.

Even though they thus wasted some of the seeds, Ish felt too Much moved emotionally to resist the temptation, and he justified himself by thinking that the actual demonstration to Joey, immediately, was necessary.

The corn did not parch well, and was barely edible. Neither of them cared for it much. Actually Ish could only remember having eaten parched corn as a sophisticated cocktail-relish, but he explained to Joey that parched corn had been a regular food on the American frontier and that his ancestors must often have depended largely upon it.

The big eyes, bright in the thin little face, showed that Joey appreciated the story.

“I wish,” thought Ish, “that he might grow stronger, and be something firmer to count on. Well, I have wasted two dozen of them, but perhaps in Joey’s mind I have planted a more important seed.”

Wheat and corn—they too, like dog and horse, marched and shared with man, friends and helpers on the long way…

Far in some dry corner of the Old World the little spiked grass sprouted more thickly around the edges of the campsites where the disturbing and enrichment of the soil gave it ground to its liking. So first, perhaps, it adopted man, but soon man adopted it. The more it repaid his care, the more he coddled it. With his fostering it grew taller and stronger, yielding more seed; but also it came to demand the tilled soil and the seedbed free of the competition of the wilder grasses.

The first Year after there were no more plowed fields, the volunteer wheat sprang up on thousands of acres, but soon there was less of it and then still less. Like wolves upon the sheep, the fierce native grasses returned. They formed tough sod; year after year, they grew from the same roots, thriving the better for lack of cultivation.

After a while there was no more wheat, except that far off in the dry lands of Asia and Africa, here and there, the little spiked grass still was growing, as it had grown before an incident called Agriculture…. So also with the maize. From the tropics of America, it too journeyed far with man. Like the sheep it traded its freedom for a fat and pampered life. It could no longer even shed its own seeds, held tight within the tough husk. Even sooner than the wheat, the maize vanished. Only, on the Mexican High lands, in thick clumps the wild teosinte still pushed up tasseled tops against the high sun….

So it will go, unless here and there a few men still linger. For if man cannot prosper without the wheat and the corn, still less can they prosper without man.

Although George and Maurine kept track of the months and the days of the months (or thought they did), all the rest went more by the position of the sun and the state of the vegetation. Ish took pride in being able to estimate the time of the year, and when he compared notes with George’s calendar, he was generally pleased to see that he was not more than a week or so wrong—if indeed he might not be right and George wrong, for Ish had no strong faith in George’s accuracy.

In any case, a week or two made no difference when it came to planting the corn. Obviously the season was too far advanced. The cold weather would arrive before the corn was more than well sprouted. Next year they would try it.

In the next few days, however, Ish spent some time scouting about in the vicinity, trying to locate a good spot for the corn-patch. He took Joey along with him, and the two were soon talking learnedly about exposures, soil, and possibilities for keeping the wild cattle out. Actually, Ish realized, their particular region was about the worst place in the United States for corn-growing. A variety which was adapted to the dry and hot Rio Grande valley might not even mature at all in the chilly and fog-blanketed summers near San Francisco Bay. Moreover, he himself was not a farmer, and had never even had a green thumb for gardening. His knowledge of plants and soils was mostly theoretical, gained from his studies in geography. He remembered how podzols and chernozems were formed and he thought he might even recognize them when he saw them, but that did not make him a farmer. No one else in The Tribe had been one either, although Maurine had grown up on a farm. This accident, so you might call it, that they had no one who was close to the soil, had already been of much importance in determining their communal outlook on life.

One day—more than a week had passed, and the memory of Charlie and the oak tree had faded somewhat —Ish and Joey came back to the house after having located what seemed the most favorable site they had yet seen. Em came out on the porch to meet them, and Ish knew immediately that something had happened. “What’s the matter?” he asked quickly.

“Oh, nothing much,” she said, “I hope anyway. Bob seems to be sick, a little.” Ish stopped dead on the porch, and looked at her.

“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m no doctor, but I don’t think it’s anything like that. I don’t even see how it could be. Come and take a look at him. He says he’s felt a little bad for the last few days.”

During the years Ish had usually taken the responsibility of doctoring. He had developed some skill at treating cuts and bruises and sprains, and had once set a broken arm. But he had gained practically no experience with disease, because there were only the two that seemed to exist in The Tribe.

“Bob hasn’t just got a case of that sore throat?” he asked. “I can fix that soon enough!”

“No,” she said, as he had known she would—she would not be so obviously worrying about the sore throat. “No,” she repeated, “he hasn’t got a sore throat at all. He just seems laid out, flat.”

“Sulfa will probably do the job anyway,” said Ish, cheerfully. “As long as there are thousands of pills in the drug stores, and still good, we’re lucky! And if sulfa won’t work, I’ll take a chance with penicillin.”

He went upstairs quickly. Bob was lying in bed, lying very still with his face turned away from the light.