he had married his first wife a month or two before. The thick dregs of palm-wine were
supposed to be good for men who were going in to their wives.
After the wine had been drunk Okonkwo laid his difficulties before Nwakibie.
"I have come to you for help," he said. "Perhaps you can already guess what it
is. I have cleared a farm but have no yams to sow. I know what it is to ask a man to trust
another with his yams, especially these days when young men are afraid of hard work. I
am not afraid of work. The lizard that jumped from the high iroko tree to the ground
said he would praise himself if no one else did. I began to fend for myself at an age
when most people still suck at their mothers' breasts. If you give me some yam seeds I
shall not fail you."
Nwakibie cleared his throat. "It pleases me to see a young man like you these
days when our youth has gone so soft. Many young men have come to me to ask for
yams but I have refused because I knew they would just dump them in the earth and
leave them to be choked by weeds. When i say no to them they think i am hard hearted.
But it is not so. Eneke the bird says that since men have learned to shoot without
missing, he has learned to fly without perching. I have learned to be stingy with my
yams. But I can trust you. I know it as I look at you. As our fathers said, you can tell a
ripe corn by its look. I shall give you twice four hundred yams. Go ahead and prepare
your farm."
Okonkwo thanked him again and again and went home feeling happy. He knew
that Nwakibie would not refuse him, but he had not expected he would be so generous.
He had not hoped to get more than four hundred seeds. He would now have to make a
bigger farm. He hoped to get another four hundred yams from one of his father's friends
at Isiuzo.
Share-cropping was a very slow way of building up a barn of one's own. After
all the toil one only got a third of the harvest. But for a young man whose father had no
yams, there was no other way. And what made it worse in Okonkwo's case was that he
had to support his mother and two sisters from his meagre harvest. And supporting his
mother also meant supporting his father. She could not be expected to cook and eat