And so nature was not interfered with in the middle of the rainy season.
Sometimes it poured down in such thick sheets of water that earth and sky seemed
merged in one grey wetness. It was then uncertain whether the low rumbling of
Amadiora's thunder came from above or below. At such times, in each of the countless
thatched huts of Umuofia, children sat around their mother's cooking fire telling stories,
or with their father in his obi warming themselves from a log fire, roasting and eating
maize. It was a brief resting period between the exacting and arduous planting season
and the equally exacting but light-hearted month of harvests.
Ikemefuna had begun to feel like a member of Okonkwo's family. He still
thought about his mother and his three-year-old sister, and he had moments of sadness
and depression But he and Nwoye had become so deeply attached to each other that
such moments became less frequent and less poignant. Ikemefuna had an endless stock
of folk tales. Even those which Nwoye knew already were told with a new freshness and
the local flavour of a different clan. Nwoye remembered this period very vividly till the
end of his life. He even remembered how he had laughed when Ikemefuna told him that
the proper name for a corn cob with only a few scattered grains was eze-agadi-nwayi, or
the teeth of an old woman. Nwoye's mind had gone immediately to Nwayieke, who
lived near the udala tree. She had about three teeth and was always smoking her pipe.
Gradually the rains became lighter and less frequent, and earth and sky once
again became separate. The rain fell in thin, slanting showers through sunshine and
quiet breeze. Children no longer stayed indoors but ran about singing: "The rain is
falling, the sun is shining, Alone Nnadi is cooking and eating."
Nwoye always wondered who Nnadi was and why he should live all by himself,
cooking and eating. In the end he decided that Nnadi must live in that land of
Ikemefuna's favourite story where the ant holds his court in splendour and the sands
dance forever.