Chương 24: Good Neighbors

I was more than a little shaken after my talk with Brendan. I knew that even today in my world there were cultures where arranged marriages were a thing. Many of them allowed people to meet each other first, but I think I remembered that about half of all marriages on modern Earth had some kind of arrangement. It didn't really matter though. I would not bring it up with Emily, and I doubted she was going to bring it up to me. I hadn't really thought of Emily in that way during my week in this world.

As I thought of it now, there were at least one or two huge red flags to me even thinking about it as a possibility. The biggest thing was, of course, the power imbalance. I was the rightful owner of this land as far as the System and the authorities were concerned. I was sure that if I asked the bishop to send Emily and Colin away, he would do so gleefully. It would be very tough for her to say no to me.

If she did, it would almost certainly require her and Colin to leave for another homestead somewhere else if they didn't want to go back to Albion as debtors. They would struggle to feed themselves, and unless there was another homestead out here with a cabin, they'd have trouble finding shelter as well. No, I definitely wouldn't bring it up. I was only a year post-divorce, and I wasn't emotionally ready for a girlfriend, much less a wife.

We had plenty to do for the day, so I put those thoughts behind me and helped get the elk salted. Brendan had the Butcher support class, so he cut the meat into the appropriate-sized cuts. Then they stored the cuts of meat between layers of salt in the barrels the Newtons had brought with them on their wagon. While Brendan cut the meat and salted it for storage, I dug holes in the ground in the cabin's shadow.

After our share of the barrels were full, I placed them into the holes we had dug, and then I threw in a layer of grass and leaves to insulate the barrels and prevent dirt from getting inside. Then I topped the barrels with a couple of feet of dirt. This was not a high-tech, complicated process that had to be done to an exacting standard. It made me decide to add digging a root cellar to my ever-expanding list of things to do for the year, though.

Once again, I just had to repeat what seemed to be my new mantra: Take things one day at a time. Right now the top three things on my list were, in order: Dig a ditch Build my cabin Dig a root cellar The ditch digging would begin tomorrow. No question about it. After that, Colin and I would take the tractor to go get the timber. The root cellar would come after that. Back home, my family had a bunch of potato cellars and a separate root cellar we'd built on our own home place "just in case".

We had a shipping container we left at ground level and buried under six feet of dirt. There weren't a lot of hilly spots right on this homestead either, but the ground was a lot more ideal to dig in than it had been at home. South of Nampa, Idaho, had a ton of large lava rock issues. My great-grandfather and his ancestors had taken care of most of the worst of it, but it was still migrating to the surface over 150 years later. I was hoping that my extra strength and stamina would help me in my endeavors.

According to Emily, I was about 20% stronger and had a similar amount of extra stamina. That didn't seem like a lot. In a lot of video games you seemed to get way stronger after you leveled up. Working on the farm and lifting weights at least semi-regularly over my life meant that I was already fairly strong.

When I was portaled over, I could probably still bench press two hundred and twenty-five pounds several times, and while I rarely did free squats at my current age, I thought I could still squat three hundred pounds. Probably only once, then I'd have a herniated disc in my back, but still… I also had a whole host of minor injuries I'd suffered over my thirty-five years of life. I'd torn muscles and ligaments in various accidents.

When I was a teenager, I crashed a motorcycle while racing motocross and broke my leg in several places. Those were all injuries that healed up just fine thanks to modern medicine, but as I was slowly creeping towards forty, they resulted in little twinges of pain as I did some activities I enjoyed when I was younger. It was getting hard to ever go all out.

Since my brothers and I all lived in the multiple homes that dotted the home place, we still played pickup basketball on the concrete basketball court that my grandpa had poured when all of us boys were little. I could tell I was slowing down when we played. But in the last week, I had noticed none of those injuries causing issues. It seemed like I now had an extra twenty percent strength and stamina based on my peak abilities in my youth. I felt like I was twenty years old again, but stronger.

The barrels of salted meat we now had sitting in the ground each weighed close to three hundred pounds, and I had picked them up and moved them, not without effort, but without strain. I wasn't going to be a true superhuman for a long while yet, but I was as strong as an NFL linebacker. The Newtons stayed for most of the day. After lunch, I took Brendan out to the wheat and potato fields to show him what I'd done with the crops. I didn't tell him how I had achieved my results.

I DID give him a bag of potatoes and instructed his wife on how to grow them properly in their garden. At first, they refused to take them. It seemed like too big a gift to accept from someone they'd just met. Once I gave them a vague explanation of how I got them, and that they'd be growing just fine from here on out, they were still doubtful. Ginny made it clear that she realized what this crop would mean for my future leveling prospects.

She gave Emily a wink and an elbow to the ribs that made me believe she'd had a similar talk with Emily that Brendan had had with me. Emily didn't react at all. I found that telling. I would keep my mouth shut too. She clearly wasn't interested in a relationship. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

She had a quiet conversation with Brendan because he was still unsure about accepting the potatoes, and when they finished talking, Brendan proposed that he would bring his Herd Leader goat to breed with our goats if he didn't have a second herd leader. If he did, then he'd offer it in trade. He also had a herd leader boar that he would let us breed our sows to. I told him to keep his animals, but that I'd love the opportunity to have his Herd Leaders breed our stock for a couple of years at least.

That would be a wonderful opportunity for me. He happily agreed to that. By the time I helped Brendan load his own barrels of salted venison into his wagon, I thought I could say that we would have a good working relationship. They seemed to like me, and they believed I was a positive for Emily and Colin. Hell, they both thought we should get married.

He and his wife clearly loved each other, and they were intelligent enough that besides actually seeming to like me, they realized I was a potential ally they'd like to have on their side. They didn't seem to care at all about the bishop's thoughts on things. Maybe that was part of the reason they had also settled so far away from Riverton. The farther-flung frontier areas had attracted the non-conformists on Earth as well.

Brendan was a direct man, and his wife was just short of abrasive for a woman in this world, but I liked them. I was a little scared to see Ginny while she was drinking, as loud as she was sober, but I was told that the harvest festival would be a drunken affair, so it wouldn't be too long until I found out for sure. I had little interaction with their children. They helped the women salt the meat, and then they all went fishing after lunch.

But in the little time I spent with them, they seemed genuinely nice to Colin, and they showed no condescension toward his situation. That said a lot about Brendan and Ginny as parents. By the time they left around five in the afternoon, the three of us who remained on the homestead were tired. No one felt like digging ditch. So instead, we all went to the river to have the picnic we'd planned on having the day before. We sat on the wider stretch of beach and ate our chicken soup.

I got the bread I'd been hoping for. It was yeasty and of some sort of sourdough strain. I enjoyed it with the soup. After we'd eaten, Colin grabbed his fishing pole and headed downstream. He'd given the Newtons all the fish they'd caught earlier since they didn't have a stream close enough for everyday fishing. Once he was gone, Emily spoke up, and said, "Today went as well as one could hope for. Ginny and Brendan are good people, and they approved of you. Giving them potatoes was wise." I smiled and nodded.

"Yeah. I figured it couldn't go too wrong. All I did was give them a head start. It's not like any of this would have been a secret after this fall."

"Correct," Emily confirmed.

"Ginny at least knows this, but she will still see it as a sign of your trustworthiness, and a desire to make friends."

"Yeah," I said.

"I get the feeling that Ginny is the brains of their family." Emily's let out a short but genuine laugh.

"Haha. You are correct. Brendan lucked out with his marriage. Neither completed their mandatory schooling. You know how it can be in the more rural areas." I did not know what it was like, but I could certainly guess. I'd done some almanac reading on classes, and as long as a farmer planted his own fields, the farmhand class wasn't necessary for the farmer bonuses to help the crops grow, even if a child was helping their parents out before they got a class.

In rural areas, this probably meant that a lot of kids didn't go to school past what it took for them to learn to read and do basic math so they could read System prompts. Thanks to this feature, it was more financially feasible to have your kid help you on your farm instead of paying a farmhand. I was sure that in cities, which is where Emily had come from, children were far more likely to go to school until their 16th birthday.

Crafting professions didn't get the bonuses that a shop owner would have since they weren't doing the woodworking or blacksmithing, or whatever else, by their own hand. An apprentice couldn't make even a simple horseshoe that was as good as what a full blacksmith could make. That meant that the free meals and meager stipend were almost certainly more beneficial for most city families. Emily was still speaking, so I broke out of my own thoughts.

"Brendan once told my late husband that he had initially hoped for a more handsome bride, but that within a few months he realized his family had arranged a wise marriage thanks to Ginny's sharp mind." I interrupted her, "Why did they end up here? I never asked you either for that matter." She pursed those lips again and smiled ruefully.

"As for the Newtons. Brendan was a fourth son. Even in the rural areas the law is very strict on the inheritance rights going no further than a third son. He would have had to work for the family, or the larger clan, as a farmhand, or try and farm a poor plot. Anything even rated as Fair is already taken on the home isles, it's not like out here where these plots are in Excellent condition."

"As for me and mine? Well, my late husband was actually a second son. But his father ran a small candlemaker's shop. There was nothing there for him. I was the daughter of a seamstress, who worked in a shop for someone else, and my father was a blacksmith. Obviously I wasn't going to be a blacksmith," she chuckled quietly. I smiled sadly. There was definitely a fair amount of sexism in this world. Women only did women's jobs.

"Then why did your parents marry you to your late husband? Seems like they would have tried to get you a better match, no?" She shook her head even as I finished speaking.

"We didn't have anything either. Brolen's father was a frugal man, and a good business man despite not owning a large shop. His maiden fee was very generous. He was also going to help buy an apprenticeship for Brolen. But then he died and Brolen's brother did not honor the apprenticeship fees. Brolen was forced to work as a farmhand before we got a spot in the lottery."

"Wow," I said, a tinge of sadness for her plight in my voice.

"But now you're here, and we're going to have to try and make this work." Emily nodded. She started to say something more, but right then Colin bounded up to us with a fishing pole in one hand and in his other hand, he had his fingers hooked through the gill of a fat trout.

"Look what I caught! I can barely hold it up!" I laughed and pulled out my fancy Leatherman.

"Here, I'll gut it for you." Fish was back on the menu again. Good thing I liked it. Even better that the pigs liked the extra we couldn't eat before it spoiled. He was thrilled to let me take care of that job. I gutted it, and then we walked back to the homestead. We talked about farm things. Tomorrow, we'd get that ditch dug, and Emily was going to let the animals out.

When choosing a means of conveyance, it is important to choose something that fits your needs. You can pull a small two-wheeled cart with up to five hundred pounds using a single animal of appropriate size, but if you overload it, your animal will tire faster and the cart's durability will degrade rapidly. It is impossible to go more than 25% above a cart's weight rating. Each cart has a minimum number of animals, and type of animal, needed to pull it.

For some carts, it is possible to add extra animals above the minimum. See the item's description in the store for individual cart information. Information from the System Info Tab in the almanac.