Chapter 121: Day 120

Day 120,

Morning thought: It’s much easier to have morning thoughts when you don’t have to prep for the arrival of a roomful of children right after getting up.

 

I tried delaying my leaving this morning, but the rain kept going anyway.  At least I remembered to bring the cloak this time.  Had to sacrifice a towel to keep the rest of the laundry and changes of clothes for the next week dry though.  

It certainly could have been worse I suppose, for it was really only a light shower.  The kind where it’s paradoxically bright enough out where you can see the sunshine reflected off the raindrops and you come out the other side of it more damp than wet.  Honestly, between the gleam of the droplets, the patter on the broad leaves, and the soft tapping on my shoulders I might have actually enjoyed the walk into the Village this morning if it weren’t for trying to carry an unwieldy load of laundry the whole way.

Still, I made it to the library without any real incident where I found that Cass had already set up for the day.  And apparently had opened up and run the archive yesterday as well.  Good thing too, as it seems while school’s in session most of the rest of the villagers put off any archival visits until the off days.  I somehow missed out on that message.  Things-everyone-assumes- everyone-else-knows-already strikes again.

On the one hand, good on Cass for handling that.  On the other hand, I feel bad for ditching her with that responsibility.  I’ll need to make it up to her sometime.

All that said, we wound up finding ourselves busy enough that I didn’t get the chance to visit the carpenter until the evening.

The workshop was a spacious building, one of the larger in the Village.  Situated near the road out of town I must have passed by it dozens of times without realizing what it was until recently.  Its primary occupant was a stout woman named Melaina with her hair in a large bun.  Younger than I expected given the trend of villagers working into their old age before finally passing their mantles on to apprentices.  Didn’t seem polite to comment on it though.

She was just closing the large sliding doors on the shop when I arrived.  When she saw me coming she threw her body into stopping the momentum so as not to lock me out.  Awful polite of her.

I apologized for showing up so late, she said it was no bother so long as I wasn’t expecting anything done tonight, and we made our introductions.  She recognized me from the equinox festival.  I hadn’t thought about it, but I suppose for better or worse that’s probably going to be the case for most of the Village now.  Hopefully not for worse.  I still don’t like thinking about that performance.

Getting right to business, she asked me what brought me to her doorstep.  I explained the idea of a blackboard and the plan to make one to aid in teaching.  

The good news was she was enthusiastic about the prospect.  Simple as it was, she seemed to be happy just to have something new to work on.  Less good was that she brought up all sorts of specifications I hadn't thought about.  Exact dimensions, wall-hanging or free-standing, border frame or no, etc..  We talked through some of those things, but since it was getting late and I didn’t want to keep her too long, we tabled further discussion until we both had the time to meet up in the next few days or so.  I asked about the “black” part of the blackboard as well.  She said she might have few ideas but would need to sleep on it and get back to me.

As for payment, she said not to worry about it since it’s for the kids and future generations as much as it is for me if it works out well.  So that’s one less thing to keep me up at night thinking about.

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