Read Charlinder's Walk for Free Online Page B

checking his homework after every school day to something invisible and infallible, and he preferred the solidity of his uncle sitting across the room and answering his questions to something all-knowing and omnipotent. Surely, though, the Faithful would disagree strenuously with those comparisons.
     
    “I guess that would be fine, if only they didn’t expect the rest of us to see Him as Our Father. Besides," Charlinder continued, "isn't all of life a stressful time?"

    "Yeah, it is, come to think of it," said Roy. "So consider what you're up against." He blew out the candle lighting the room at that nighttime hour. "Good night, Char."
     
    "Good night, Uncle."

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Four
    Good Company

    The division of labor in their village, working with very little population density and even less technology, was set mainly along lines of age and gender. It was a post-Plague reversion that Eileen Woodlawn had dreaded, but had also accepted and on some levels managed to circumvent. Carpentry was exclusively men's domain; the Paleola community first learned the trade from a young man named José among the original survivors. While Eileen may have taken issue with the fact that he was only inviting the men to learn his trade, she ultimately did not interfere. Hunting was the work of young and healthy men and a few teenage girls, but the girls never continued hunting once they started having children. Clothing preparation was done by women and girls, primarily for their own families: first her brother, then her children, and her uncle if he outlived her mother. (Charlinder was responsible for his and Roy's clothing preparation since Lydia had died.) All the women of childbearing age were responsible for the spinning for the village in general, and any weaving not concerned with clothing was a generalized responsibility which the council oversaw. They could stay busy spinning, weaving, knitting and sewing all day, in between chasing after small children. Children of both genders and women of all ages helped with food preparation, but the major cooking work was the domain of elderly women, especially those whose brothers had died. Children woke up early to gather eggs and milk sheep before school. Everyone worked at the planting, plowing and harvesting when the time of year came. Women with children old enough to help tended the vegetable and herb gardens. Young men who didn't particularly care for hunting were responsible for fishing.
     
    The sounds and moods of the village changed by area based on the type of work done. Spinners’ Square was wide open, talkative, anarchic, constant. Its height was of women sitting on stools, its movement was of feet pushing treadles, wheels turning and small children scampering about, its sound was of women talking punctuated by the occasional shout at a wayward toddler over the unbroken purr of spinning wheels. The greatest contrast to that environment was undoubtedly the hunt. It demanded the chill and low light of early morning, its height was a platform built onto a tree, its sound was restricted to footsteps and whispers, its population was a handful of men wielding bows and arrows. Its yield could be a large animal carcass or nothing at all. Its disposition was an exercise in patience and anticipation, and it required a high tolerance for frustration. Since the village farmed animals for everything except slaughter, they depended on the hunt for their red meat, but it was an endeavor whose pleasures Charlinder found elusive at best.

    He left his cabin with Kenny before dawn. In the woods behind the farm, they met Kenny's brothers Jess and Theo and Yolande's brother, Bruce. Kenny sent Jess and Theo off in one direction with Bruce and asked Charlinder to accompany him in another. Charlinder looked over his shoulder and spotted Jess and Theo looking between Bruce and Charlinder, and he couldn't tell which one bothered them more.
     
    "I think Jess and Theo are kinda peeved at me for