Ari

Chapter 5: Silkworms

Every morning, elder healer Lony used to bring me to the mountain to gather some medicinal herbs.

She taught me how to identify plants and its uses.

I was only 5 at that moment when I accidentally saw a few silkworm feeding on some herbs. It is autumn season, almost time for silkworms to turn into a cocoon before winter arrives.

I hastily took all of them without asking for elder healer's permission.

I put them inside my basket full of herbs.

When we got back home, the elder healer screamed as threw my basket unconsciously upon seeing what's inside when she took the basket from me. I suddenly remembered the silkworms and hurriedly caught the basket.

I checked the worms inside and I felt guilty upon seeing the silkworms devoured almost all the herbs inside my basket.

I felt guilty as I looked at elder healer's reaction.

"Why did you bring those pests? Look! They ate all the herbs inside your basket and now we need to gather more after lunch time under the scorching sun to ensure we won't run out of medicine for the tribe." She angrily scolded me while explaining the consequences of my mistake.

"I'm sorry grandma, I thought they were cute, so I brought them back and learn how to raise them as a pet. I really like them. No one was playing with me so I thought it would be better to raise a pet instead." I cried in front of her as I beg for forgiveness while trembling as I tried to explain my action. I didn't lie though I didn't tell the whole truth because it would seem more like a lie if I tell her the real reason.

"*sigh* It is okay. Just promise me to ask my permission next time when you are going to bring home something from the mountain beside the herbs we were gathering, so that I can help you contain them properly. Also, promise me not to let them roam around the house. They might feed on the rare herbs I've been keeping in the storage. I already explained how hard it is to obtain them so you have to be very careful. Do you understand?", she responded as she sighed in pity.

The elder healer informed my father about the worms so they both made a basket like cage for me to contain the worms.

I fed them with cabbage every day until they started to create their own cocoon.

I was frustrated when I saw their cocoons are not in good shape so I waited for them to become a moth and lay eggs.

Fortunately, I was able to safely breed the moths and they lay hundreds of eggs before the moths died briefly after. I struggled on hatching the eggs, then I remembered eggs are hatched in incubators so I placed the container of the eggs near the fireplace and kept on observing them for about a week.

The eggs hatched after 6 days and I fed them with buds so they can feed on them easily since they are too small. Although not all of them hatched successfully, I still managed to hatch most of them.

The newly hatched silkworms grew bigger and bigger as the weeks passed, so I asked my father to prepare a few sets of equal size small cups made from bamboo.

My father didn't ask me why because he thought I would use it as toys for making my own concocted medicine.

I only transferred the silkworms similar to the number of cups my father made then I covered all of them with the winnowing basket to prevent them from crawling out and eating the elder healer's herbs.

I separated the remaining silkworms that were also already cocooning for breeding purposes since I can only put a single silkworm in each cup.

"Will it be a success?" I wondered as I waited for a few days for the silkworms to finish making their cocoons.

The cabbages I fed on the silkworms are wild ones I found during autumn.

I wanted to plant the remains of the cabbage, which is the hard white center part and grow them myself so that I can harvest cabbages without worrying about where to look for them.

I decided to grow the cabbage by planting them in an old cooking pot right before the spring time arrives.

I diligently watered the pot and placed it on the windowsill in my room.

Soon, spring time arrived and new leaves started to grow from the pot. I turned 6 years old today, but since beastmen don't celebrate birthdays, I decided to celebrate it by showcasing my talent in planting. I was so excited so I looked for my father to show him the plant.

I brought the pot with me and looked at the tribunal meeting place and saw them having a meeting.

Beastmen are still not knowledgeable in farming and in breeding animals to produce staple foods.

Starvation is the number one problem of all the tribes during winter due to the cold and terrible weather conditions and hibernation of most animals in the wild.

Due to this reason, most cubs and a few females die of starvation every winter.

Even though the fatalities in our tribe during winter are lower than the other tribes due to my father's thorough organization of prey hunting, storage and distribution of food; there were still a few numbers of reported deaths during winter.

It's saddening to hear the talks of the elders, especially my poor father, who was working hard to protect the tribe.

I suddenly clung to my father right after a meeting and asked "Father, why don't we grow our own food since there are many edible herbs and crops in the mountains. It's just that they grow separately so it's hard to harvest them. If we plant them in one location during spring, we can grow them and harvest them around autumn season and just enough time before the winter arrives then store the seeds to grow them when springtime comes. Look! My cabbage is already growing!" I proudly showed him the clay pot I was holding while smiling cheerfully.

My father was surprised and started to contemplate my suggestion.

"We can also take care of some animals inside the tribe that we can breed that feeds on vegetables and are less aggressive just like my worms and then their number can multiply and we will only cook them once needed so their meat won't rot inside the storage room just like every winter.", I added while my father was carrying me back to my room.

He silently contemplated my ideas for a few moments.

"What a smart hatchling we got here, I am so proud of you!" He praised me with a bright smile while patting my head.

The next morning, he didn't accompany the hunting group to accompany me and the elder healer on the mountain.

There we found a very good spot for planting the vegetables. Then we looked for the vegetable seedlings that we can transplant in the lot we found.

We gathered and replanted cabbages, lettuce, carrots, potatoes, yams and corn on the other areas of the mountain.

I taught my father how to take care of the plants and so he held a meeting with the others to delegate a team who will manage the planting on the vegetable garden we made on the mountain.

My father also made a fence around the lot to prevent the wild animals from destroying or eating the plants we've planted. It took him a while to finish so he called the other tribesmen after lunch to continue with the construction.