MUSTARD III – Ch. 5 | KT OLLA

NOW Banji rode on and dared to dream. He wanted all that was with books. So he dreamed high.

He sought things about the next step and heard about a school in Oyo, a town far away from home.

Folks called it Olivet High—that prestigious high school.

‘You know you are studious and brilliant,’ one Western teacher friend told him.

‘If you stop here, it’s okay; but you can climb higher, and stand out!

‘There is a place in Oyo Town. It’s called Olivet. You go there and study, and you can get into college from there. I think you can do more!’

This talk came after Banji was through with schooling in his hometown. He’d felt proud and settled, like he’d got it all. And then he was told he’d only started.

Now he dreamed too high. Wanted to see the end of study. But what he’d got wasn’t wings to fly...

Only limbs he could swing forth and back.

Yet with this small counsel, the young Morrow started out. He made his findings about the school, and found out it would cost so much to enroll.

Too much, in fact.

Joshua Bamiji was 22. His peers at the village farms were making wealth in sacks and barrels...

But there he was without crops and barns. Or anything to sell for pounds.

Even so, the young dreamer wouldn’t tell his father, for the man didn’t dream high school for him. So he wouldn’t ask Morrow to help.

But then this boy’s mother saw him struggle, as weeks passed into moons.

Oki had been preoccupied with Dekomi her first son, through years.

She’d wanted him to marry and was able to get him a country girl. Now, it was his small family—she was bearing the load.

But here, Oki’s second son was burdened with ‘books’. And while Abraham was birthing children, the younger cared less.

So, Oki watched Bamiji struggle, and didn’t know he hurt. It was the older one who did. It was him she saw.

Therefore this frail child would sleep at night and sigh in sleep. Wake up and sigh, and be silent through day.

It was Bamiji Morrow.

And Abraham, too.