Abandoned - Orchard Grove - Story 83

[Abandoned]

Hi @angainor88  Hope you are feeling better.  Yes, this was tragic    Tough to take after getting to know the characters, was sad to lose the 2 foresters especially.

[Abandoned]

Chapter 24


  By early Autumn, the damaged gatherer's hut in the orchard was removed.  The damaged papayas and pineapples were being replanted.  The witch doctor oversaw the planting of the lemon seeds.  The newly rebuilt forester's hut and gatherer's hut also received the witch doctor's blessing. 




  Our workforce was stretched thin, we only had a few seedlings to trade for banana seeds in late winter of that disastrous year.  Other small settlements were severely damaged or destroyed by the storm, they needed food.  Ritchel accepted fruit in trade for the banana seeds.  Riverboat Junction was aware of what happened. 

  The witch doctor was waiting at the trading hut when, a short time later, Almers the food merchant arrived from Riverboat Junction.  They sent him with 750 loaves of the nut bread we liked so much and a message that help would be arriving soon.  The witch doctor waited patiently at the trading post until he was given several loaves of the nut bread.

[Abandoned]

Chapter 25


  Help arrived from Riverboat Junction in early spring of year 13.  There were 14 adults with 4 young children.  The 2 damaged huts were quickly repaired and several others were built around the village.  One hut was built next to the forester and another next to the potting hut in the orchard.  The replanted pineapples and papayas were doing good and so was the newly planted banana orchard. 




We now had enough workers for all the fruit patches.  We could again take fruit to the warehouse dock.  Since we now had all the orchard seeds we needed, the seed trading post inventory could be removed.  The fruit went to the storage hut and the seedlings went to the trading hut.  Almers, the food merchant, said he would take fruit and seedlings in trade.  I again went to work potting more.

  Shortly after the workers arrived from Riverboat Junction, a group of migrants arrived at the pirate's town.  There were 8 of them, 6 adults with 2 children.  Their small family settlement was also hit by the tornado.  Since they had done a little pirating in the past, they didn't mind living with the pirates.  Three hovels were built on the south end of the pirate's town.  We again told the pirates to come to our storage hut for fruits and vegetables and to be sure to get some loaves of nut bread.  We owed them so much for all the help and support they gave us over the past year.

[Abandoned]

Chapter 26


  We wanted our villagers to be sure to get enough fruit too, so we built a fruit market not far from the ports.  The warehouse worker would not have so far to go to get the fruit.   The market stocked all 5 of our tropical fruits plus the wild fruits our gatherer collected.  The pirates brought us more apples.  We built 2 grass coverings over part of the market.  The witch doctor was the best customer.




In the spring of year 14, Almers returned again with more nut bread and with cheese.  The witch doctor and village people were eating good.  Almers told us that we were being called Orchard Grove by the people who were trading with him for our fruit.  That was news to us, our village now had a name.  We had news for Almers too.  He could tell Riverboat Junction that the warehouse was now full and the fruit was ready to be picked up.  There were 1600 of each of our 5 fruits, bananas, coconuts, lemons, papayas, and pineapples.




  The merchant ship came promptly to pick up the fruit.  Orchard Grove was now the official supplier of tropical fruit for Riverboat Junction.   Our 5 fruit orchards and 5 fruit shed patches will keep the river boatmen supplied with tropical fruit for many years to come.  Our fruit market will keep our villagers and our neighbors, the pirates, supplied with tropical fruit as well, our witch doctor too.

[Abandoned]

Chapter 27


  Our good neighbors, the pirates, were all healthy and happy living in their old hovels and their new hovels as well.  They shared their milk, eggs, and wool from their animal sheds with us.   We will forever be in their debt for all the help and kindness they showed when disaster struck our Orchard Grove.  We were concerned there would be fires since our village was almost entirely made up of grass huts, we never expected a tropical storm of the magnitude that hit us in year 12.  We rebuilt our village as good as new but although we were healthy, we were not quite as happy as we once were.




  In year 14 our Tropical Huts village consisted of 21 round and square 4-family grass huts.  We had a communal hut, a small, medium, and large storage, a trader hut and jetties.  There was a Hall Hut, several wells, a school, a herbalist, a healing clinic, a tailor and a smith.  We had a fishing hut, a gatherer, a forester, and a grass cutter.  We had a grass patch growing thatch, and a crop patch growing corn, beans, and sweet potatoes.  A potting shed produced seedlings for trade, and we had some bushes to plant.  We built a palisade fence, some hammocks, and some coverings. We were farmers not hunters so we did not build the hunter's hut but we could have if we needed one.  We had everything we needed.



  In the summer of year 14 the population of Orchard Grove and the pirate's town combined was 103, 54 adults, 4 students, 44 young children, and 1 witch doctor.  We would be happy to count you in, weary traveler, but if you prefer to go, safe travels and enjoy the rest of summer.


The End

[kid1293]

Well done It is always good with a happy ending

[Glenn]

Another lovely story.

I can see the witch doctor standing there - looking up at us, wondering what we are thinking.

[Abandoned]

  Thank you  @Glenn  Witch doctor is probably looking up and shaking his stick saying  Why are there no Mangoes ? 

[Abandoned]

Kid Tropical Huts and Kid Tropical Fruits have been released.  Find info and link to downloads here:

http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=4224.0

http://worldofbanished.com/index.php?topic=4223.0

[Glenn]

An interesting question -  where does a mango when the witch doctor is watching.

Perhaps our mysterious doctor should ask his assistant coco, - she may know - I hear she's a bit of a nut.