"I was a professor of English literature."
Much of this conversation was complicated for the boys, but they were struggling to make sense of the story of the past, albeit in a vague, confused way.
"What were the stone houses used for?" Her-Lip asked.
"Do you remember when your father taught you to swim?" The boy nodded. "Well, at the University of California—that's what we called these houses—we taught boys and girls to think, just as I just taught you with sand and pebbles and shells, how many people lived in those days. There was a great deal to teach. These boys and girls, we called them students. We had large rooms to teach them in. I spoke to forty or fifty students at a time, just as I am speaking to you now. And I was telling them about books written by others in ages before theirs, and sometimes even in their own time…"
"Was that all you did?" Ho-Ho asked. "Just talk and talk and talk? Who hunted the meat for you? Milked the goats? Caught the fish?"