Weep Not, Child: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Njoroge continues to enjoy his time at school. In particular, he looks forward to taking English lessons from Isaka, a teacher with a mustache who is “jovial” and somewhat mischievous—a combination that causes the students to gossip about him and speculate about his romantic life. After one particularly fun and spirited reading lesson—in which Isaka teaches the children how to pronounce the letter “u”—Njoroge and his peers start calling him U-u. On that day, he goes home and tries to teach Kamau what he has learned, but Kamau “resent[s]” this, so Njoroge “give[s] up the idea.”

One day, Mwihaki asks Njoroge why he’s avoiding her. “You always come out late,” he lies, trying to hide the fact that he intentionally leaves before her so he won’t annoy his mother like the last time she caught him spending time with Mwihaki. Nonetheless, this conversation reopens their friendship, and they begin to play on the way home. Passing Mr. Howlands’s house, Njoroge says, “My father works here.” He then explains to Mwihaki that he sometimes visits the farm to see his father. When he does, he often encounters Stephen, who stays close to his mother and stares at Njoroge. One time, though, Stephen saw Njoroge and started walking toward him. “I was frightened because I did not know what he wanted,” Njoroge says. “I ran.”

Mwihaki asks Njoroge if Stephen wanted to speak to him, but Njoroge says he doesn’t know. “He may have wanted to quarrel with me,” he guesses. “He is like his father. And you know—” Before finishing his sentence, Njoroge thinks about the story Ngotho told his family about how white people stole their land. Because Mwihaki is Jacobo’s daughter—and because Jacobo is close to the white settlers—he decides he shouldn’t say anything about this. Instead, he simply says, “All this land belongs to black people.” Mwihaki agrees, saying that she’s heard her father say the same thing. “He says that if people had had education, the white man would not have taken all the land,” she adds.

The following year, Njoroge is bumped up to Mwihaki’s class. Before the first day of classes, he spends time with Kamau, once more encouraging his brother to pursue an education. However, Kamau explains again that he doesn’t want to go to school. “A man without land must learn to trade,” he says. “Father has nothing. So what I am doing is important.” If, he says, he becomes a skilled craftsman, he will be wealthy and will be able to support Njoroge’s academic life. “Your learning is for all of us,” he says. “Father says the same thing. He is anxious that you go on, so you might bring light to our home. Education is the light of Kenya. That’s what Jomo says.” Hearing this, Njoroge thinks about Jomo, a man he has heard about but about whom he knows very little, other than that he’s well educated.

Before Njoroge starts school again, Ngotho says, “You must learn to escape the conditions under which we live. It is a hard way. It is not much that a man can do without a piece of land.” He tells his son that “education is everything,” but what he truly believes is that “land is everything.” This is why he never wants to be far from “the land that belonged to his ancestors.” Because of this, he has “faithfully” worked for Mr. Howlands for years, hoping that the prophecy will someday come true and drive white settlers out of Kenya. Now, though, Boro has made him doubt that this will ever happen. Listening to his father talk about land and Mr. Howlands’s farm, Njoroge knows that “an indefinable demand [is] being made on him, even though he [is] so young,” and this responsibility makes his “heart glow.”