Henry, the farm laborer
Henry rose at dawn, as was his habit at this time of the year. The spring sun shone strongly through the window. His two children stirred as he rose from their their common bed, but did not wake. He let them sleep while he dressed and prepared breakfast.
This consisted of building up the fire in the makeshift hearth next to the window they had turned into a chimney using some bricks and sheet metal. Then he reheated last night's meal - a kind of thin stew made of potato, carrot and a little chicken. It wasn't great without seasoning, but the best he could do. His wife could have done better, if she was still alive; but alas, she had succumbed to influenza during the winter of '98.
By the time the food was heated, the children were up. Thomas, the oldest at 12, helped his 8-year-old sister, Helen, tidy the bed after they were dressed. They joined their father and ate quickly. Henry reminded Thomas that the boy was due to help at the sawmill today. Thomas nodded but said nothing, and lowered his head somewhat glumly. Henry had the suspicion that Thomas was not treated so well at the mill. It wasn't easy work for a boy, Henry knew, but they needed the chits to trade for things at the market, as well as any wood that Thomas could scavenge.
Before leaving the house, Henry reminded Helen to bolt the door while they were gone, and to keep the zip gun handy when she went down to the market. He hoped to God she never had to use it, but it was there just in case. Everyone in the town remembered what had happened to the Elsmore sisters, and no-one wanted that to happen to their own child or anyone else's. The hobby gunsmiths had done a brisk trade after that incident, despite the assurances of the mayor that the militia would be more watchful of strangers from out of town. It wasn't only strangers that could do that kind of thing...
Henry made way over to Anderson's farm, where he was tasked with helping to do the planting. Old man Welch was already there with his plow-team, jabbering away to himself and cursing anyone who got to close to him, as he always did. He was a bit crazy, pushed just over the edge by the effects of the War, but he was one of only three men in the district with a plow-team, and as such everyone put up with his abuse. Henry picked up his seed bag and planting tool from Anderson and got to work.
----------
By day's end, Henry was covered in dirt, dust, and sweat. It has been a hot one again, and he could feel the back of his neck tingling from mild sunburn. It would have been a lot worse if he still had the more pale skin he sported back in '96, but the intervening years had tanned him considerably. He picked up his day's pay from Anderson, nine embossed metal discs that the town called 'chits', and made his way back home in the fading light.
By the time he got there, he was famished. The bread-and-soup lunch provided as part of the work had been quite tasty, but not filling enough for such a strenuous day. As he approached home, he could smell dinner cooking; Helen had been busy, it seemed. Thomas was talking with their neighbors, the Patersons, and waved them goodbye to join his father in entering the house. Thomas seemed happy; the day must have gone well for him, and Henry was happy because of it. Thomas handed over the three chits he had earned. Henry gave 10 chits to Helen for tomorrow's shopping and added the remaining two to the stash in the hidden wall cavity where their other few valuables were stored.
Dinner turned out to be hard bread and stringy vegetables. The vegetables were quite overcooked, but Henry thanked Helen for her efforts anyway. She was becoming a canny haggler at the market and the amount she had bought today was a pretty good haul. As they ate dinner together in the light of their two alcohol lamps, Thomas pointed out the stack of wood off-cuts he had picked up from the mill grounds with the permission from the foreman. Helen also talked about the progress of their vegetable garden out back, small but developing well, it seemed.
After dinner, while Thomas performed his role of reading tutor to Helen using a badly-damaged copy of a David Eddings novel, Henry investigated the off-cuts and selected the ones he could use; the rest went into the firewood pile. Then, after putting the kids off to bed, he got back to his project of making chicken boxes. His old carpentry hobby was paying off here. If he could finish 10 boxes for McLeod by Friday, he could take his pick of two live hens in exchange (a cheaper rate than McLeod could get by going to the professional carpenters in town). Henry thought of fresh eggs as he finished two more boxes before turning in to get some much-needed sleep before the next day of planting.
|