Potato Harvest

It was the morning after Allen had declared he would take care of things around the house. It was around six o’clock. Allen got up and headed to the living room.

"Good morning, Mother."

"Good morning, Allen."

Since the day before, he had stopped calling them Papa and Mama and started calling them Father and Mother instead. He went to the earthen-floored entryway, picked up two wooden buckets with handles, and went outside. It was already nearing the end of October, and the mornings were bitterly cold.

He headed for the communal well. There were several wells dug throughout the village for farmers to draw drinking water and the like. It wasn’t very far away.

"Good morning."

"Oh, you’re Rodan’s boy. Morning."

There were already four or five people waiting in line. Allen joined the queue. Watching the person ahead of him, he figured out how to pull the rope to draw water from the well. He’d seen it from a distance before, but this was his first time doing it himself.

The adults looked at him in all sorts of ways, wondering why a child was there or remembering that Rodan had been badly injured.

When his turn came, he pulled the rope to draw water into the bucket attached to the well...