A Peasant's Day

    The man woke up before the sun had come up yet.  He got out of his creaking and rusty bed and went to the small kitchenette in his room.  He fixed himself some oatmeal, the same as always, and ate it quickly.  After breakfast, he got dressed into his worn woolen clothes and straw hat, kissed his sleeping wife goodbye, and left the rustic hut that he called home.
    He walked out to the shed and got his old tools.  He tied them into a bundle with an old length of rope then left for his field.  When he got there, he undid the bundle of tools and chose a long handled hoe.  Then, he walked up and down the rows of plants he was growing slamming his hoe into the ground.  As he did this, his bare feet stepped on jagged stones and sticks, cutting them.  He did not feel anything because of the large calluses on them.
    Later in the day, around ten o’clock, he took off his loose woolen shirt revealing his  bulging muscles.  His dark, suntanned skin rippled with every swing of the hoe into the ground.  His face and back were wet with sweat but still he kept swinging.
    Throughout the morning his young daughter would bring him a large thermos of lemonade.  Each time he drank with renewed thirst and returned the thermos empty after one long draught.  Each time he hugged and thanked his daughter sending her back home with a kiss.
    At about noon, his wife came to the field carrying a small basket: his lunch.  He smiled and walked over to the edge of the field and plopped down on the ground next to his wife breathing heavily.  His hands were red because of the constant rubbing with the hoe’s wooden handle.  His scarred feet were red with blood.
    He tore into his food with a relish unseen before.  His wife watched him, smiling faintly.  He finished his food quickly and then smiled at his wife and thanked her.  He didn’t know what he would do without her.  He kissed her passionately then sent her home to fix lunch for the rest of the family as her eyes twinkled.
    Later, at about two o’clock, his two sons came home from school.  They changed quickly and joined him in the field.  Each of them grabbed a rusted spade from the pile of tools and joined their father in the field.  All three of them weeded the plants, watered them, and fertilized them with cow manure they bought cheaply from their neighbor.
    At sunset, the three men returned to the house exhausted by their labor.  The man greeted his wife with a great hug and kiss and his older daughter in the same way.  The whole family sat down at the wooden plank that they called a table and ate a large dinner.  The man and his sons were famished and devoured their food quickly.
    After dinner, they lit the one kerosene lamp they had in the house and the two boys worked on their homework for the next day.  The daughters and mother lit a candle and washed the dinner dishes.  The man sat in the only chair in the house and smoked his pipe for a while.
    Soon, the whole family went to the two bedrooms: Mother and Father in one and children in the other, and went to bed.  The man snored loudly during the night in anticipation of another day of work.  Such is the life of a peasant.