a busy schedule

There isn’t a day in the Redhooves family that isn’t spent working. ‘Til daylight to sundown, backs are arched in the fields and hands are used to search the earth, greedily taking everything from it : the food, the water, even the animals ( sometimes, the eldest fetch with her little fingers the snouts of moles that so dearly hang on to life ).
They reap everyday what nature gives. Then, they turn it into stacks of food that will be exchanged for cents or, at most, dollars - piles of carrots, of potatoes and lettuces in wide wooden boxes. Placed in the barn, they are left there to be carried to the village market.

Those who do not reap, sell. To the village market, as we previously said, they go - a mother and three children - usually two daughters and one of the eldest boys. They spend the morning amongst strangers and, when the afternoon comes, they go to another place to find more money. There, they underprice what’s deemed too ugly by the other buyers so that, by the end of the day, there’s nothing left of the piles of carrots, potatoes and lettuces.
Now, the wooden boxes have to be carried back to the farm. So they do exactly that. They come back when the fields have been tended to and it’s time to feed the animals.

There are two cows, one horse, a dog and six chickens on the property. There are also eight children that, too, need to eat. The three women who live here prepare the food in the morning and let it cook all day long ( but it is Grandmother’s duty to take care of the embers within the hearth ). They serve it at seven in the afternoon, when men are also ready to eat, right after they repaired whatever fence nature the night before. Then, at nine, when the cigarettes have been all smoked and the plates are all clean again, the family goes to sleep.

Everyday, they do the same thing - but, to manage that busy and precise schedule, everyone needs to play their part, from the seventeen years old woman to the four years old boy. Everyone except Howard.

Howard doesn’t do much. Sometimes, he wakes up at five o’clock, sometimes, at noon. His grandmother checks on him every hour of the morning. When his eyes are finally opened, she brings him some tea and puts back some embers from the hearth into the warming pan she then buries into layers of blankets. She thinks it helps with his cold.
Apart from Grandmother, they all know it’s not just a cold. Howard is not like his brothers - not even like his sisters. He is weaker - but not in a way that infuriates them. It’s just a fact. A costy fact. A sad one too.
Anyway, It seems like there’s nothing they can do about it. The dollars exchanged in the past for medications have been spent in vain - not even Grandmother can be fooled. This boy needs a stronger cure. Meanwhile, there’s no use for Howard in the fields, the market, or the farm.
Instead, Howard loses time - in every way he can : waiting is truly killing him, but there’s nothing more he can do. He does not read, it’s not like anyone has enough time on their hands to teach him, and he barely plays with the wooden toys that his brothers left for him. Well, he did for a while, when he was small, but now, a bit grown up, all that he seems to do is think.

He thinks about everything, from the color of his walls to the stories his mother tells him before her ponctuals goodnights. Sometimes, he even thinks of what he would do if he, too, could everyday come to the fields and work alongside his father - He actually did, for a year, back when his health allowed him to follow the family schedule. In this memory, there’s hardly any fondness, but a sense of belonging and usefulness - which are already enough for a Redhooves.
But most of the time, he thinks about his purpose, or what he'll do when he'll grow up. But then, there's nothing that comes to his mind. So, he thinks some more, all though the day, til the night comes.

Funny that when he left, the others too couldn’t bring themselves to do anything but to think.
And yet, the next morning, they were back to the fields.