Rage and Rebellion (Histories of Havenhearth)

3.5 Sophine

Sophine rose as she had the day before, and fed the fire, heated the water, made the tea and looked in the basket, finding it empty of candles and cakes. Her mother rose shortly afterwards, and avoided looking at her daughter, took her tea and then put her hoe on her shoulder and left to the rows of land that needed cultivating. So Sophine went outside and gathered more fuel for the fire, waiting for the rest of the house to wake up. When she had gathered as much as she could carry she returned to the house, to find her grandfather sat at the table.
"You believe me, don't you grandfather?"
"Of course I do,"
"The cakes and candles?"
"Shhhhh. Here," her grandfather took out a wrapped package from his nightdress, as he had yesterday, handing it over to her. "Enjoy it, but eat it soon, before anyone else sees." It contained the most beautiful cake of them all, the fish with coloured fins. He had saved it for her.
"Look, this was also in your basket yesterday, I took it before your mother could see it. Do you know what it is?"
Her grandfather put down the paper the foreigner had thrown out to the crowd, the paper her sister had grabbed the day before, the one which had the money wrapped up in it. It was a picture of a pale-skinned woman in a red robe, with long brown hair, and a crown of something on her head. She had been tied up to a piece of wood, and apparently left there for some time. The odd thing was that she was tied up with her arms secured straight out beside her, her head flopped down onto her chest. Sophine read the characters underneath to her grandfather "our saviour. What do you think it means?" She asked him.
"It's a spiritualist's paper. Foreign spiritualists. I don't know what it means,"
"She must be a bad woman, to have been punished like that. Maybe the person who put her there is the saviour."
"Maybe, but know this little one, if something like this comes your way again, get rid of it immediately. Do not bring it home. You can guess why I am saying this. Do you understand?" Sophine knew what he meant: her mother.
"Yes, grandfather."
"Good, let's burn it."

Sophine threw the paper into the fire, watching it get gobbled up instantly by the flames. She realised that all the events and excitement from the day before needed to be treated in the same way, burnt in the fire, up into smoke. None of it would be accepted by her parents. Grandfather thought otherwise, she could tell but she did not know how she would be able to show her parents that foreigners were not fiends- they were normal people, just with funny coloured eyes and hair and different languages. She would have to think of something, because she wanted to go to the school the first foreigner had spoken of. Maybe the repetitiveness of her work would help her do so, and so she began with her daily tasks.

Sophine worked partly in the fields with her mother, and partly at home with her father. Adephine was not required to work until she turned thirteen, but she nonetheless did some odd jobs to help out, including gathering fuel for the fire from the small woods out the back of their house, returning with enough for to cook the mid-day meal and evening meal, and she tended to the gardens in their courtyard.

Today, Sophine swept inside and hung out the bedding to air out in the front courtyard, she yoked the ox and walked her out to the fields to plow the potatoes. She did these things without being told to, because as the child of peasants, it was her duty. On other days, she mended or washed their clothing and bedding.

She waved to her mother who was in the wheat field, who acknowledged that she saw her, but did not return the greeting. I just cannot understand the big problem with foreigners, if anything we should be able to learn from them, and they us. Surely relationships like that we're for the benefit of both involved.
When the end of the day came, she returned home and did not rest until the oz was unyoked, brushed, watered from drink its trough and then fed.

Her father had prepared their customary evening meal of potatoes, onions and today, he had added some carrots, for which he had traded some potatoes with his neighbour, and he had prepared it with some vinegar, and a little sugar, and it was so delicious and she was so tired that Sophine really did forget about the events and the disappointment of the day before.