A Hard Day's Work
A Hard Day’s Work
It had been a hard day’s work and he was tired.
The old man sat on the back porch unlacing his boots
and removing them. The fields where he labored in
the hot sun all day long were muddy from last night’s rain.
His old dog lay by the back door and watched him
beat the mud off by thumping the boots against the side
of the porch. “I’m gettin’ too old for this work” he mumbled
to his dog, who was also too old to do much but wag her tail
and lay there. The old man’s face looked like tanned leather and
his hands were gnarled with arthritis from gripping hoes and
shovels in his work. He was 72, thin as a rail, and he was slumped
over from years of bending with his digging, pulling, chopping,
hoeing, and such. He had a thatch of gray hair that stuck up in every
way it wanted and a stubbly gray beard that was in bad need of attention.
His wife was gone, having passed away a couple of years before in
1936 from cancer, and this left the old man saddened and lonely,
except for the dog and his adult daughter and grandchildren. The daughter
stopped by to check on him every day or so. The old man was a hired
hand on a farm where he had worked for almost 40 years. He and his
wife lost two young children, a boy and a girl, to an epidemic of flu. He
kept their pictures beside his bed that were made by a traveling photographer.
The old man’s daughter, who lived down the dirt road, had already arrived
and was cooking some supper. She either brought it from her home or cooked
it there, a couple of times a week. He could smell the fried chicken, corn,
and mashed potatoes, while he was using an old rag to wash off the day’s
sweat. His daughter said, “Dad, you really look tired, sit down and drink some
iced tea and eat your supper.” The old man looked at her with his sad old eyes
and said, “I’m just really too tired to eat.” She said, "you’ve got to eat, so
sit down and rest and try to eat a little.” He did as he was told and took
his place at the kitchen table, which sat in the middle of the small kitchen
that had an old wood stove and a sink with a hand water pump. His hand
shook when he tried to pick up the fork and eat some potatoes, but even that
was a chore. He said,“You know it’s been a hard day, one of the hardest in
my life, I think I am going to bed.” His daughter said, “well you go lie down
and I will put the food in the ice box for when you’re ready to eat.” He said
okay, she hugged and kissed him, and he and the dog shuffled into the
bedroom to get into bed.
The old house had two bedrooms and no bathroom inside. He crawled into
the bed on the old feather mattress on the side he always slept. It was
crushed down from nights of sleeping and tossing and turning. His wife’s
side of the bed was not that way, but he would not sleep on her side. He
lay down and the old dog circled her spot in the corner and lay down also.
The room was still hot from the day’s heat and the open screened window
gave little relief. After awhile, a light breeze ruffled the old yellowed curtains
hanging on both sides of the window, bringing in some cooler air. The full
moon shined through the window across the floor and onto the foot of the bed.
Finally, the old man closed his eyes in sleep.
The next morning when the old man didn’t show up a 7 a.m. to begin work
in the fields, the farmer stopped by the house and knocked on the screen door.
The dog barked but there was no other response from inside the house. The
farmer was worried and drove down the road to the daughter’s house to see
if she knew if the old man was okay. Alarmed, she ran to her old car and
raced down the road and into the kitchen. Seeing it empty and nothing had
been touched, she then headed to the bedroom, where she found him still in
bed, laying on his back in peaceful eternal sleep. The old man had finally earned
his rest after all these years of toil. She kissed his cheek and pulled the sheet
up over him and wept. The dog sensed her sadness and came over and licked
the old man’s hand for the last time.
Later that week, they buried him in the old cemetery down that same dirt road,
next to his wife and two children. There were a few farm hands and friends
at his grave side service. The daughter, her husband, and her two children
stood by the grave in a row. The old dog lay on the pile of dirt dug from the
grave. The minister of the church, where the old man attended, said some
kind words about him and then read a Bible verse from Ecclesiastes about,
“there is a time for every event under heaven– a time to give birth, and a time
to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.” The old man had
done plenty of planting in his life and had suffered through much “uprooting”
and now found peace in his time to die and join his wife and two children. His
daughter and the grandchildren all cried as the group sang “Amazing Grace
how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now
am found, was blind but now I see.” And then they sang, “I Am Bound for
the Promised Land.” The minister prayed and then four farm hands lowered
his wooden box, with ropes under it, into the ground that he had tended for 40
years. Now his old body would rest in that same stubborn soil on which
he had spent many a hard day’s work.
