I can remember the next morning clearly, I jumped out of bed at eight in the morning, Mother said it was a world record.( I was rarely up before noon.) I ate with relish, something that again made my mother comment on. I hated when she did that. By half past I left home and wandered my way down to the farm, basking in the glorious sunshine. A nice day it was too, no wind and not a cloud in the sky. I wasn't going to have much time to enjoy the weather that day. I took great care too avoid Fathers shop.

The old man was waiting for me, with a grin on his face. "Am I on time?" I asked politely not wanting to be bawled at and fired just starting the job.

"Do you have an alarm clock?" Jack asked with an air of amusement, his tone that of jokers, preparing one of his master pranks.

"Yes I do, but what does that have to do with farming?" I asked, I couldn't see why in the name of hell did an alarm clock have to do with anything.

"Well then set it for six, the working day started over two hours ago." Jack informed me. This piece of information took me aback; six in the morning was insane. I couldn't believe that the day started at six.

"It what?" I said, disbelief was written all over my face." This must be some kind of a joke!"

The old mans tone softened and turned into a serious one. "I'm afraid not," Jack said solemnly "although I must admit I too thought at first it was a joke"

I groaned to myself, six in the morning was one of these no go areas, Father had tried to install this idea into me that the earlier I got up, the better I felt, so I tried it, once. The result was that I felt worse than ever before, needed around five cups of coffee before I could even keep my eyes open.

Jack must have heard me moaning because he simply said to me, "You'll see what I mean you start working, I'll supervise when I have time, I still have to milk the cows, they don't seem to like been milked at six on the dot, so I have to have the job done before ten or they come after me for forgetting."

Over two hours and he's still not tended to the animals? Holy Hell! Cows chasing after you for not milking them? I didn't believe that, nor did I really believe him going on bout the time. I did once I started working. First I had to clear my piece of uncared for land, Jack had made this out to be Childs play, I struggled to lift the Hammer above my head to crush those boulders not big enough to be removed by hand, once or twice I nearly had the hammer slip onto my toes. After that I had to remove any lumber, from the field. Thankfully there wasn't. This time. Next I had to weed the field, this consisted mostly of pulling up the sprouts with a trowel and cutting down the larger pests with Jacks scythe, which was hell to use. It was terribly unbalanced and after particularly heavy-handed swings the accursed tool would almost always fall into the hard soil with a hard thud. I finally cleared enough land by lunchtime for which I was glad. The old man came over to me to see how I was doing; he also had brung me some lunch, which he'd fixed up, from the kitchen in his house. My lunch was some rice balls,
"Do' you make this" I asked, in between bites.
Jack just looked at me defensively as if I was about to criticise his cooking.
"Why?" Jack answered slowly.
"I need to have the recipe!!" I demanded. He just laughed, and he gave me it telling me to experiment with it, rather than follow it to the letter.

Once lunch was over, I started again on the field, now tilling the land so I could plant my seeds. This was almost as bad as that damned scythe, except this just dragged slowly, and if it hit a stone it just stopped, I would have to remove the offending article before I could start to till it again. Finally at half past two I was ready. The time had come, I was now ready to plant the seeds, I couldn't find them so I had to go and ask Jack.

"Good, your ready at last" said Jack when I told him the field was ready to go. Jack walked me over to the patch; he crouched over it with care. I think to check to see if I had done a good enough job.
I certainly thought so it had taken most of my day to do it.

"Its not perfect as you didn't get rid of all the stone before you tilled the soil." Jack stated. I was flabbergasted, how did he know just by looking at it? "How'd you know that?" I asked him.

"The tilled soil, has an imperfection on it. When there isn't any stone to interfere with it, the soil should be in a straight line, it isn't its off" said Jack knowledgably "However... its good enough to plant them, so go ahead."
Jack gave me the bag of seeds, I didn't speak I just obeyed, I bent down and begun to plant them, he didn't tell me what kinda seeds they were. I guessed I was to solve that mystery myself. I then had to go and fill that old watering can of his up, by the fish pond, where I'd tried to take fish the fishes out with a branch, I gave myself a moment to reflect and then filled up my watering can. I walked back to the small field and begun to water. This wasn't too bad, at least compared to the evils of the scythe.

At Jack decided to call it a day, and that I was to see him at six tomorrow. I did and spent the next half season working my ass of, finally they were ready to harvest. I was ecstatic, neither my mother nor father had managed to keep a plant alive, they always forgot to water or feed it. As I harvested my crops I saw Jack coming over to me.

"Congratulations George, you passed the test!" Jack cheered,

"I've what?" I said confused.

"Growing those crops was a test George, I wanted to see if you could handle growing them, people can't just walk in and help out. You've proved that to me, the job's yours kiddo." said Jack warmly extending his hand. I shook it. I took home a lot of money that day.

Looking back I understand exactly what the hell he meant now, the winter was spent with Jack teaching me how to care for the chickens and the livestock, I didn't know cows could do the toilet so much, I mean I had to clean out mountains of shit that winter. I spent the next 5 years as his farm hand, learning all the trick of the trade, and getting fitter and stronger all the damn time. I enjoyed this life, and the best part was that my parents didn't suspect a thing. The old man and I became close friends and when I turned eighteen I was introduced to the other counterparts to the 'trio', Doc Grant, Jack and Rick, who were all close friends and often drunk at the Inn together. I sorta knew Grant and Rick, but I was closest to Jack, he'd raised me far better than father had over the past five years. Father was beginning to really get pissed that I hadn't became his little apprentice. I still didn't really know a lot of the past between Father and Jack, but once I turned eighteen, my time of unaware bliss was almost over.

Next Chapter I'm hoping to switch over to Jacks Point of view, and explain what happened. Please, give me your thought on how you think this fanfic is going.