Samuel Eaton has hardly slept from excitement! Today is the day he will help with his first rye harvest. If he can prove to his father that he's up to the task, he will be able to help with all of the harvest.

But daily chores must be done before leaving the village with the grown-ups. There's water to fetch, and a snare to check in the woods, and kindling to gather for Mam.

When at last it's time to begin harvesting the rye, binding it proves to be even more difficult than Samuel expected. His hands are becoming sore and blistered, and the sun has begun to burn his skin. And the straw in his breeches and down his neck makes him itch all over. Samuel mustn't let Father see how he is struggling. Was he foolish to think he could do a man's work?

Photographed in full color at Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and based on real people of the time, here is a charming and accurate portrayal of life in seventeenth-century New England.

From the dust jacket