Gathering

"You are welcome," Simione responded with a polite smile. Daniel was still a boy but all the little ones with him seemed to look up to him. In fact just as he approached Simione, he cued for the other boys in their group to pick up their tools and everyone responded without question. It was obvious he was the leader of their pack.

"We had been gleaning and gathering all our lives so the task is not new to us," Daniel told her as if assuring her that she should not worry so much about them. "You can just stay on the clearing under shade while you watch over us, we will be fine,"

"No I can go in the fields with you," Simione politely rejected his proposal then went on to pick up some of the baskets filled with empty sacks that one of the little children was trying to pick up. "I know how to harvest. My family used to own barley and rice fields,"