Early the next morning, Arthur really did take out the old shovel.
When they had checked it the previous afternoon, they had already discovered that the joint between the shovel head and the wooden handle was badly loose.
Even the slightest shake made the metal head wobble from side to side.
Arthur crouched by the doorway and studied it for quite a while.
Beside him lay several of the old nails they had picked out yesterday.
When Lucas woke up, the first thing he did was come over to see what his father was doing.
He crouched beside Arthur and stared at the old shovel for a moment.
“Dad,” Lucas called.
Arthur was examining the loose joint and didn’t look up.
“Hmm?”
“Do you know how to fix it now?” Lucas asked directly.
Arthur’s hands stopped moving.
He raised his head and looked at his son.
Lucas looked back at him with a completely serious expression.
There wasn’t the slightest hint that he was deliberately trying to embarrass his father.
Arthur was silent for two seconds before lowering his head again.
“I’m in the process of figuring it out,” Arthur replied.
Lucas clearly didn’t understand.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I don’t know yet, but I will soon,” Arthur explained.
Lucas thought about that for a moment.
The answer didn’t seem to contain much useful information.
“Oh,” Lucas said.
Arthur heard the distinct lack of confidence in that oh.
“If you have nothing to do, go see whether your sister and Theo are awake,” Arthur told him.
“They’re awake,” Lucas replied.
“Then go wash your face.”
“I already did.”
“Go drink some water.”
“I did that too.”
Arthur finally turned to look at him.
“Lucas.”
Lucas blinked.
“What?”
“Are you really going to crouch here and watch me fix this the whole time?” Arthur asked helplessly.
“I want to see how you do it,” Lucas answered.
“Why?”
“Because I might need to know someday,” Lucas explained.
That was a good enough reason that Arthur couldn’t bring himself to send him away.
He shifted to one side to make room.
“Fine,” Arthur said.
“But don’t touch the nails.”
“I know,” Lucas replied with a nod.
It wasn’t long before Clara and Theo came out as well.
Clara was still carrying the list that was almost completely covered in writing.
Theo had his little cup in both hands and was drinking water as he walked toward the doorway.
When they reached Arthur, they first looked at the old shovel on the ground.
Then they looked at their father.
“Don’t ask,” Arthur said immediately.
Clara stopped.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“The three of you come over here now, and I already know what you’re going to ask,” Arthur told her.
Theo lowered his cup.
“Is it fixed?” he asked.
Arthur fell silent.
Apparently, he had guessed wrong.
Clara couldn’t help laughing.
Arthur ignored them and went back to the shovel.
The problem, as it turned out, wasn’t as complicated as he had expected.
The wooden handle itself wasn’t broken.
The joint had simply worked loose over time.
Arthur slowly pulled out the old nail that had bent out of place, adjusted the shovel head, then selected one of the straighter nails they had saved yesterday.
They didn’t have a proper hammer, so he had to use a solid block of wood instead.
The first strike barely drove the nail in.
The second worked a little better.
On the third, the block of wood nearly slipped out of his hand.
Helena had been watching from nearby.
“Are you sure you’re not going to hit your hand first?” Helena asked.
Arthur froze with the block of wood still in his grip.
“Don’t say things like that while I’m doing this,” Arthur replied.
Helena looked puzzled.
“Why?”
“Because I wasn’t thinking about it before,” Arthur explained.
“Now that you’ve said it, I’m going to keep thinking about it.”
“Isn’t paying attention a good thing?” Helena asked.
“Not always,” Arthur answered.
Helena had no idea what kind of logic that was, so she decided to stop talking.
Arthur lowered his head again and carefully drove the nail in.
Once it was secure, he gripped the wooden handle and gave it a shake.
The shovel head didn’t move.
Arthur shook it again.
Still nothing.
The three children, who had been watching the entire process, stared at the shovel head too.
After several quiet seconds, Theo spoke first.
“It really doesn’t wobble anymore,” Theo said.
Arthur finally felt a small sense of accomplishment.
“See?”
Lucas reached out, held the handle, and gently tested it himself.
“It really is fixed,” Lucas confirmed.
Arthur looked at his son.
“So what was that ‘oh’ supposed to mean earlier?”
Lucas blinked.
“Which one?”
“The one after I said I’d know how to fix it soon,” Arthur reminded him.
Lucas seriously thought back.
“It just meant ‘oh,'” Lucas answered.
Arthur stared at him.
Forget it.
There was no point arguing with a three-year-old.
Even if, strictly speaking, this particular three-year-old wasn’t really three.
Clara had already lowered her head and added a few words beside yesterday’s note—
Old shovel — loose handle.
Needs fixing.
She added:
Fixed.
Arthur caught sight of it from the corner of his eye, and his mood improved for no particular reason.
At least the first job of the day had gone well.
He set the shovel against the wall and was about to go check the section of land they had left unfinished yesterday when he looked up and noticed something wrong with the sky.
When they had first gotten up, there had been no sun, but the sky had only been cloudy.
Now, not much later, the clouds in the distance had sunk noticeably lower.
The wind had picked up too.
The grass behind the house bent in waves, all leaning in the same direction.
Helena noticed as well.
She stood in the doorway and watched the sky for a moment.
“Do you think it’s going to rain?” Helena asked.
Arthur looked up.
“Looks like it.”
Clara came to the doorway too.
“Are we still working on the field today?” Clara asked.
Arthur was about to tell her they could wait and see.
Before he could answer, a low rumble of thunder rolled in from the distance.
It wasn’t particularly loud, but it was enough to make all five of them fall silent.
“That was thunder,” Theo said, looking up.
Lucas glanced at the sky.
“It’ll probably start raining soon.”
Arthur changed his mind immediately.
“We’re not going,” Arthur decided.
“Let’s get everything outside back into the house first.”
Some of the tools they had checked yesterday were still near the doorway, and they hadn’t brought all the old boards inside either.
If those things were left out in heavy rain, they would only become harder to use than they already were.
Arthur went for the tools first.
Helena gathered up the baskets and the rope near the door.
The three children wanted to help too.
Clara picked up the smaller basket.
Lucas went for one of the thin boards they had left outside.
Theo set his sights on the wooden bucket.
He grabbed the rim with both hands and tried to lift it.
The bucket didn’t move.
Theo looked down at it.
Then he tried again.
Still nothing.
Arthur happened to see him as he came back carrying a board.
“Theo, you don’t need to carry the bucket,” Arthur told him.
Theo kept his hands on it.
“There’s no water inside.”
“I know,” Arthur replied.
“Then why is it still so heavy?” Theo asked.
Arthur put down the board, walked over, and lifted the bucket with one hand.
“Because it’s heavier than you think,” Arthur explained.
Theo followed beside him.
“But you can carry it.”
Arthur glanced down at his son.
“Because I’m not three,” Arthur replied.
Theo fell silent.
For the moment, there was no way to argue with that.
By the time they had brought almost everything inside, the first drop of rain fell.
Pat.
It landed in the dirt outside the door.
Then came another.
And another.
Soon, they were falling faster and faster.
Arthur stood in the doorway and dragged the last item inside.
Helena immediately shut the door behind him.
Almost the moment it closed, the sound of the rain grew much louder.
Raindrops hammered against the roof.
The distant landscape quickly disappeared behind a curtain of rain.
Cold air slipped through the gaps around the window, stirring the old piece of cloth hanging nearby.
Clara stood by the window and looked outside.
“It’s really coming down,” Clara said.
Lucas joined her.
“We definitely can’t work on the field today.”
Arthur didn’t seem particularly bothered.
“That’s fine,” Arthur replied.
Helena looked toward him.
“You were supposed to rest anyway,” Helena reminded him.
Arthur instinctively moved his hands behind his back.
“They’re much better,” Arthur said.
Helena paused.
“I wasn’t talking about your hands.”
Arthur froze.
Helena looked at him.
“Why are you feeling guilty all by yourself?”
Clara let out a laugh.
Arthur decided he hadn’t heard anything.
At first, the family was still relaxed enough to stand by the window and watch the rain.
Since arriving here, this was the first proper rainfall they had seen.
The rain soaked into the fields in the distance, quickly darkening the dry soil.
Water began gathering along the edge of the roof before spilling down in steady streams.
Theo watched for a while with his face close to the window.
“Will the weeds we pulled yesterday grow back?” Theo asked.
Lucas turned toward his brother.
“Not that quickly.”
“What about tomorrow?” Theo asked again.
“No,” Lucas answered.
Theo visibly relaxed.
Arthur overheard them and found the question amusing.
“You’re really worried about those weeds, aren’t you?” Arthur asked.
Theo nodded seriously.
“I fell over pulling one of them out.”
Arthur remembered the mud covering the back of Theo’s trousers.
“Don’t worry,” Arthur reassured him.
“One rainstorm isn’t going to make it grow back.”
Satisfied, Theo returned his attention to the rain.
Unfortunately, their peaceful morning didn’t last much longer.
Clara was the first to notice something was wrong.
She had been standing by the window when she suddenly heard a faint sound behind her.
Drip.
Clara turned around.
She didn’t see anything.
A moment later, she heard it again.
Drip.
This time, she saw it.
A drop of water had fallen through a gap in the boards overhead and landed on the floor beside the table.
Clara looked up.
Another drop was slowly gathering above her.
“Dad,” Clara called.
Arthur was rearranging the things they had just brought inside.
“What is it?” Arthur asked.
Clara pointed upward.
“The roof is leaking here.”
Arthur stopped and followed her finger.
Right on cue, the third drop fell.
Drip.
Arthur stared at it.
Helena came over as well.
The three of them looked up.
Lucas and Theo noticed what was happening and joined them.
Soon, all five of them were standing together, staring at the ceiling.
A fourth drop slowly gathered.
Then it fell.
Clara stepped aside.
“It really is leaking,” Clara said.
Arthur gave her a helpless look.
“I can see that.”
Helena looked at her husband.
“What do we use to catch the water?”
“A basin,” Arthur answered.
“Which basin?” Helena asked.
Arthur paused.
They didn’t exactly have a large collection of basins.
The few they owned were already used for washing faces, clothes, and everything else.
Helena turned toward the kitchen.
“I’ll get the big one first,” Helena decided.
She quickly returned with an old wooden basin and placed it beneath the leak.
The next drop landed inside with a clear sound.
Drip.
Problem solved.
For the moment.
Arthur had barely started to relax when Lucas called from the other side of the room.
“There’s another one over here,” Lucas said.
Arthur turned.
Lucas was standing near the wall, staring up at another section of the ceiling.
Nothing was dripping yet, but one patch of wood had already darkened noticeably.
Arthur walked over.
“When did that happen?” Arthur asked.
“I just noticed it,” Lucas replied.
Arthur touched the wall beside it.
Wet.
His expression slowly changed.
Helena came over.
“Another leak?” Helena asked.
“Not yet,” Arthur replied.
He looked up at the darkening patch.
“But it will be.”
As though the roof had been waiting to prove him right, a drop of water soon slid along the edge of the board and fell.
Theo watched it.
“Another one,” Theo announced.
Arthur really didn’t want to hear the word another.
“Do we have another basin?” Arthur asked Helena.
Helena was already heading toward the kitchen.
“There’s a smaller one,” she replied.
“Bring it,” Arthur said.
Soon, the second basin was in place.
The five of them returned to the middle of the room.
The rain kept falling.
Arthur tilted his head back and carefully studied the entire ceiling.
One on the left.
One on the right.
Two leaks so far.
That wasn’t too bad.
At least—
“Arthur,” Helena called.
Her voice came from beside the bed.
Arthur’s heart sank.
“What now?” Arthur asked.
Helena pointed toward the foot of the bed.
“Look.”
A small patch of the floor was already wet.
Arthur walked over and looked up.
The third leak.
He closed his eyes for a moment.
Clara stood nearby and, very wisely, said nothing.
Unfortunately, Arthur saw her slowly lowering her head toward her list.
“Clara,” Arthur called.
Clara looked up.
“Hmm?”
“Don’t write it down yet,” Arthur told her.
“I haven’t written anything,” Clara replied.
“I know you were about to.”
Clara quietly put the list away.
The third leak happened to be right beside the bed.
They couldn’t simply put a basin under it and forget about it.
Arthur and Helena moved the bed aside first.
The three children immediately tried to help.
Clara and Lucas each took one side of the bed, their little hands already gripping the frame.
“Don’t push,” Arthur stopped them.
Clara looked up.
“We can help.”
“The two of you together probably don’t weigh as much as this bed,” Arthur told her.
Clara wasn’t convinced.
“There’s Theo too,” Clara pointed out.
Arthur looked toward Theo.
Theo was standing on the other side of the bed, very seriously rolling up his sleeves.
Arthur stared at him.
Why did he look as though he genuinely intended to move the bed?
“You can’t either,” Arthur told him.
Theo stopped rolling his sleeves.
“Why?”
“Because the three of you are three years old,” Arthur replied.
Arthur had lost count of how many times he had said that over the past two days.
Theo seemed to notice it too.
“You keep saying we’re three,” Theo complained.
Arthur and Helena pushed the bed aside.
Without stopping, Arthur replied, “Because the three of you keep forgetting that you’re three.”
Clara thought about it.
There really wasn’t much she could say to that.
Once the bed had been moved, Arthur searched for something to catch the water.
There were no suitable basins left, so he brought over an old clay jar instead.
Unfortunately, the opening was too narrow.
The first drop went in.
The second hit the rim and splashed onto the floor.
Theo crouched nearby and watched for a while.
“It keeps missing,” Theo pointed out.
Arthur looked at the wet floor.
“I know,” Arthur replied.
“Can we use something else?” Clara asked.
“We don’t have anything else,” Arthur answered.
Helena thought for a moment, then spread an old cloth beside the jar.
“We’ll have to do this for now,” Helena said.
“At least it’ll keep the whole floor from getting wet.”
There wasn’t much else they could do.
They had barely dealt with the third leak when Lucas called from the other side of the room.
“Dad,” Lucas called.
Arthur didn’t move.
Arthur slowly turned his head.
“Tell me it’s not another leak,” Arthur said.
Lucas stood on the other side of the table and pointed upward.
“…It is,” Lucas replied.
Arthur fell silent.
Helena did too.
Clara looked from her father to the ceiling.
Theo counted very seriously.
“Four,” Theo said.
Arthur looked at his younger son.
“Theo.”
“Hmm?” Theo looked up.
“You don’t need to count them for Dad,” Arthur told him.
Theo obediently stopped.
The fourth leak wasn’t too serious.
It only dripped every now and then.
The problem was that they had run out of things to put underneath it.
Arthur looked around the room.
Eventually, he picked up the wooden bucket they had inspected that morning.
Helena noticed.
“Wasn’t that for carrying water?” Helena asked.
Arthur placed it beneath the leak.
“It’s still holding water,” Arthur replied.
Helena had to admit that made sense.
As the rain grew heavier, the house became increasingly chaotic.
One moment they were moving things out of the way.
The next they were wiping up water.
Then someone had to check whether one of the basins had shifted and water was splashing onto the floor again.
The three children couldn’t move anything heavy, but none of them stayed idle.
Clara kept an eye on the basins.
Whenever one shifted out of place, she immediately called Arthur or Helena.
Lucas kept watching the ceiling in case another dark patch appeared.
Theo took an old cloth and wiped up the water that splashed outside the basins.
Unfortunately, he was so small that after crouching on the floor for a while, his own knees ended up wet.
Helena turned around, saw him, and immediately pulled him to his feet.
“Theo, why are your trousers wet again?” Helena asked.
Theo looked down.
“I was wiping the water.”
“I told you to wipe the floor, not sit in it,” Helena said.
“I wasn’t sitting,” Theo protested.
“Then why are your knees soaked?” Helena asked.
Theo examined them.
“I was crouching,” he explained.
Helena didn’t know what to say to that.
In the end, she took the cloth out of his hands.
“All right.
No more wiping for you,” Helena said.
Theo looked reluctant.
“Then what do I do?”
“Help Clara watch the basins,” Helena told him, pointing toward his sister.
Theo turned.
Clara was staring at the first wooden basin.
“This one’s almost half full,” Clara warned.
Arthur immediately walked over.
“That fast?” Arthur asked.
He looked down.
There really was quite a lot of water inside.
If they left it much longer, it might eventually overflow.
Arthur lifted the basin.
“I’ll empty it outside,” Arthur said.
Lucas immediately looked toward the door.
“Dad, it’s raining really hard,” Lucas reminded him.
“I know,” Arthur replied.
The moment Arthur opened the door, a gust of wind blew rain straight into the house.
All three children stepped backward at once.
“Don’t go far,” Helena called.
“Just empty it near the door.”
“I know,” Arthur answered.
Arthur threw the water onto the muddy ground a short distance away.
The wind blew rain across half his shoulder.
When he came back inside, Helena saw the wet patch on his clothes and frowned again.
“Couldn’t you pour it through the gap in the door?” Helena asked.
Arthur shut the door.
“The basin is this big,” Arthur replied.
“How am I supposed to pour it through a gap?”
“Then you could’ve waited until the wind died down,” Helena said.
“How was I supposed to know there’d be a gust right then?” Arthur asked.
Clara looked at her father’s wet shoulder.
Then she looked at her mother’s expression.
Very quietly, she moved a little closer to Lucas.
Lucas noticed and shifted over as well.
Theo looked at them in confusion.
“Why are you going over there?” Theo asked.
Clara lowered her voice.
“It’s safer over here,” she whispered.
Theo considered that for a moment.
Then he immediately joined them.
Arthur stared at all three children.
He had heard that.
After a long stretch of running around, they finally managed to get all the leaks under temporary control.
The rain, however, showed no sign of stopping.
Arthur stood in the middle of the room and stared up at the ceiling.
His mood was very different from the small sense of accomplishment he had felt that morning after fixing the shovel.
Yesterday, when they inspected the house, they had only noticed that the roof looked old.
Now that it was actually raining, all the problems had revealed themselves at once.
Four leaks.
One of them right beside the bed.
And those were only the ones they had found so far.
If the rain continued, who knew whether there would be a fifth?
Or a sixth?
Helena came to stand beside him and looked up as well.
“The field can wait,” Helena said.
Arthur nodded.
“Mm.”
“We can take our time finding seeds too,” Helena continued.
“Mm,” Arthur agreed again.
Clara had somehow taken out her list again.
Standing beside her parents, she added naturally,
“But the roof can’t take its time leaking,” Clara said.
Arthur lowered his head and looked at her.
Clara looked back up at him.
“Right?” she asked.
Arthur was silent for several seconds.
Finally, he nodded in resignation.
“Right,” Arthur admitted.
Clara looked down at the priorities they had written the other night.
Make sure we have food and shelter.
Repair the house.
Figure out the land.
Then think about earning money.
Apparently, the order they had settled on was more accurate than they had realized.
In fact, repair the house had just become considerably more urgent.
Arthur looked up again and tried to memorize the locations of all four leaks.
“Once the rain stops, I’ll go up and take a look,” Arthur said.
Helena immediately turned toward him.
“You’re going onto the roof?” she asked.
“I need to find out what’s wrong with it,” Arthur replied.
“Do you know how to fix a roof?” Helena asked.
Arthur fell silent.
Why did that question sound so familiar?
Lucas, standing nearby, clearly remembered the conversation from that morning too.
He looked at Arthur but said nothing.
Unfortunately, Arthur could already see the unspoken question on his son’s face.
“If I don’t know, I’ll learn,” Arthur said helplessly.
Lucas nodded.
“Oh,” Lucas replied.
That oh again.
Arthur stared at him.
“Lucas.”
Lucas looked up.
“What?”
“Can you make that ‘oh’ sound a little more like you believe in me?” Arthur asked.
Lucas blinked.
“I do believe you,” Lucas replied.
“Then why do you react like that every time?” Arthur asked.
Lucas thought seriously for a moment.
“Because I don’t know what else I’m supposed to say,” he explained.
Arthur had no answer.
Helena laughed beside him.
Even Clara lowered her head, quietly laughing to herself.
Arthur looked around at his family and finally shook his head.
Forget it.
At least he really had fixed the old shovel.
As for the roof—
Arthur looked up again.
A drop of water fell at that exact moment.
Drip.
It landed in the wooden basin.
Arthur’s expression immediately became more serious.
This was probably going to be a lot harder than fixing a shovel.
Outside, the rain continued.
Whatever plans the family had made for the day had been completely disrupted by the weather.
There would be no checking the field.
No pulling weeds.
Even the little bag of beans they still didn’t know whether they could plant had been forgotten for the moment.
Right now, the most important thing was figuring out how to make sure that the next time it rained, the five of them wouldn’t have to run around the house chasing leaks with every basin, jar, and bucket they owned.
Arthur looked at the wooden basins, clay jar, and bucket scattered around the room and let out a sigh.
Yesterday, they had been worrying about the fact that none of them knew how to farm.
Today, it seemed farming could wait a little longer.
After all, a field could survive getting rained on.
Their bed was another matter.