The Waterfall- A short Story

The boy got stood up in the middle of the field and glared back at the progress that he had completed so far. The field was picked clean, every grape picked off of the bushes. He carried his basket forward with his feet while still collecting grapes from the bushes. The young boy hadn’t always worked like this, under the bare sun with no cloud coverage; he was still able to recall the times he had in his fourth grade class room before his father pulled him out. The young boy recalled when his teacher used to give out cheap candy to a student when they would get the right answer, he also recalled when the class would sing the song in class, “Pollito, chicken; gallina, hen; lápiz, pencil y pluma, pen;
ventana, window; puerta, door; maestra, teacher y piso, floor!” He was singing it under his breath until his father that was picking grapes beside him  tapped his should,

“Get back to work, mijo, were almost done with this row.” Said the while he was garnering the grapes in bunches, it was obvious the father is very experienced and had been doing the same thing each day for a long time.

“What time is it?” Said the boy while dropping the grapes into the basket that he had been collecting.

“Don’t worry, mijo, well finish soon. It is just this row and two more. “ said the father picking up his basket. The boy scurried after his father, preceding him on his side as his father goes down the row.

The boy never really understood why his father pulled him out of school; the young boy always did his homework after he ate, always  put his uniform stacked neatly on his drawer when he came to school, and always fed his dog when he was told so as well. The boy stood up again and stared at the sky; he saw one cloud. He stared at it, hoping it cover the sun for at least one minute., but the cloud jst skimmed the circumference of the sun. The boy went back to work, him and his father were almost done with the last row, so he kept away his thoughts so he could focus on his work. Once the boy and the father were done, they carried their enormous baskets of grapes over to the small wooden hut that was at the entrance of the field, next to a big diesel truck whose engine was running and bed full of baskets just like the boy’s own. His father put the two baskets on the counter of the hut and the clerk rose from the rocking chair he was in and took from under the counter a weighting scale and a small calculator.

As the clerk was calculating the intake, the boy was already hearing it; he was listening to the loud crash of water from a waterfall not too far from the grape field. He remembered when his father took the boy and the boy’s mother to the waterfall, the boy would never forget that trip. The family stayed all day at the waterfall. He would try to swim against the current, look for animals or fish in the water, or jump from the riverside trees into the water while his father  and mother said they were “playing checkers”. He was listening tot the sound when his father tapped his shoulder and said it was time to go.

“How did we do, papi?” said the boy while getting on the car.

“We did ok, here is your pay.” He handed the boy 70 pesos.

“Thank you papi, I’m saving up to go to college.” Said the boy while counting out his pay.

“Good idea.” Said the father.

                The boy put his money in his pocket when they crossing the bridge, the one over the beautiful waterfall. This was the only route to take to have the view that the boy had, and was it gorgeous.  Suddenly, all of the stress and the fatigue that the boy had lifted from his back and his shoulders, the view of the waterfall was breath taking and the boy couldn’t wait to see it again tomorrow, but only after they finished work, however the boy was ok with that fact.