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"Torin! Torin, wake up! It's time for breakfast!"

Rolling over in my bed, I tried to go back to sleep. The dream I had been having was too interesting to get up and eat breakfast...Wait, breakfast?

Sitting up so fast that I hit my head on the ceiling, I got off of the bunk bed that I shared with my younger brother Tanith. Landing on the floor, I rushed downstairs to the table.

Sitting down in my usual seat, I looked around the table to discover that I was the last one down....again.

The oldest of seven brothers and sisters, I was allowed to stay up later than the rest of them which I readily did just to have some time on my own. If it meant that I was the last one to breakfast, so be it.

The noise arround the table was almost deafening as everyone fought tooth and nail to get what they wanted. Sighing, I joined in with a will.

"I call Dibs on the last boiled egg!"

"Too slow! I already have it!"

"No fair! I wanted that!"

This was the routine every morning. I think my siblings enjoyed arguing over food as much as they enjoyed the eating itself. By the time all the food was gone, we had all had enough to eat. No one was full, but we weren't exactly hungry either.

Standing up from the table, I said, "I call fixing the fence!" After that, I walked out the door to the sound of my brothers and sister arguing over who got the other chores.

Walking into our barn, I loaded up the cart with several planks of wood, nails, and a sledge hammer before tying Glinda, our horse, onto it. I spent the rest of the morning out in the back reaches of our property pounding stakes into the ground and nailing long peices of timber to them.

I was glad for the work. Yesterday a pack of wolves had gotten into our farm and had chased our cows through the fence and into the pastureland. I knew that my Pa and I would have to go out and wrangle them back, but before that could be done the fence had to be fixed or else they would just wander out agian.

Finally done with the fence, I wiped the sweat from my brow and wondered if there were a way to keep the wolves out; they kept coming back night after night. If it didn't stop soon we wouldn't have any cows left. If that happened, we probably wouldn't be able to make it through the winter. The cows were our livelihood, if we couldn't sell them at the fair come fall, we wouldn't have the money to buy what we would need to make it through the winter.

Sighing heavily, I rode the cart back to the stable before washing Glinda down and feeding her. Still wondering what we were going to do, I walked back to the house for a nice large lunch.