Samantha did as instructed, tearing into the food with ravenous bites. She gulped down the rest of the water and then bounded to her feet. "Where are we going?" she asked.
"Oh my, you are fit enough. Very well, come with me," Miss Brigham said. She took Samantha on a tour of the cottages around town where the other girls prepared dinner, cleaned the dishes, and folded the laundry. Samantha felt a pang of guilt that the others worked so hard while she did nothing. "Everyone in Eternity has his or her purpose," Miss Brigham said. "In order for our community to thrive, we must all work together for the common good."
"What's my purpose?" Samantha asked.
"For now your purpose is to learn as much as you can from me. In time you'll help me manage the other children to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible."
"Why me? Prudence or one of the others must know better."
They stopped at the window to Prudence's cottage, where Prudence worked at the loom, her hand good as new. "Your friend is a hard worker and has a good heart, but she's not strong like you, Samantha. She's not strong inside."
"Me? I'm not strong inside."
"You're much stronger than you think, my dear," Miss Brigham said. They started down the forest path towards the meadow. "The moment I met you, I knew there was something special about you. You are meant for great things."
"What kind of great things?"
"I'm not sure yet, dear. There's no hurry to find out. You're still young." Miss Brigham smiled and patted Samantha on the head like a small child.
They took the path out to the meadow and then down the hill to the tool shed. A group of the youngest boys doled out water to the older ones as they returned from the fields. In the fields, boys Samantha's age went without shirts for the painstaking task of weeding each row of wheat and checking for bugs. Miss Brigham and Samantha stopped in the barns, where those not old enough for the fields fed the chickens, milked the cows, and slopped the pigs. The smell of manure overpowered Samantha to the point where she had to hold her apron over her nose. She didn't know how the boys could stand it.
"We have to be careful with the livestock," Miss Brigham said. "Their milk, eggs, and meat have to be carefully rationed to last us for the entire year." They went outside into a pasture, where a flock of sheep grazed. "Before winter we shear the sheep so Prudence can turn their wool into new clothes."