My Older Brother

My Older Brother My brother is the oldest among the six children in our family. He is smart, but he had to drop out of school at the age of twelve to help our parents—there were too many mouths to feed. Late fall was the season for harvesting. My brother took me to the field where the sweet potatoes had just been harvested. We got up early to look for any sweet potatoes that had been left in the field. With a heavy shovel, my brother started digging. My job was to watch the ground to see if any sweet potatoes appeared. It was still a little dark. My eyes opened wide while my brother dug in the soil.

“ Wait! I saw one! ” I yelled. My brother stopped digging. I picked up the sweet potato and put it in a basket. We were so happy. We felt like we had found a gold mine! An hour later, when the other people had come to the field, our basket was filled with sweet potatoes.