The Life of a Plymouth Colony Settler, as Imagined by a Seventh Grade Social Studies Student

SAT
The worst of the cold has not yet arrived, but the leaves are falling and so we are beginning to prepare for the winter. I chopped wood from sunrise to sunset. Fortunately, since there has been little else to do but chop wood all summer, we have enough logs for the next three or four winters. We are truly blessed to have such an abundance of logs. Tomorrow I may chop some more as it passes the time splendidly. It's much more effective than the kinds of things we normally do, like sitting motionless in stiff wooden chairs, staring blankly at the walls in front of us.

SUN
We were almost late to church this morning, only just arriving at the stroke of midnight. It was a wonderful service and the twenty-four hours simply flew right by. It's a shame we can't have church like this every day. The woodpile looked a little small when we arrived home. My wife says I'm just imagining things to give myself an excuse to chop more wood and she might just be right. I'd like to get some chopping in tomorrow either way.

MON
A local tribe of savages, upset that we pushed them off their land, attacked our village early this morning. Fortunately, they were only armed with bows and arrows so we were able to use our superior weaponry to pick them off one by one as they charged to their inevitable deaths, whooping and hollering over the hill. The threat was quashed before any of our settlers could be harmed or kidnapped or scalped or anything cool like that. Rather than launch a counter-offensive, we decided to bring them a peace offering of blankets laced with smallpox to wipe out the tribe. This way, we can be sure that nothing else even remotely interesting would befall us anytime soon. Woodpile looks good, but you can never chop too much. Might as well add a bit more to it tomorrow.

TUES
The family and I made it through the whole Bible in one sitting this afternoon. We are quite proud of our achievement and feel all the more pious for it. We took turns, my wife and the children and I, switching off every chapter. Unlucky me, I got stuck with all the short ones--both Philemon and Titus! All of us made sure to read very very slowly so we could focus on the holy words rather than the sun's agonizingly slow crawl across the sky. Luckily the sun is setting earlier these days so we can all go to bed before we are struck with the impulse to do something rash like entertain ourselves with such evil pastimes as playing cards or literature or sexual advances without the goal of procreation. With all the excitement of trudging through the Holy Scripture for the hundredth time in as many weeks, I completely forgot to chop any logs today. I must remember to check the woodpile tomorrow.

WED
I woke up this morning to find my loyal wife already chopping logs for me. With nothing else to do, I decided to try my hand at a little yardwork. First, I collected all the leaves that had not yet rotted and turned brown (one at a time to prolong the task, of course) and threw them into the fire. After that, I ripped up all the grass in both the front and back yards, and buried the grass under an inch of soil. It looks much better. Now there is nothing inside or outside the house that is not completely brown. I am sure this demonstrates our family's devotion to God, because God, as we Puritans understand Him, dislikes colors and loves boring things.

THURS
I have decided that, from now on, I will replace the letter "s" where it would normally appear with an "f." The reasonf for thif are twofold. Firft, becaufe thif if new and unfamiliar to me and becaufe I need lotf of extra concentration to do it correctly, it enablef me to fpend af much time writing af poffible fo I don't have to concern myfelf with other thingf, like the perfect filence of a houfe full of utterly dull people with nothing to fay to one another, the increafing monotony and hollowneff of our livef, and the ever-dwindling woodpile outfide. Fecond, it will be fure to confufe any unlucky feventh graderf who have the miffortune of having to read about our moft banal of exiftencef from any firfthand fourcef for their focial ftudief claffef.

FRI
Apparently, John Lynch died in bed overnight. Lucky baftard.