Characters: Shufti, Jack
Rating: A

Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with Terry Pratchett or Discworld.
Note: Okay, so it wasn't great. Meh. But I was knitting a sock (so yes, I did actually write what I know) and remembered the "Knit for our boys!" campaign from WWII. How incredibly appropriate, I thought. So I banged this out. No need for adulation, or inclusion in any challenges. I just wanted this out there.

On the Homefront
by Niteflite

Shufti tickled Jack's little foot. "And then, he tried to use a piece of bark! He'd scrape and scrape and then get a splinter! And when Lieutenant Blouse got that splinter, he'd say..."

Jack giggled as his mother repeated the funniest part of the story, "'Ouch! Oops! Staying shorn hurts!'" She tucked her son into bed tenderly as she finished the tale. "Finally, he asked little Private Perks to shave him, a girl who'd never grown a whisker. With each nick and cut, Blouse said, 'Ouch!' Perks said, 'Oops! Shaving must hurt!'"

She kissed Jack's downy head as his eyelids drifted closed. Placing his little stuffed dragon in his chubby fingers, she picked up the taper and padded down the hall to the little sewing nook she had set up in the sitting room. Paul was there, fleshing out a sketch of a sparrow he had seen on the window sill that afternoon.

They exchanged small smiles as she picked up her knitting and wrapped the yarn around the fingers of her left hand. Sitting with a ramrod-straight back, she began forming each stitch, pushing the needle in, wrapping the yarn around with uniform tension, pulling the yarn through the loop, and taking the stitch off of the left needle. Around and around the knitted tube she went, each stitch the same as its brothers, the four thin needles forming a crown of sorts at the top of the garment.

She didn't include any furbelows like fair isle or cabling of any sort. Who would see them anyway? She was making clothing for the troops to keep warm, not for her family to wear to church. No, these were regulation knitwear, navy blue and completely servicable.

As she began to knit the heel flap, she smiled. Yes, her efforts were welcomed by the soldiers. After all, every one of the little lads needed nice, thick socks.