Polka dots at dusk

Neighbours' child heading home after shutting up the ducks on a bitterly cold afternoon. You're never too young to be useful on a farm.

In Norfolk in the mid-19th century: Types of work done by girls were reported to include turnip singling, twitching, and bird keeping in the spring and summer.
Other work mentioned in first hand accounts included pulling turnips and mangolds. Sarah Ann Bullard described the effects of this work on her daughter Maria, aged 9:
“Her poor little hands have been so sore at night, from pulling turnips and mangolds with them, that I have had to doctor them; the backs were cracked open from the wind and wet in the morning, and blisters inside."