The Good Earth (House of Earth, #1)

by Pearl S. Buck

He took his life from this earth; drop by drop by his sweat he wrung food from it and from the food, silver. Each time before this that he had taken the silver out to give to anyone, it had been like taking a piece of his life and giving it to someone carelessly. But now for the first time such giving was not pain.

And to him war was a thing like earth and sky and water and why it was no one knew but only that it was.