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Authors: Edward Everett Dale
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types of feed on his farm of four or five hundred acres. He was in sore need of cotton pickers and help to gather corn, which in most Southern states is not husked but snapped from the stalks in the husk or âshuck.â He paid seventy-five cents a hundred for cotton picking and three cents a bushel for gathering corn.
Unfortunately, it had been raining and the cotton and corn were both wet. We spent the next day or two in fixing up ourcamp while we waited for sunshine to dry them so that we could work. We were camped at the edge of a field of millet which had been cut and shocked. Just beyond were shocks of sorghum.
Father cut down a sapling to make a ridgepole. One end of this was lashed to a tree and the other rested in the fork of another long pole sharpened with an axe and driven into the ground. Over this ridgepole was stretched the canvas wagon sheet to make a tent. Enough tall stalks of cane were brought to form a wall at the back and a thick layer of millet was spread on the ground beneath the canvas. In the back part of this shelter we spread our blankets and slept at night, while in the front we kept the food and cooking utensiles.
We lived in this crude camp for over a month while George and I picked cotton. George could pick from 250 to 300 pounds a day, while my limit was about 150 pounds. Father, who had never acquired any skill in picking cotton, gathered corn, which weighs about seventy-two pounds to the bushel in the husk. As he could gather a hundred bushes a day and was paid three cents a bushel, he made about as much money a day as George and I both did picking cotton at seventy-five cents a hundred.
Pickers were so hard to find that Mr. McCrory had only a young Mr. Daugherty and George and me as hired help. As a result, his whole family, consisting of a twenty-year-old son, a seventeen-year-old daughter named Cynthia, twelve-year-old Georgia, and a little girl of six called Dora, picked every day. Even his wife came out every afternoon and picked cotton until time to go home and cook supper.
Except when picking beside Cynthia, in whom he apparentlyhad a romantic interest, Mr. Daugherty sang most of the time. Unfortunately, he seemed to know only one song and just a single stanza of it:
Jesse had a wife
Who mourned all her life
Three children they were brave
But a dirty little coward
Shot Mr. Howard
And laid Jesse James in his grave.
After I heard this all day long it seemed to ring in my ears when I lay down to sleep at night.
When we had finished picking all of McCroryâs cotton, we picked for a neighboring farmer, Mr. Chandler, who paid us a dollar a hundred for picking a field that had been covered with water when Walnut Creek overflowed its banks after a heavy rain.
We became acquainted with three or four other families living near our camp and found all of them âmighty clever people,â the word clever meaning generous and kind in the vernacular of the Cross Timbers. When George and I called on the Nelsons to see if we could buy a gallon of sorghum and half a bushel of sweet potatoes they seemed glad to let us have them. They refused any payment, however, saying that they âwould not dream of charging a neighbor for a jug of sorghum molasses and a few sweet potatoes.â We were much pleased by their generosity, but applying the term âneighborâ to persons camping for a few weeks half a mile farther down the creek seemed to be stretching the word quite a bit at least.
This generous attitude seemed to be typical of everyone wemet during our stay in the Walnut Creek camp. Mr. Chandler brought us a big piece of beef cut from half of a quarter that he had bought from someone who had butchered a fat heifer and was peddling out the meat to families in the community. Father did most of the cooking over a camp fire built in front of our so-called tent. Biscuits were baked in a Dutch oven, while beans were boiled in an iron pot with a slab of salt pork to season
Unfortunately, it had been raining and the cotton and corn were both wet. We spent the next day or two in fixing up ourcamp while we waited for sunshine to dry them so that we could work. We were camped at the edge of a field of millet which had been cut and shocked. Just beyond were shocks of sorghum.
Father cut down a sapling to make a ridgepole. One end of this was lashed to a tree and the other rested in the fork of another long pole sharpened with an axe and driven into the ground. Over this ridgepole was stretched the canvas wagon sheet to make a tent. Enough tall stalks of cane were brought to form a wall at the back and a thick layer of millet was spread on the ground beneath the canvas. In the back part of this shelter we spread our blankets and slept at night, while in the front we kept the food and cooking utensiles.
We lived in this crude camp for over a month while George and I picked cotton. George could pick from 250 to 300 pounds a day, while my limit was about 150 pounds. Father, who had never acquired any skill in picking cotton, gathered corn, which weighs about seventy-two pounds to the bushel in the husk. As he could gather a hundred bushes a day and was paid three cents a bushel, he made about as much money a day as George and I both did picking cotton at seventy-five cents a hundred.
Pickers were so hard to find that Mr. McCrory had only a young Mr. Daugherty and George and me as hired help. As a result, his whole family, consisting of a twenty-year-old son, a seventeen-year-old daughter named Cynthia, twelve-year-old Georgia, and a little girl of six called Dora, picked every day. Even his wife came out every afternoon and picked cotton until time to go home and cook supper.
Except when picking beside Cynthia, in whom he apparentlyhad a romantic interest, Mr. Daugherty sang most of the time. Unfortunately, he seemed to know only one song and just a single stanza of it:
Jesse had a wife
Who mourned all her life
Three children they were brave
But a dirty little coward
Shot Mr. Howard
And laid Jesse James in his grave.
After I heard this all day long it seemed to ring in my ears when I lay down to sleep at night.
When we had finished picking all of McCroryâs cotton, we picked for a neighboring farmer, Mr. Chandler, who paid us a dollar a hundred for picking a field that had been covered with water when Walnut Creek overflowed its banks after a heavy rain.
We became acquainted with three or four other families living near our camp and found all of them âmighty clever people,â the word clever meaning generous and kind in the vernacular of the Cross Timbers. When George and I called on the Nelsons to see if we could buy a gallon of sorghum and half a bushel of sweet potatoes they seemed glad to let us have them. They refused any payment, however, saying that they âwould not dream of charging a neighbor for a jug of sorghum molasses and a few sweet potatoes.â We were much pleased by their generosity, but applying the term âneighborâ to persons camping for a few weeks half a mile farther down the creek seemed to be stretching the word quite a bit at least.
This generous attitude seemed to be typical of everyone wemet during our stay in the Walnut Creek camp. Mr. Chandler brought us a big piece of beef cut from half of a quarter that he had bought from someone who had butchered a fat heifer and was peddling out the meat to families in the community. Father did most of the cooking over a camp fire built in front of our so-called tent. Biscuits were baked in a Dutch oven, while beans were boiled in an iron pot with a slab of salt pork to season
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