I gave up trying to stay up with everybody, concentrated on just picking cotton, and soon discovered that it wasn’t fun anymore, that it was actually back-breaking work. But I kept at it. Looking down the row I saw that the others had finished their rows and were emptying their sacks into the bigger sacks in the cotton house. I stood up on my toes and peered across the field. In the distance I could see the Robinsons picking away, with several bare rows beyond them which they had already stripped clean. I was amazed at how much cotton they had already picked.
Now everyone was coming back toward me, starting on their second row, and then for a while I was back in among the talking and the laughter. Eventually though, they were gone again and I was picking alone by the time I reached the end of my first row.
I turned and watched everyone getting further and further away. That’s when I realized this day was going to be a lot longer than I had anticipated. I found one of the big empty sacks at the cotton house, emptied my sack into it, marked my spot, and was just about to head back toward starting my second row when I spotted Poudlum.
The top of his straw hat was just visible above the rows of white cotton. Then I noticed that no one was with him, that he was picking by himself, too. That’s when I understood that the same thing was happening to both of us—because we were the smallest, we were being left behind.
I asked myself, why should we have to pick alone when we could be picking together? I made my decision and started walking toward the other side of the field where I was going to be picking with Poudlum.
In the summer of 1948, I reverse integrated the cotton field.
Poudlum was in the middle of a row by himself when I caught up with him and I saw his eyes light up when I asked, “You want to let’s pick together, Poudlum?”
“Sho does, I hates picking by myself. Just start in de middle of dis row next to me. We’ll pick from de same row coming back, den split up when we gets back to where you started.”
We started right off picking. “You ain’t talked to nobody about yesterday, have you?”
“Naw, I ain’t said nothing to nobody, has you?”
“No, and let’s be sure and keep it that way, at least for right now.”
It didn’t take me long to notice that even though we were the same size, Poudlum kept getting ahead of me and had to slow down for me to catch up. This prompted me to ask, “How come you can pick so much faster than me?”
“One thing, you need to pick with both hands.”
“Huh?”
“I noticed you holds de boll wid yo’ left hand and pulls the cotton out wid yo’ right. No need to hold de boll, just pull cotton out of separate bolls wid each hand. You only needs to hold de boll if it breaks off de stalk, and dat won’t happen much.”
I tried this for a while and sure enough it worked. I was picking faster. “What else do I need to do?”
“Get yo’ self a rhythm.”
“How do I do that?”
“Don’t just stand stiff, reaching wid only yo’ hands and arms. Lean and sway all around de plant and let yo’ hands fly.”
Pretty soon I was almost able to keep up with Poudlum. “Anything else you can think of?”
“Find de fastest speed you can pick at and den stick wid it.”
I put Poudlum’s advice to practice and soon cotton was flying into my sack. Before long we passed his family going in the opposite direction. They all grinned and nodded while they kept picking.
When we reached the end of our row we took a small break to pack the cotton down into our sacks. Poudlum looked toward the road and said, “I wish yo’ Uncle Curvin would hurry up wid dat water. I sho is thirsty.”
We had only picked a few feet down our new row when we saw his truck pulling in on the other side of the field. I watched the people over there drop their sacks in the fields and start walking towards the truck. I guess they were thirsty, too. I turned my back toward them, resumed picking , and reassured Poudlum by saying, “It won’t be long now.”
In a few moments I noticed Poudlum had stopped picking. “Uh-oh,” he said.
“What’s the matter?”
“Look over dere.”
I turned and saw several of the white pickers gathered around the truck, pointing straight toward Poudlum and me. Uncle Curvin was looking right at us, too.
After they had taken several gallon jugs of water off the truck, Uncle Curvin drove along the edge of the field towards us. When he stopped at the end of our row, Poudlum said, “He looks like he be mad.”
“I don’t know what about. Come on, let’s get some water,” I said while slipping the strap of the sack over my head and dropping it.
Uncle Curvin was out of the truck and limping around it when I said, “Glad to see you, Uncle Curvin, ’cause we are awful—”
“Boy, what did I say this morning about coming over here and bothering these folks? Now, get your sack and get on back on the other side of the field before I take a cotton stalk to you.”
He did sound angry, and I was stunned. While I stood there with my mouth open he yelled, “You hear me, boy!”
“But I just come over here to pick with Poudlum ’cause can’t neither one of us keep up with—”
“I don’t care why you come over here. If you don’t get—”
It was his turn to be interrupted, and it was by Mrs. Robinson as she came crashing across several rows of cotton. “Mister Curvin, dat child ain’t bothering nobody on dis side of de field. Fact is, it be a pleasure to have him over here. Ain’t nary thing wrong wid him and my Poudlum picking together.”
Uncle Curvin wasn’t intimidated. “He can get to the other side or get outta my field.”
Mrs. Robinson wasn’t intimidated either. She put her hands on her hips and said, “Mister Curvin, if Mister Ted gots to leave den we does, too.”
I could see the uncertainty on Uncle Curvin’s face. “But it just ain’t right for him to be over here with—”
“I’ll take my whole family right out dis field.”
His uncertainty changed to panic, then a defeated look appeared on his face. He let out a long sigh and said, “All right then, y’all come on and get some water. I know you’re thirsty.”
After Uncle Curvin was gone, we drank our fill of water, then stored the jugs next to the fence under the shade of some bushes.
When we headed back toward our cotton sacks, I looked at Poudlum’s mother and said, “Thank you, Mrs. Robinson.”
She stopped, looked down at me, and said, “I be de one who should be thanking you.”
“What for?”
“’Cause on account of you my children got milk to drink, but more important dan dat, you de first white person to ever call me Misses.”
Lunchtime presented a new dilemma. The Robinsons gathered around the shade with the water jugs where Mrs. Robinson produced two gallon syrup buckets. After popping the lids off she began passing out biscuits—big ones. A lot bigger than the ones my mother made. “You welcome to have a biscuit wid us, Mister Ted. We got plenty.”
I wanted to go see Fred and eat with him, but I didn’t want to offend the Robinsons. I decided to do both. The biscuit had a big fried slice of streak-o-lean in it. After I finished it I told Poudlum, “I’m going over to the other side of the field and see my brother. I’ll be back in a little while.”
I found Fred sitting alone in the shade of Uncle Curvin’s truck with his back against the tire. I knew he had been in a fight when I saw his mouth. I asked, “How did you get a busted lip?”
“Got in two fights.”
“How come?”
“On account of you.”
“Why?”
“’Cause some of them are calling you a nigger-lover.”
“But I just went over there to pick with Poudlum ’cause y’all were leaving me by myself.”
&
nbsp; “I know. Uncle Curvin came back and told everybody that. Everybody’s okay now.”
“I’m sorry you got hit in the mouth.”
“It’s all right. I busted them upside their heads good. They won’t bother me no more. Here’s your two sausage and biscuits. I already ate mine.”
I took the paper bag and said, “I don’t want but one. You eat the other one.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, eat it.”
While we finished our lunch I told him everything Poudlum had taught me about picking cotton.
“So that’s why they can pick so much more than us. I’m gonna try it and I ain’t telling none of the others.”
“I got to go,” I said.
“I’ll see you at the cotton house when we weigh up. See if you can find out any more picking tricks,” Fred said.
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky that afternoon and the hot sun beamed down relentlessly. I was shirtless, but I didn’t burn because I had been exposed to the sun all summer long. It was the sweat that bothered me. It would run down into my eyes and down my neck, and it burned. I noticed that Poudlum had a big rag in his pocket to mop his face and neck. I would remember that tomorrow.
Uncle Curvin made three more water deliveries and we guzzled huge amounts at the end of each row.
About midafternoon the ground became so hot I couldn’t stand on it with my bare feet. Poudlum taught me to scrape away the first two inches of dirt and then stand in the spot we had excavated. The ground was cooler underneath the crust, so we kicked away the hot surface of the ground next to each plant as we approached it, then just kept picking.
I stood up straight—slowly because of my aching back—and looked toward the other side of the field. Only one lone figure was picking over there. It was Fred. The rest were piled up under a shade tree.
“You gots to get yo’ self a straw hat so de sun don’t bake yo’ head,” Poudlum said.
I looked down the row as the rest of his family approached us from the opposite direction and saw that they all had straw hats. I added “straw hat” to my list for tomorrow.
The next thing I knew, Fred came walking up to us, moving fast across the hot ground. “Poudlum,” I said, “This is my brother, Fred.”
“Hey, Mister Fred.”
“Hey, Poudlum. I came over here to see how y’all bear to stand on the hot ground—”
He stopped talking because his eyes had lowered to the ground, then he said, “Oh, I see. Y’all just dig a hole and stand in it. I can do that. See y’all later.” He took off back across the field.
“How old yo’ brother be?” Poudlum asked.
“He’s thirteen.”
“He sho is big.”
“Yeah, he’s real strong too. And he can shoot marbles better than anybody.”
“His hair is ’most white, just like you. My momma calls y’all de golden boys.”
We went back to picking and later on I found myself wondering how anybody could stand the torture any longer. That’s when I heard the haunting sound coming from Poudlum’s approaching family. It was almost as startling as when I first heard Jake singing the blues. I stared toward them. “What are they doing?” I asked Poudlum.
“Dey’s singing.”
“I can hear that, but why are they doing it out here in the middle of this cotton field?”
“’Cause sometimes when things get so bad you can’t hardly stand it, den a little singing will take yo’ mind to a finer place while yo’ body stays and endures the pain.”
“How you know all that, Poudlum?”
“’Cause my momma told me so.”
“Well, I sure would like to be in a finer place. You think it’ll work for us?”
“Sho it will—just listen.”
It was true. The sound of their voices and the impact of the words made me forget the heat, the aches and pains, the thirst, and all the other discomforts. I kept picking cotton while the sweet words of the old spiritual swept over me.
“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
“Nobody knows my sorrow . . .”
The effect of the singing stayed with me long after the sounds had faded, and the lesson of listening to it, letting it take you away, was forever embedded in my mind. I knew now that I could endure most anything by diverting my thoughts to something pleasant. I spent the remainder of the day thinking about the cool water of the Mill Creek, the taste of a peach Nehi, and many other happy thoughts while my body suffered. Before I knew it the day was over.
I saw Uncle Curvin’s truck traveling along the edge of the field, then he came to a stop at the cotton house. I watched while he limped from the truck to the corner of the cotton house and hung the scale on a piece of wire dangling from one of the rafters. Then he turned toward the field and waved for everyone to come on in.
The cotton scale consisted of a long metal bar with two metal hooks on swivels about a third of the way down the bar. One hook was on top and one was underneath. The top one was what Uncle Curvin hooked to the piece of wire.
The cotton sack to be weighed was hung from the bottom hook, then the number of pounds it contained was determined by hanging weights onto the numbered notches on the bar until it became level.
Everybody had emptied their picking sacks into their larger sacks and was dragging them toward the cotton house. The white pickers arrived first, except for Fred, who came straggling up when Poudlum and I did. The rest of the Robinsons were far behind because they had so many more sacks to drag up.
As Uncle Curvin weighed up one of the white pickers’ sacks after another and passed out the coins, he said, “I know all y’all are gonna walk down to Miss Lena’s store and spend every nickel you made today, so when I finish up I’ll be taking the Robinsons home first, then I’ll come and pick everybody up at the store and you’ll all be home by supper time.”
Then he got to Fred’s sack.
Uncle Curvin moved the weights down the scale. When he reached fifty-five pounds, the scale finally balanced. It was the heaviest sack from that side of the field. He tinkered some with the scale, then looked sternly at Fred and said, “What did I tell you about putting rocks in your sack, boy?”
“Ain’t no rocks in there, Uncle Curvin.”
“Well, we’ll just see about that,” Uncle Curvin said. He turned the sack upside down and emptied it on the ground. Then he spread the cotton out and ran his fingers all though it, but he found no rocks.
“See,” Fred told him.
“I can’t believe you picked that much, but I guess you did. Put it back in the sack and I’ll pay you.”
Fred was stubborn. “I done put it in the sack one time. You emptied it, you put it back.”
“Boy, I’ll whack you with my walking stick if I have to. You pick up that—”
“We’ll get it, Uncle Curvin,” I said, tugging on Poudlum’s arm. “Help me, Poudlum.”
We stuffed Fred’s cotton back into his sack while he glared at Uncle Curvin with his hand held out for his money.
Uncle Curvin questioned my sack, too, when it weighed in at forty pounds, but he paid me my forty cents, looked at us both, and said, “I’m sorry I questioned your weight, boys. I underestimated you. You both did a good job today.”
“You wanna go to the store?” I asked Fred.
“Naw, let’s save our money and just go on home. I’m tired and I’m hungry.”
We cut across the field, climbed the fence, and were already halfway home when we reached Friendship Road.
I left that cotton field a lot smarter than when I had arrived that morning. Fred did, too. But more importantly, after integrating it, I had been a part of the first local threat of a boycott.
12
Fire
By Wednesday all the white pickers had abandoned the cotton field except Fred and me. On T
hursday Fred moved over to the side of the field where the Robinsons and I were picking. We continued to amaze Uncle Curvin with the number of pounds we turned in at each weighing, but we were both glad when the end of the day came on Friday. We had proved ourselves capable in the cotton field, but there was only a day’s work left before the field would be picked clean, and the Robinsons would complete that tomorrow. I had papers to sell and Fred had marbles to shoot, so we said good-bye to that cotton patch and went to Miss Lena’s store for Nehis and MoonPies.
On Saturday, I had already completed the eastern part of my paper route well before noon, but instead of turning back west I continued east on Center Point Road. Pretty soon I saw the Saltifa Creek bridge up ahead. Before crossing it I stopped and listened hard for a car coming in either direction, because I knew that once I got in the middle of the bridge there would be no place to hide. Everything was so quiet I could hear myself breathing, so I trotted across, then started walking in the ditch on the right side of the road. Somewhere, not far, I knew there had to be an old logging road going into the woods.
I kept walking, ready to dart into the woods if I heard a car approaching. Not even a quarter of a mile past the bridge, there it was, with a big no trespassing sign nailed to a tree. I knew what that sign meant, but I paid it no mind.
After finding fresh car tracks I felt confident that this road led to the still. I started jogging because I knew it was a long way. What if the bootlegger came here on Saturdays? There were plenty of places to hide on either side of the road.
After a while I knew I was on the correct road because occasionally I could hear the Satilfa rippling off to the right. Suddenly, I came to the end of the road and knew the still was right through the woods ahead.
It was quiet and deserted. Everything looked the same, except there were six boxes instead of four under the table. Lifting the lid of the top one, I saw that they were full of whiskey, ready to be picked up. I counted forty-eight pint bottles inside the box.
A Yellow Watermelon Page 9