A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton (30 page)

I was pretty well recovered now and feeling good, though my back still had a lot of scabs that hurt if I twisted the wrong way. But we were still being real careful about watching for anyone coming and had a plan to hide Emma and me if anyone from the McSimmons place came snooping around.

One day I went out to the fields. I was just looking about, not thinking of much in particular. I found myself in one of the fields that had been planted with cotton. Cotton was so familiar that I didn’t think anything of it. We hadn’t been paying any attention to these fields because cotton was of no use to us. But on this day I found myself looking at it. Most of the bolls were bursting open. I recognized the look and knew it was ready to be harvested.

Suddenly my eyes shot open wide. I turned and spun around and around—everywhere I looked, cotton was bursting!

Cotton!

It was the crop that had built all the huge plantations through the South. It was the reason there had been slaves.

They picked it so their owners could
sell
it! Maybe it could be of some use to us after all!

I turned and ran back as fast as I could.

“Katie,” I said when I got to the house out of breath. “Maybe there is a way we can make some money for that loan with the man at the bank.”

“How?” she asked.

“Pick the cotton,” I said. “Pick it and
sell
it!”

“
Could
we, Mayme … could we really?”

“We could pick some of it anyway.”

“Do you know how?” she asked.

“I know how to pick it all right!” I laughed. “I reckon every black person in the South could pick cotton in their sleep! Well,
most
black folks anyway—I’m not sure about Emma. But I don’t know what to do with it after it’s picked. What do you do then? How do you sell it?”

“I know how to do that,” said Katie.

“You do!”

“Yes—there’s a man in Greens Crossing who buys it.”

“What about baling it?” I said. “That’s another thing I don’t know how to do.”

“I watched Jeremiah and Mathias do it,” said Katie. “You just put it in the baling box, press it all tight, and tie the baling string around it.”

“But the bales are so huge,” I said. “I’ve seen them. They’re as big as a wagon. We could never move them.”

“I’m talking about small bales,” said Katie. “We’ve got a hundred-pound baler box.”

“A hundred pounds is the
small
size! We couldn’t lift a hundred pounds either. That’s as much as you and me weigh, Katie.”

“We could put the box up in the wagon first and do the baling and tying in the back of the wagon so we don’t have to lift the bales into it when we’re done.”

I could tell Katie was getting excited at the notion.

“And you really think we could sell it,” I said, “that is, if we
could
pick it and get it into bales?”

“I did it once before,” said Katie. “I took a wagon into town for my mama.”

I pondered the idea some more. There was an objection that had come to my mind.

“There’s one more thing, Katie,” I said. “You’re going to have to let me do the picking.”

“What are you talking about?” said Katie.

“Just what I said. I’m used to it, so I’ll do it.”

“And I’ll help you,” she insisted.

“Picking cotton’s slave work, Katie,” I said. “It’s the hardest, hottest, most tedious work there is.”

“Mayme, we’ve got to do something,” said Katie. “Mr. Taylor’s going to take Rosewood away from us if we don’t find some money for that loan.”

“It doesn’t seem right for you to pick cotton,” I said again. “If it was anything but picking cotton. Maybe Emma could help me.”

“There aren’t any such things as slaves and masters anymore, Mayme,” said Katie. “Everything’s changed. There’s just you and me and Emma and Aleta. We can’t let Mr. Taylor take Rosewood or it’ll be like you told me before—I’ll have to go to one of my uncles or an orphanage or something. Aleta would be taken back to her father, or taken to an orphanage too if she’s not who Reverend Hall was asking about. And they’d find Emma, and what would become of her without us? And what would happen to you? So we’ve got to do something, Mayme. We can’t harvest the wheat to sell. We can’t sell the cows or chickens—we need them. And we couldn’t get more than a few dollars selling eggs. It was a great idea you had. The cotton’s the only thing we’ve got. And it’s my cotton now, Mayme, and I want to pick it.”

“All right, you win,” I said. “I’ll show you how to do it, and we’ll pick it together.”

“What about Aleta?” asked Katie. “Do you think she could help us too? Is it work she could do?”

“I was picking cotton when I was younger than her,” I said. “It’s hard work, but I reckon if you’re going to do it, she could help too.”

“Then maybe it’s time we told her what we were doing, Mayme. Maybe it’s time to make her part of our plan. If she’s going to help us save Rosewood, she’s got a right to know.”

“You should be the one to talk to her,” I said.

“I’ll do it tomorrow.”

We both sat quietly thinking as everything we’d been talking about gradually sank in.

“When can we start picking the cotton?” Katie asked eagerly. “There’s no time to lose.”

“Any day,” I said. “I’ll go out and check the fields again just to make sure. Then we’ll start getting things ready this afternoon.”

M
ORNING IN THE
F
IELD
45

T
HE DAY AFTER OUR TALK, BOTH KATIE AND I
got up with a sense of anticipation.

We knew we were facing a crossroads. If we didn’t do something, and soon, our little game of trying to make this plantation work by ourselves would be over. People would take us away and all four of us would go our separate ways.

We looked at each other with serious expressions, sort of saying,
Well, I guess this is it
. Then we both went about our business of getting ready for the day.

There was just about nothing in the world I hated more than picking cotton. But for some reason now I was almost looking forward to it. Having it be our
own
cotton, and knowing we
had
to do it to survive and keep going and eat and take care of ourselves and to protect Emma and William and save Rosewood for Katie—all that made it seem completely different. Of course, it wasn’t really mine, it was Katie’s. But it felt like it was part mine, because in a way it was all of ours. It was
our
plantation now, just like Katie had tried to tell me a while back.

I went out to the biggest field to look over the crop again. It was full of weeds growing as high as the cotton, but the field was full of white too. The bolls had opened and the white fluffy balls were exploding out everywhere. It was the white that mattered, not the weeds.

The field was ready!

Could we do it? Could four girls trying to fend for themselves really harvest enough cotton to sell for real cash money?

How much could we pick? I didn’t know. For a field this size a year ago, there might have been twenty or thirty colored men and women. But then the field might all be picked in three or four days. If it didn’t rain, maybe it’d take me and Katie two or three weeks, maybe more. I had no idea. If Aleta and Emma could help us, it would go faster. But would that be in time?

I reckon we’d find out. And maybe the whole future of Katie Clairborne’s and Mayme Jukes’s crazy scheme would depend on whether we could.

I walked slowly through the field, white puffs of cotton all around me. I stopped, then reached down and picked off one of the little white balls from a nearby plant.

I held it in my fingers and looked at it for a few seconds, then again around at the field surrounding me.

Well, you old cotton field,
I said,
here I am again. But I don’t hate you no more, ’cause I reckon the day’s come when you’re my own cotton now too, just like Katie said, or something like it anyhow. And I’m gonna pick as much of you as I can!

I tossed the ball of cotton up in the air, watched it float to the ground, then turned and walked back the way I had come. Slowly I began humming the tune we’d sung on my birthday, then started softly singing it as I walked back to the house.

“We planted this cotton in April, on the full of the moon.

We’ve had a hot, dry summer. That’s why it opened so soon.

Cotton needs a-pickin’ so bad, cotton needs a-pickin’ so bad, Cotton needs a-pickin’ so bad, gonna pick all over this field.”

While I’d gone out to the field, Katie had called Aleta and Emma together for a serious talk.

“Aleta,” said Katie when they were together in the kitchen, “I need to have an important talk with you.”

They sat down. Aleta could tell from Katie’s voice that whatever it was, it was serious. She looked into Katie’s face waiting, and a little afraid that Katie was getting ready to send her away.

“I want you to tell me where you and your mother lived,” said Katie.

“Oakwood,” answered Aleta nervously, glancing over to where Emma sat quietly waiting and worrying about what Katie would say to her next.

“That’s where you were riding away from when your daddy was chasing you?”

Aleta nodded.

“What is your last name, Aleta?”

“Butler.”

“Aleta Butler … that’s a nice name. What is your father’s name, Aleta?”

Aleta looked down and remained silent.

“You know, Aleta,” said Katie, “we have to do something about getting you back with your father. We must tell him about your mother. Don’t you want to live with him?”

“No. I don’t ever want to live with him again.”

Katie was quiet for a bit, thinking what to say.

“You know, it’s real special having a daddy,” she said after a minute. “Mayme and I don’t have daddies.”

“Why not?”

“Because they are both dead.”

At the word
dead,
Aleta looked up into Katie’s face with a sober expression.

“So you have something we don’t have, Aleta,” Katie continued.

“But my daddy’s mean.”

“He is still your daddy.”

“What about your mamas?” Aleta asked.

Katie hesitated.

“They are both dead too, Aleta. That’s why Mayme and I were here alone before Emma came.”

There was another long pause. Again Aleta seemed sobered by what Katie had said, though also a little confused.

“But you tell people that she’s not here,” she said.

“She isn’t here,” said Katie. “But sometimes I don’t tell them that she’s not coming back.—Do you want to keep staying with us for a while?”

“Oh yes.”

“Then we will let you, for a little while longer, until we decide what is best to do,” said Katie. “You might have other relatives, like I do, that you might want to go stay with someday.”

“Please let me stay here with you,” said Aleta.

“You have to promise something, then,” said Katie. “I normally wouldn’t ask a little girl to keep a secret from grown-ups, but this is very, very important.”

“Yes … I will do anything you say.”

“You have to promise not to tell anyone what we are doing, that we are alone here. No one can know. You know the danger Emma is in from that bad man who wants to find her. And you know what they did to poor Mayme. You saw the wounds on her back.”

Aleta nodded.

“So no one must know there are no grown-ups here, for Emma’s sake and for Mayme’s sake. Some white people want to hurt black people like Emma and Mayme. So we have to make sure they’re safe here, don’t we? So can you keep our secret?”

“I promise, Katie.”

“Even after you leave later, you can never tell.”

“I promise.—But … are there really no grown-ups? None of them are coming back? I just thought your mama was on a trip or something.”

Katie nodded. “We are doing everything ourselves,” she said. “We are just pretending that the grown-ups are still here.”

“What about that colored boy?”

“Jeremiah? Yes, he knows a little. But we haven’t told him even as much as we have you. And he’s promised not to tell either. If people knew it was only four girls by themselves on a plantation, they would take us away and do bad things to Emma and Mayme.”

“You mean … it’s all pretend?”

“The work isn’t pretend. You see how hard we work to do everything. The only thing that is pretend is that we are alone. And now we have to work harder than ever to pick the cotton to sell so that the bank won’t take the house away from us. So, Aleta, if you want to stay, you have to promise never to tell the secret of Rosewood.”

“I will … I will, Katie!” said Aleta, eyes wide with excitement.

“It also means you have to work hard. Look at my hands. I’ve never had blisters before. Now I’m sunburned and my hands are rough. Can you do that … can you help with all the work?”

“Yes.”

“And you promise not to tell?”

“I promise.”

“Then you are one of us now. Just like Mayme and I became sisters and then a little while later Emma came, and now you are our sister too. Someday we’ll find your daddy, and by then I’m sure you’ll want to go with him. But for now you may stay with us.”

Then Katie turned to Emma and explained to them both about the loan and what would happen if they didn’t get a lot of money, and that they were going to pick the cotton.