With the setting of the sun not too far away, we looked back over the picked field, elated that it was finished. There were many green bolls remaining on the stalks, some of which were bulging at the “seams” from the expanding cotton inside them that would need to be picked later. But for now, we were tired and glad that there would be a few days before the next picking. On the ground between the rows were scraps of cotton that had fallen as our hands reached to put it into our sacks. Some had been knocked off by playful young pickers or by dogs chasing rabbits up and down the rows of white cotton. The scraps were dirty and ugly from having been dragged under the heavy cotton sacks that stretched the fibers into long thin slivers and ground the dirt into them as they went. The once beautiful field of snowy white cotton hanging loose and fluffy from the fanciful dry brown bolls was no longer beautiful to those who passed by. The picture that is presented to the landowner and to us cotton pickers, however, was one of a job well done. That called for a special treat…
As the farmer finished weighing up the sacks of cotton and emptying them into the wagon, we sat on the ground laughing and talking, waiting to be paid for our day’s work. Some of the older pickers took their money and started for home, thankful for having made enough to buy a little something special for dinner that evening. Others went home, thankful for the opportunity to have made a little toward paying off debts for food and clothing that had already been eaten or worn. We, who were younger, were planning what we could buy with our hard-earned cash. In our daydreaming, it always went twice as far as in reality.
“Who would like to go to the gin with me?” was a welcome question for many of us who were still young and inexperienced. It was not always asked, but today was a perfect day. The wagon had about 2000 pounds on it and there were no other fields waiting to be picked. The cotton needed to be taken to the gin where it would be turned into a bale that the farmer could sell on the market. “Who wanted to go?” I did!
We climbed onto the top of the white fluffy cotton and waited expectantly as the team of horses was hitched up to the long tongue in front of the wagon. The horses shook their harnesses and snorted from the feel of the bits in their mouths. They were not quite so happy with the prospect of this trip as we humans were!
When we finally started the bouncy ride, cushioned by the cotton underneath us, I had a sense of owning the world. The breeze that blew the hair back from my face could have been a nice cool shower for the clean feeling that I got from it. I still looked dirty to other people, but I felt clean. My hair was disheveled, my face was sunburned, but I felt good. I had a small amount of money in my pocket, and I felt rich!
I felt like singing and laughing and joking with my cousins as we passed the many farmhouses along the way to the gin. People were friendly and waved back at us. Some of them were still picking cotton in the fields half-finished, and I was glad to be where I was.
When we arrived at the gin, we had to wait in line for the big suction tube that would pull the cotton out of the wagons and send it in to the big machinery inside. It didn’t take long before we had our turn. We even stayed in the wagon as the cotton was sucked up into the big movable metal tube. In fact, we each got to try our skills at pulling that big tube around over the cotton, but it was not nearly so easy as it looked.
After the cotton was inside the gin it went through some processes that removed leaves, sticks, and pieces of cotton bolls that had found their way into the sacks of cotton. Then we watched as the big long bins with rotating “teeth” bit into the cotton fibers and removed the seeds which spilled into conduits that carried them to the seed house. The clean, seedless cotton was whisked through a passageway that ended at a press that had been lined in the bottom with a big piece of material that looked like heavy “toe sacking”, under which long metal bands were waiting to be tied around the whole bundle as it was compressed into a very compact bale of cotton which would weigh around 500 pounds. As the bale rolled from the press into the yard it was ready to take home or to sell there. The cotton seeds were also the farmer’s to take home or to sell to the gin company.
The cycle was near the end. From the planted seed to the bale of cotton, a farmer put in many hours of hard work and provided many hours of opportunity for others to earn money and to experience a great miracle of nature. Today, man’s processes have changed drastically, but God’s has needed no improvement.
If cotton fields could talk, they would tell you many more interesting stories than I have, from the lives of others who learned some of life’s great lessons while bowing their wills to work in a cotton patch! May each of you have had your own special “cotton patch”.
This was the last “Cotton Patch” article written by Jo Redding originally published by Redding Magazine.
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