When one works as hard as we worked in the cotton fields to earn money, it becomes of utmost importance how that money will be spent. I don’t remember as much about how I used money earned from chopping cotton as that which I earned later in the year from picking cotton, but you can be sure it was not spent lightly. Once, I lost a one-dollar bill, and I was devastated. After looking everywhere I could think of, I lost all hope of finding it. A few days later as I was putting on a pair of knee-length socks, I found a clean, washed, one dollar bill in the toe of one of them (A long sock is a good place to tuck paper money if you don’t forget where you put it!)
A field of cotton was chopped, or hoed, at least twice before being left to bloom and mature. The second chopping was primarily to clean out the weeds, but sometimes one or two good stalks were definitely stronger than the others in a group. Where there were weak, sickly plants that would draw nourishment that could be put to better use by the healthier ones, the weak ones were sacrificed to the chop of the hoe.
The green, healthy plants, when left to grow undisturbed, put on beautiful pink and white blossoms that matured and fell off to be replaced by little green “packages” that were called squares. These squares became larger and rounder until they looked like green eggs that were scored lengthwise into 5-6 segments. (I wonder if Dr. Seuss was inspired to write one of his famous books while watching a stray pig run through a field of green cotton!) These “eggs” were hard and full of tightly packed greenish-white, damp fiber that would slowly dry out inside the green boll and eventually would burst the boll open along the scored lines. As the fibers inside the boll dried and fluffed out, the green shell also dried out and slowly turned brown. It eventually became so dry that it was brittle, and it had very sharp points at the end of each separated segment. These points often inflicted pain upon the fingers that worked at extracting the fluffy, white cotton from inside the boll.
While we rest and let the cotton mature, I want to inform you about an interesting consideration for the farmer that affected the whole community.
The school terms had been similar to the current school terms of nine months, extending from the beginning of September through May. Because the early part of the school session conflicted with children helping with cotton picking, the county schools rearranged their schedules to accommodate the farmer. A summer session of six weeks beginning in July and extending into August was followed by a six-week “vacation” during which most of the cotton could be harvested.
My parents were both school teachers, with Dad being the principal in most of his assignments, and Mother teaching in the early elementary grades. All of their schools were in rural areas, and although they were sympathetic with the farmer, they were dismayed at the degree to which some students were absent before the change was made in the schedule. It seemed to be a good solution for both schools and farmers!
Except for church, school was the center of family life for us. Wherever Dad served as principal, we were provided with a home adjoining the school property. During my eleven years in public school, I only attended two years in a separate facility than the one in which my parents taught. My mother was never my teacher, but Dad taught me in both the fifth and sixth grades! I remember his Palmer handwriting drills that were so neat, but I also remember having to rewrite a paper at least twice before he would accept it. I thought writing tiny and backhanded was cute, but he didn’t!
This is the fourth article of this series written by a grandmother born in the thirties. Times were very different than now, but they were good because we worked together as a family to make a modest living. We experienced what it was like to go without, and we learned to be thankful for little things.