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The foreman asked my opinion upon various points of plantation management, but I deferred making answer until a subsequent occasion. In every case I told him to do for the present as they had been accustomed, and I would make such changes as I saw fit from time to time. Cotton-picking requires skill rather than strength.
So that's how come we're shore going back to the onions next summer." Cotton-picking was over, and the Beechams tided themselves over with odd jobs till spring came and they could move on to steadier work. This time they were going up into Colorado to work in the beets. "And high time!" said Grandma.
The poor slave-woman, last night parted from her only boy, and weary with the cotton-picking, the captive pining in his cell, the patient wife of the drunkard, saddened by a consciousness of the growing vileness of one so dear to her once, the delicate spirit doomed to harsh and uncongenial surroundings, all in such hours feel the soothings of a celestial harmony, the tenderness of more than a mother's love.
As for the new hands, they ought to lead the field, for they were all young, stout fellows. As has been said, Alston was tall, strong, well-made. Working in tobacco, to whose culture he had been used, he could hold his hand with the best: how would it be in this new business of cotton-picking? He had a strong element of cheerful fidelity in his nature.
When about thirty-seven years of age he was sold to a Mississippi plantation, in the north-western part of the State and on the river. The farm was managed by an overseer, the master Horton by name being a practising physician in Memphis, Tenn. Alston had been on the plantation a few weeks when, toward the last of September, the cotton-picking season opened.
The first cotton-picking season that came round after my marriage seemed to afford Charlie no end of opportunities for riding his hobby at a fast and furious pace. It seemed as if there was no end to the things that mother used to do at that important season.
Colburn, in my absence, had organized our force, lately engaged in cotton-picking, into suitable parties for gathering corn, of which we had some three hundred acres standing in the field. In New England I fear that corn which had remained ungathered until the middle of February, would be of comparatively little value. In our case it was apparently as sound as when first ripened.
By some masters the stint was increased by the addition of the excess. The task was always regulated by the condition of the cotton in the field. Where it would sometimes be three hundred pounds, at others it would not exceed one hundred. At the time I commenced my cotton-picking, the circumstances were not favorable to a large return.
To transfer the passions of man and to music-riddle them is an art with stiff-jointed rules, but the charm of a cotton-picking scene is an essence, and is breathed but cannot be caught. Here seems to lie a sentiment that no other labor invites, and though old with a thousand endearments, it is ever an opera rehearsed for the first time.
I don't quite understand it. Why, sir, at present they can find no possible excuse for revolt. The crops are gathered and they can make no demand for higher wages; no election is near and they can't claim a political cause for disaffection. If they want better pay for their labor, why didn't they strike in the midst of the cotton-picking?
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