But why does every one leave the
cotton crop to the negro. It isn't a hard crop to raise, is it?"
"Thar's no one else c'n do it but the negro, sah," the preacher
answered. "It's the hardes' kin' of work, an' it has to be done in
summer, an' thar's no shade in a cotton fiel'. Right from the sowin'
until the las' boll is picked, cotton needs tendin', an' yo' don' have
much cool weather down hyar."
"You sow cotton something like corn, don't you?" asked the boy, who had
never seen a cotton plantation and wanted to know something about it.
"Yas, sah, jes' about the same way, only it has to be hilled higher an'
hoed more'n corn. An' weeds jes' spring up in the cotton fiel's oveh
night. The pickin', too, is jes' killin' work. Yo' see a cotton plant
doesn' grow mo'n about fo' feet high an' thar's always a lot of it
that's shorter. The bolls hang low, sometimes, an' yo've got to go
pickin', pickin', stoopin' halfway oveh an' the hot sun beatin' down on
yo' neck an' back. Since the war the planters have tried all sorts o'
labor, but thar's no white man that c'n pick cotton, they get blindin'
headaches an' fall sick. I reckon their skulls are too thin or maybe
it's jes' because they're not black, seem' that it's harder fo' a
mulatto th'n a full-blood negro.
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