Cotton Fields of Home

I recall as a young child, going to spend summer months at my godmother's house in the country. My cousin and I would get up early in the morning to get started doing some of the "chores" that my godmother would let us do for her. Memories of going with my uncle out in the cotton field behind their house comes back so clear. Once he let us go out to the fields and "pick" cotton. Of course, my cousin had already done that before, so she knew the "ropes". We picked for about an hour or so, and then we were ready to quit...but, catch was, you had to weigh in your cotton sacks to be paid. Being young and not having picked very much cotton in only an hour or so...my cousin showed me how to add the not-so-ready to pick cotton in my sack. Wow! that made the sack really heavy. When we arrived for my uncle to weigh our sacks, he was surprised we had gotten so much picked in so little time. He weighed the sacks and OPENED them. We were not prepared for that! He poured out the sacks in front of us and saw the unopened cotton bolls mixed in with the cotton. THAT was one of my first lessons on how cheating never works out...only a good hard honest day's work pays off.


I remember having to bring in the water from the outside pump to fill the water jug on the kitchen counter, reaching under the soft warm bodies of chickens to gather eggs, using the outhouse behind the house when nature called, helping pluck feather off the chicken for supper on the outside porch, riding on horse saddles hung in the barn pretending we were cowgirls, bathing in a large washtub (no bathtubs) set in one of the smaller rooms of the house, chasing each other...the rooms all connected by doors...and having to jump over the couch that was placed in one doorway, sitting on the front porch (screens were all busted out) and feeling the cool breeze, picking pecans in the orchard, and so many other things we did on that farm.


Yes, those were the days of my youth. Looking back I realize how all that shaped my life. I lived in town away from the farm. I was blessed to have experienced both country and city life. My wish would be for all people to be able to witness some of the experiences I was fortunate to enjoy.

Country living taught me many things. One was patience, listening, and to work for what you get. I learned that you got out of life what you put into it. Henry Longfellow once wrote in a poem: A Psalm of Life
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.