The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Chapter 15 A SEA OF COTTON

A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER, my father met with the other major landholders at the Moose Lodge and declared the cotton harvest date, by far the most important event in our entire county.

An army of colored workers from three counties around descended on our acreage and picked from first light until complete dark, men and women and children, stopping only at midday for a meal and a short Bible reading by a preacher, one of their number.

Viola recruited three of the women to help her cook in the old stone kitchen in back of the house. Such a prodigious quantity of grits and fatback and beans and biscuits and syrup flowed out of there, all loaded into the buckboard in giant hampers and driven out to the fields, along with a barrel of fresh water and a huge pail of coffee. Mother temporarily moved into the kitchen to feed us. She also kept busy nursing the pickers’ cuts and blisters and other injuries deemed too small to be sent to Dr. Walker.

Harry drove the wagon back and forth to the store for cornmeal, sugar, flour, and other supplies. Sam Houston and Lamar scurried with messages from the scale house to the tally board and were sometimes rewarded with a penny, which translated into ten pieces of candy or a new pencil at the general store. Being a tally messenger was a highly coveted position.

Father labored late at the gin and came home long after we’d all gone to bed. The only one exempt from duty of any kind was Granddaddy. He had built up the ginning enterprise himself and overseen it through this seasonal spasm of mad activity for thirty years; he no longer had the slightest interest or obligation. He retired to his laboratory or else he headed off in the morning with his satchel over his shoulder.

The gin ran night and day. The blacksmith and the carpenter labored without sleep to keep the machines going and the cotton flowing, high-mounded wagons of it coming in and huge shedding bales of it going out, bound for Austin, Galveston, New Orleans. The bales were so heavy and piled so high that they were a real menace. Packing and balancing them was an art and, every year, scores of men across the South were crushed and killed by unstable loads.

In our house, we could hear the great leather belts of the machinery whirring and slapping rhythmically a quarter mile away. After the first couple of nights, you got used to it all over again, and although I’d never heard the waves of the ocean, the machinery noise in the distance made me feel I was falling asleep to the lapping of the surf, at least as I imagined it. But instead of water, prodigious waves of cotton lapped around our house.

Our school shut down for ten days. Many of my classmates came from families who couldn’t afford to hire help, so everyone, children included, picked until they collapsed. I was conscripted into kitchen duty with Mother. One morning I sifted a whole sack of flour, and the next day my hands were too sore to grip my pencil and write in my Notebook. I made a point of complaining so bitterly about this that I was reassigned.

My next job was to keep an eye on the two dozen or so babies who played in the yard between the house and the outside kitchen while their mothers worked the fields, and to make sure they didn’t get pecked by the busy, officious hens who were aggrieved by this invasion of their normal habitat. I was not happy with this unpaid duty, either, especially when I had to watch Sam Houston and Lamar prance off to the gin and come home with money. After a whole day of wrangling the babies and thinking disgruntled thoughts about those pennies, I launched a new campaign at dinner that night.

“Why do I have to mind the babies?” I asked Father.

“Because you’re the girl,” said Lamar offhandedly.

I ignored him. “Why do I have to mind the babies? Why can’t I run messages? Why can’t I earn money?”

“Because you’re the girl,” said Lamar, alarmed, scenting possible danger.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Girls don’t get paid,” scoffed Lamar. “Girls can’t even vote. They don’t get paid. Girls stay home.”

“Maybe you better tell that to the Fentress Normal School,” I said, proud of my retort. “They pay Miss Harbottle, don’t they?” I said.

“That’s different,” huffed Lamar.

“How is it different?”

“It just is.”

“Exactly how, Lamar?”

I harped on this so loud and long that my exhausted father, in desperate need of peace, said, “All right, Callie. I’ll pay you a nickel.”

I shut up in triumphant silence. Lamar looked relieved to keep his post as tally boy. Then my three younger brothers set up their own grizzling chorus about how unfair it was that they didn’t get paid for anything. It took a sharp “Enough of this!” from Mother to make them quite down. They glowered in sulky silence through the rest of dinner while I made light and pleasant chitchat as I’d been taught ladies do, discussing the weather and inquiring about everyone’s day. Granddaddy looked amused; Mother looked as if she had a sick headache but gamely held up her end of the conversation.

The next day, I sat on the back steps and kept a close eye on my twenty-nine tiny charges. Now that I was being paid, now that I was a professional, I took my duties seriously. I counted heads over and over. The babies were mostly toddlers who played happily in the dust, but every now and then one would haul himself to his feet and stagger off in pursuit of a passing dog or cat, squealing with pleasure, and have to be dragged back, protesting. There was also the problem of them putting the odd item they found in the dust into their mouths; I saved the lives of a couple of beetles and a disoriented night crawler that way. I wanted to read a book, but I couldn’t look away for a second. For such small, unsteady organisms, the babies sure could get away from you fast. And the hens were a bother, darting from the periphery into the thick of things, setting up a great hysterical hoo-hah. I chucked pebbles at them to drive them back.

Sul Ross came by as I was taking potshots at the hens. I guess he thought I was having fun. I was not. I was peeved and about to chase him off when I noticed he was looking on with interest, like maybe he wanted to join in. I looked at him from the corner of my eye and thought fast.

“This sure is a lot of fun,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’ll bet it is. I always get yelled at when I do that.”

“Too bad, because it’s so much fun,” I said. No mere Becky Thatcher I, but crafty old Tom himself.

A few minutes later, I ran across the meadow in the direction I had seen Granddaddy set off. “Wait, wait,” I cried. He was disappearing into the shady pecan bottom when I caught up with him.

“I am delighted to have your company, but what are you doing here?” he said. “I thought you were pressed into work with the others and hired yourself out.”

“I traded with Sul Ross,” I said.

“What did you trade?”

“Um, well, I didn’t exactly trade, sir. I hired him. I told him if he looked after the babies that I would give him two pennies. Plus, I told him he was allowed to throw rocks at the hens to keep them away.” I hastened to add, “But only small rocks—no bigger than my thumbnail, I made that very clear. He seemed pleased enough with the arrangement. This way, I make three cents. And I get to spend the day with you.”

“Ah,” said Granddaddy. “You may turn out to be a real young woman of commerce.” And although he spoke genially enough, I sensed something—disappointment?—in his expression.

“No,” I said after a moment’s thought, “I don’t think so.” I put my hand in his. “Do you think we’ll see something new today?” I said.

His expression changed to one of gladness. “I am certain of it,” he said, and we set off for the riverbank.