Page 112 (1/2)

Loreda rushed into the fields, went to the rohich she was assigned

She yanked her long canvas sack around, slung the leather strap over her shoulder

The bell rang again and Loreda reached into the nearest cotton plant and yelped in pain When she drew her hand back it was covered in blood That hen she saw the spikes on the plant They looked like darning needles Wincing, she tried again, ritted her teeth and kept picking

For hours the sun beat down, until heat and dust and human sere all Loreda could smell Her throat was so dry it hurt to breathe She had drunk all the water in her canteen—alrew heavier by the minute and her hands hurt

Nearing noon, she dragged the heavy sack behind her and iant scales She unhooked the strap and dropped the load and learned instantly why the other pickers hadn’t removed the strap in line: It was a bad idea Now she had to haul the bag with her bloody, aching hands toward the scales

She sagged in relief when it was finally her turn A fore it on the scales

“Sixty pounds” The foreman stamped a ticket and handed it to her “You can cash this in town Pick faster if you want to keep a job”

Loreda retrieved her e, backed away, and went back to work

SEPTEMBER WAS ONE LONG, hot, backbreaking day after another in the cotton fields Elsa’s hands bled, her back ached, her knees hurt Hour after scorching hour Dawn to dusk,

hunched over, picking bolls of cotton from between the razor-sharp spikes There were no bathrooms in the fields, so it wasn’t easy for a woun

Still, there ork Steady work

By mid-October, Elsa and Loreda had learned how to pick nearly two hundred pounds of cotton each per day That s It felt like a fortune, even with the ten percent Welty charged to cash their wage chits They’d been slow to get to the two-hundred-pound

IN NOVEMBER, WHEN THE weather turned blessedly cool, and the last of the cotton had been picked, Elsa’s metal cash box was stuffed with dollar bills She had stocked up on food, bought bags of flour and rice and beans and sugar, as well as cans of eration at the ca cas or cans No fresh pasta or sun-dried tomatoes, no homemade baked bread or nutty-flavored olive oil The kids learned to love pork and beans doctored with corn syrup, and chipped beef on toast, and hot dogs cooked over an open fire, and saltine crackers fried in oil and dusted with sugar American food, Loreda called it

Elsa tried to hold back as much as she could for the winter, but after so many months of deprivation, she found her children’s joy at supperti