Patty wrapped the cotton sack around her legs as she pushed her way through the cotton rows. The cotton stalks and bolls struck the sack instead of her legs, the dew dampening the sack instead of her jeans. The sun was coming up on the horizon, its yellow-gold rays sifting through the bare trees growing at the end of the quarter-mile rows.
Patty watched her dad drive the John Deere tractor down the side of the field, pulling the cotton wagon behind. He parked it at the end of the rows.
A memory flashed through her mind, of springtime; of her dad breaking the ground with the breaking plow and of her running down the unearthed middle, warm soil squishing between her bare toes. Blackbirds flew down, plucking worms and bugs from the earth.
Patty wished for those warm, spring days, instead of the cool, fall days of picking cotton and even colder days of pulling bolls; when the tips of her fingers felt frozen as they peeked through the holes cut from the end of her brown, cotton gloves.
At the end of the cotton row, she shook the cotton sack out behind her and stooping over the row of cotton, she began to pluck the damp locks of cotton from the cotton burrs, and began the task of filling the sack.
The End
RSS Feed
