and sang.
rising up from a field of misery.
One day Jimmy fainted
in the row next to mine
and a colored woman
who was picking close to us
rushed over and picked him up
and hollered
"Somebody come help this baby!"
The cotton farmer's wife came running to us
and took Jimmy away from the colored lady
and told me and Wes to come, too
so we shucked our sacks
and ran behind her
up to the house
where the kitchen was cool
and they laid Jimmy on the enamel table
and put wet cloths on him
and he came around
but he didn't know where he was
and he kept calling for Mom.
After a while Daddy came
and the farmer's wife said Jimmy had heat stroke
so Daddy took the three of us home.
Jimmy got a whole week off from picking.
The next day one of the colored ladies
jammed into the truck
with us
asked me
"How's the chile?"
and I said to her
"He gets a whole week off from pickin'"
and she laughed
and said
"Well, then, he's better off than us!"
I asked Daddy why the colored people didn't pick with us
and why they lived in tar-paper shacks on a dirt road
and he said
that's just the way it is.
At the end of summer I had made $35.00
I ordered five dresses
from the Sears catalog
with the songs of the colored people still ringing in my ears.
I had come to love them
for their singing in the heat
for the way they watched over us
and because they could work hard all day long
and still laugh
in that flatbed truck
swaying shoulder to shoulder
going home
in the hot Louisiana night.
Music playing: Swing Low Sweet Chariot
This page contains copyrighted material
Story taken from my actual diaries
Go to Page 44
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