By Joyce Caughron Rhodes
Speical to the Banner
This trail down my Memory Lane goes way back into the past. I guess I could call this path “Many Years Ago.” Some of you may remember, in the early Fifties, before or after, you could be driving along and look across the cotton fields and see them dotted with people picking cotton. The women with their bonnets on and long sleeve smocks. They knew not to be in the sun too much. Some would have their children with them. If they were old enough to pick, then they had their own smaller sacks. Many men also picked cotton then and some were very fast. One man told me later, he used to pick over 400 pounds of cotton a day! The women would love to pick close to their friends and they would chit chat as they picked the cotton, catching up on the latest gossip. The owner’s right-hand man or foreman would watch to be sure the cotton wasn’t too wet or dirty. When the cotton sacks were filled, they would take them or drag them, to the scales to be weighed. The sacks were hung up on scales hanging from what looked like a tripod and the weight entered into the foreman’s book, for each person’s cotton. This was a good chance to rest and get a cold drink of water.
When more factories opened up, the people left the fields for better jobs. This left the farmer in a bind, so to speak. He had to rely upon help from the eager Mexican, needing work. This brought on another memory. Several years after we married, Harry Lee was working for Prentiss Wynn in his grocery store. By the way, this was his favorite place to work. He really liked Prentiss; anyway, this was the period of time when some of the farmers would have busloads of Mexican men come to help with getting their cotton crops out. These farmers would bring them to the store first, to get supplies and food the men would need, before they carried them to their new dwelling places, they supplied for them.
One of the men asked Harry Lee his name and he told him. He then pointed to Prentiss and wanted to know his name. Harry Lee said, Mr. Bull Sheet (not spelled right). This young man thought he was doing really good, learning the names of the two men in the store. He walked up to Prentiss and with a big grin said, “Hello, Mr. Bull Sheet.” Prentiss looked at Harry Lee with a big grin and said, “Did you tell him that was my name?” Harry Lee said, “I just told him; maybe he got confused.
At this time, Harry Lee didn’t know one of the men in the group was an English teacher. The teacher told him later, he could make more money picking cotton in the United States than teaching school in Mexico. When the man, the one who spoke to Prentiss, saw his reaction to his greeting, he knew something wasn’t right, so he looked at the English teacher for help. The teacher explained, “You just called him ‘Mr. Bull Sheet.’ “Yikes,” he shouted, as he looked at Harry Lee. “It was hard for me to keep a straight face,” Harry Lee told me.
One other thing, this was later, when Harry Lee had his own store, I remember he told me of another time several of the Mexican men came into the store. They said one of the men had a stomach ache and needed something for it. The Mexican teacher was with them and he explained to Harry Lee he thought it was gas. Harry Lee said, “Lay him down on the counter,” while he walked to the back of the store to the meat department. He put on a white apron, he had back there, and a sort of a mask over his mouth. He grabbed a long knife and walked to the front. The man took one look at him, thinking he was going to operate and jumped off the counter. He kept backing up and shaking his head, “No, No.” Harry Lee laughed and let him know he was kidding. He did get him something for his gas problem and the man was back in the store the next day and feeling good.
You probably know the song, “Just a little loving goes a long way,” and I would add, “Just a little humor will do the same.”
