The Four Winds(112)

“You need to try harder,” Jean said. “Or just admit he’s on your mind.”

“I don’t have a good history with men.”

“You know the thing about history, Elsa? It’s over. Already dead and gone.”

“They say people who don’t heed history are doomed to repeat it.”

“Who says that? I ain’t never heard it. I say folks who hang on to the past miss their chance for a future.”

Elsa looked at her friend. “Come on, Jean,” she said. “Look at me. I wasn’t pretty in the best of times—when I was young and well fed and clean and wore fine clothes. And now . . .”

“Ah, Elsa. You got a wrong picture of yourself.”

“Even if that is true, what does a person do about it? The things your parents say and the things your husband doesn’t say become a mirror, don’t they? You see yourself as they see you, and no matter how far you come, you bring that mirror with you.”

“Break it,” Jean said.

“How?”

“With a gosh dang rock.” Jean leaned forward. “I’m a mirror, too, Elsa. You remember that.”



COTTON’S READY.

Word spread through the Welty camp on a hot, dry day in September. Airy white tufts floated above the crop, lifted into the clear blue sky. Notices on each cabin and tent advised the folks to be ready to pick at six in the morning.

Elsa dressed in pants and a long-sleeved blouse and made breakfast, then woke the children, who now sat on the edge of their bed, eating hot, sweet polenta, chewing it silently.

It broke Elsa’s heart that they would be picking with her today. Especially Ant. But they hadn’t had a meeting about it, not this season. Last year they’d been na?ve; Elsa had thought she could keep her children in school while she made enough money to feed and house and clothe them. Now she knew better. They’d been in the state long enough to understand: Cotton was their lifeblood. Even the children had to pick.

They’d had no choice but to fall into the cycle the growers wanted them in: living on credit, building up debt, and never making enough, even with relief, to break out. They had to pick enough to pay off this year’s debt, so they could start living on credit again in the winter when the work vanished.

She rolled up their cotton sacks and filled their canteens and packed their lunches, and then hurried the kids out of the cabin to the row of waiting trucks.

“You,” the boss said, pointing at Elsa. “Three of you?”

No, Elsa wanted to say.

“Yes,” Loreda said.

“The kid’s scrawny,” the boss said, spitting tobacco.

“He’s stronger than he looks,” Loreda said.

The boss leaned over to the truck bed beside him and pulled out three twelve-foot-long canvas picking bags. “Go to the east field. A buck and a half apiece for the bags. We’ll put ’em on your account.”

“A dollar fifty! That’s highway robbery,” Elsa said. “We have our own bags.”

“If you live on Welty land, you use Welty bags.” He looked at her. “You want the job?”

“Yes,” Elsa said. “Cabin Ten.”

He threw them the three long sacks.

Elsa and the kids climbed into the truck with the other pickers and were driven five miles to another Welty field, where each was assigned their own row. Elsa unfurled her long, empty bag and strapped it to her shoulder and let it splay out behind her, then showed Ant how to do it.

He looked so small in the row. She and Loreda had spent time explaining the work to him, but he would have to learn as they had—by getting bloody hands.

“Quit starin’ at me like that, Ma,” he said. “I ain’t a baby.”

“You’re my baby,” she said.

He rolled his eyes.

A bell rang to start them off.

Elsa stooped over and got to work, reaching into the spiny cotton plant, wincing as the needle-sharp pins stuck deep into her flesh. She pulled off the bolls, separated them from leaves and twigs, and stuffed the white handfuls of cotton into her bag. Don’t think about Ant.

Over and over and over she did the same thing: pick, separate, shove into bag.

As the sun rose higher in the sky, Elsa felt her skin burning, felt sweat scrape the sunburn and collect at her collar. Behind her, the bag became heavier and heavier; she dragged it forward with every step.

By lunchtime, it was well over one hundred degrees in the field.

The water truck rolled forward, positioning itself at the end of the rows, which meant they had to walk nearly a mile for a drink of water.

Elsa saw how many workers were lined up outside the field hoping for work, standing for hours in the hot, hot sun. Hundreds of them.

Desperate enough to take any wage to feed their families.

Elsa kept picking, hating with every moment, every breath, that her children were out here picking alongside her.

When her bag was full, she muscled it out of her row and over to the line at the scales.

Loreda came up beside her. They were both red-faced and sweating profusely and breathing hard.

“Would it kill them to put in a bathroom?” Loreda said, sopping her brow.

“Hush,” Elsa said sharply. “Look at all the people waiting to take our jobs.”

Loreda looked out over the line at the entrance. “Poor folks. Even worse off.”