Mosana (The Union) - Part VI
EPISODE 6
The six of us were assigned to different other slaves. My guess was these other slaves knew the job of cotton-picking well, and were supposed to train us. Andrea however, took me under her wing.
The very same day we got there; I began my first lesson in cotton-picking. It wasn’t as simple as it looked. All you saw was the white lint coming out of the boll easily as the picker plucked it out; but if you looked closer, you could see the occasional grimace that crossed the picker’s face as their fingers brushed the boll’s spurs.
Let me explain. Cotton was grown in hard balls, almost the size of a baseball. This ball was literally called, a boll. Once it was getting ripe, the boll opened itself up to reveal the white lint of the cotton, leaving four or five spurs, sharp tips of the boll, in its place. It was sort of similar to the open petals of a flower; only with sharper, pointed tips. It was these sharp spurs that made a picker’s fingers sore by the time they were done with several rows of cotton.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it.
Along the rows on the cotton patch, there were saw briars; sharp weeds which cut your legs as you walked along, picking cotton. Most of the time was used in picking cotton, and so no one got around to weeding out the saw briars. We worked from sunrise to sunset, and if anyone wanted to be generous enough, they would have to do their weeding at midnight. And sleep was precious commodity. Because of the saw briars, we usually tied strips of burlap or sack around our lower legs or wore really long and thick socks, if you had them. For the first few days, I had no sack for my legs and cussed each time I was cut by the briars.
Then there were the cuckle burrs, which stuck to your clothes as well as the sack. Having it stick to your clothes was bearable enough, but having to stop every few rounds to remove the burrs from the sack (as they tended to get in with the cotton) was annoying, to say the least. They weren’t as bad as the saw briars though. But there was something even worse than saw briars and cuckle burrs combined.
The Pack Saddle.
The pack saddle was a worm beautiful in colour, with a design on its back that looks like a saddle. It loved cotton leaves just as much as the boil weevil loved the boll. If you were to get stung by one, it slowed your cotton-picking tremendously, as it would leave you in, well, tremendous pain.
“Jus’ hearin’ the cries of someone gettin’ stung is enough to slow you down too,” Andrea told me. “Best avoid the ‘saddle, that’s for sure.”
I had a few mishaps with picking cotton, but Andrea covered for me. I don’t know why she did, but I was grateful. She showed me how to tie a burlap around my legs, and how to position myself and shake off the cuckle burrs so they didn’t follow the cotton I picked from the boll to my sack.
The older slaves, and by older, I mean those that had been there before me, could pick over 300 pounds of cotton per day. The least we could pick was a 100 pounds in the Flounder household. I didn’t know there was a quota until I saw a slave punished for coming back with 98 pounds. I realized with horror as we lined up before Master Flounder that I had barely picked anything that day. As usual, I was busy getting angry with the damn briars and cussing at the bloody burrs. But wonder of wonders, when they came to my sack, they weighed exactly a 101 pounds of cotton.
That was when I realized that somebody had been filling up my sack every time we came back to be weighed.
“I see you’re learning fast,” Andrew Flounder said to me, swinging his whip slowly back and forth. “Must be having Andrea as your guide.”
I saw Andrea wink at me from where she stood beside Master Flounder, and knew that this time, the gods had not left me helpless. I mouthed a silent thanks to her, and she returned a small smile. Her own sack by the way, weighed a good 350 pounds.
When did she find the time to pick the extra for me? I wondered.
From that day, I made sure to spare Andrea the extra work and pick my own cotton. Soon enough, I could pick a solid 200 pounds myself, without Andrea’s help.
Still, picking cotton was back-breaking work. You spent about 13 hours of the day in the hot autumn sun with your back bent, dragging over a 100 pounds of cotton, working through saw briars and cuckle burrs, and avoiding the occasional pack saddle. An average cotton plant only grew to about 3 feet, so you had to bend real good to reach the cotton bolls. If you were tall, the worse for you. I saw people go down on their knees and crawl along the cotton rows because they had weak backs. I thought I had it rough in the Russell Manor. The Flounders meant business, literally. That’s how they got rich. Through planting and selling cotton. They sold other farm produce, yes, but cotton was their cash cow. That was why Master Flounder was especially displeased when you brought in less than your quota. He was probably calculating how much money you had lost him.
Every day, after we picked the cotton, and after being weighed, we would take it to the cotton gin that Master Flounder owned. It was a medium-sized machine in a separate shed near the stables. The “gin”, as it was popularly called, was actually a cotton engine, which separated cotton from the seeds stuck inside them. It was invented in 1794, and before then, separating the tiny seeds from the cotton was a long, arduous task done by hand. Not many farmers owned gins. In fact, I didn’t think any farmer around owned any gins except Andrew Flounder. Most others just preferred to carry their cotton bales to the local engines in town. What many would expend in paying workers and drivers to transport the cotton to the gins and back, Andrew Flounder added to his wealth.
One day, as we watched the gin work, Andrea whispered to me, “You know, we woulda bin outta slavery, if it wasn’t for that there gin.”
I liked how Andrea talked. She had a way of slurring her words, and it always sounded like she was singing. I kept mute and waited for her to explain. She had a way of making a story out of anything. God knew she kept our work in the cotton fields interesting with her tales.
“That gin was made by a man they called Eli Whitney. I have nothin’ against the man, but he picked a shitty ass time to show up with his gin. Before he made it, picking cotton was messy bin’ess. Even slave owners felt some of the heat, coz slaves would spend hours upon hours tryna sort the fluff from the seeds. At the end of the day, you wasn’t able to get the cotton out when it mattered the most, and before you knew it, the season was over. You done lost a lotta money.”
She paused, licked her lips, and continued. “Dem slavers was already decidin’ they didn’t need us slaves no more. Some of us was already tryna buy our way outta our masters’ houses. They didn’t need us no more, since sorting cotton was so damn hard. Then that Eli man had to go and make a machine that made it all easy for the slavers!”
Andrea spat. “Damn ‘im to hell and back! He wasn’t even no eng’neer or nothin’. Had no bin’ess bin ‘round no machine! Jus’ a damn lawyer who had too much time on his hands.”
I held my laughter. I didn’t want to interrupt her. It was the way she had pronounced “lawyer”. It sounded like “lor’er”.
“As soon as they ‘ad that machine,” Andrea was saying, “by God, they had us back before we was able to pack our bags. Bastards! Coz of the machine, cotton turned to gold, and they needed us slaves to spin it!”
Andrea spat again. I was about to ask what all the spitting was for, but she was talking again, rattling on at full speed. “We worked the fields, then came ‘ome to work the gin. Now we is invaluable,” she ended wryly, drawing all the syllables in the word, “invaluable”, like it was a big word. It probably was for her.
“That’s crazy,” was all I said.
“Damn right it is. And jus’ unfortunate too. Almos’ like the devil worked thru’ that one, Eli Whitney. Taught ‘im how to make a machine that would keep us slaves forever.”
I smirked. I was pretty sure the devil had nothing to do with Eli Whitney’s invention. The man was most likely just trying to help the cotton industry and lighten the workload. I said nothing though. I wasn’t going to correct Andrea. In my opinion, Eli Whitney deserved some dissing.
Andrea spat again.
“Whoa. That’s the third time,” I said. Some silence had come between us after Andrea had finished her story and we were watching the gin suck in the last of the cotton through its long metal tube to be sorted, seed from fluff.
“Is jus’ the smell, baby. All that churnin’s got me breathin’ in the gin’s work. I’m literally tasting cotton,” she said with a snort.
“Oh,” was all I said this time, taking her at her word. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t being honest with me. No one spat as frequently as that. Besides, this wasn’t the first time we had come to the cotton gin, and I hadn’t ever noticed her spitting like that.
Over the next couple of weeks, I noticed the changes. If I hadn’t been working closely with her, I might never have noticed. Because Andrea Wilson worked like a horse. But at some point, she began to slow. Though she still picked more than the quota, her sack fell below her usual weightage. In the middle of picking, she would sometimes retire under one of the trees to rest her back and take deep breaths.
I thought she was sick, and I was afraid to pry. Because no matter how carefree Andrea was with us, she had her secrets. If she was dying, she definitely wouldn’t want us to know until it was too late. I couldn’t decide if it was pride or stubbornness. She chose what questions she answered, and never gave up anything she didn’t feel like sharing. It was why whenever she told a story, people listened. Because you never knew if you were going to hear that story again.
But I couldn’t hold my tongue anymore when I found out what kind of sickness it was.
We were out in the fields, not cotton this time, but corn, and I had turned to discover that Andrea was no longer behind me. I looked to the trees, but couldn’t detect her there. So I went to look for her. I walked all the way over to the sleeping room but found it empty. Then I went over to the outside bathroom not far from it, aiming to see if she was there. That’s when I found her.
By the wall, puking into the dirt.
The answer slammed into me, even as she got up and faced me, a small trace of vomit still visible on her chin. She hadn’t been able to wipe it all off in her haste to stand up.
“You’re pregnant,” I breathed.
I wasn’t asking. I was telling her.
The six of us were assigned to different other slaves. My guess was these other slaves knew the job of cotton-picking well, and were supposed to train us. Andrea however, took me under her wing.
The very same day we got there; I began my first lesson in cotton-picking. It wasn’t as simple as it looked. All you saw was the white lint coming out of the boll easily as the picker plucked it out; but if you looked closer, you could see the occasional grimace that crossed the picker’s face as their fingers brushed the boll’s spurs.
Let me explain. Cotton was grown in hard balls, almost the size of a baseball. This ball was literally called, a boll. Once it was getting ripe, the boll opened itself up to reveal the white lint of the cotton, leaving four or five spurs, sharp tips of the boll, in its place. It was sort of similar to the open petals of a flower; only with sharper, pointed tips. It was these sharp spurs that made a picker’s fingers sore by the time they were done with several rows of cotton.
But that wasn’t even the worst of it.
Along the rows on the cotton patch, there were saw briars; sharp weeds which cut your legs as you walked along, picking cotton. Most of the time was used in picking cotton, and so no one got around to weeding out the saw briars. We worked from sunrise to sunset, and if anyone wanted to be generous enough, they would have to do their weeding at midnight. And sleep was precious commodity. Because of the saw briars, we usually tied strips of burlap or sack around our lower legs or wore really long and thick socks, if you had them. For the first few days, I had no sack for my legs and cussed each time I was cut by the briars.
Then there were the cuckle burrs, which stuck to your clothes as well as the sack. Having it stick to your clothes was bearable enough, but having to stop every few rounds to remove the burrs from the sack (as they tended to get in with the cotton) was annoying, to say the least. They weren’t as bad as the saw briars though. But there was something even worse than saw briars and cuckle burrs combined.
The Pack Saddle.
The pack saddle was a worm beautiful in colour, with a design on its back that looks like a saddle. It loved cotton leaves just as much as the boil weevil loved the boll. If you were to get stung by one, it slowed your cotton-picking tremendously, as it would leave you in, well, tremendous pain.
“Jus’ hearin’ the cries of someone gettin’ stung is enough to slow you down too,” Andrea told me. “Best avoid the ‘saddle, that’s for sure.”
I had a few mishaps with picking cotton, but Andrea covered for me. I don’t know why she did, but I was grateful. She showed me how to tie a burlap around my legs, and how to position myself and shake off the cuckle burrs so they didn’t follow the cotton I picked from the boll to my sack.
The older slaves, and by older, I mean those that had been there before me, could pick over 300 pounds of cotton per day. The least we could pick was a 100 pounds in the Flounder household. I didn’t know there was a quota until I saw a slave punished for coming back with 98 pounds. I realized with horror as we lined up before Master Flounder that I had barely picked anything that day. As usual, I was busy getting angry with the damn briars and cussing at the bloody burrs. But wonder of wonders, when they came to my sack, they weighed exactly a 101 pounds of cotton.
That was when I realized that somebody had been filling up my sack every time we came back to be weighed.
“I see you’re learning fast,” Andrew Flounder said to me, swinging his whip slowly back and forth. “Must be having Andrea as your guide.”
I saw Andrea wink at me from where she stood beside Master Flounder, and knew that this time, the gods had not left me helpless. I mouthed a silent thanks to her, and she returned a small smile. Her own sack by the way, weighed a good 350 pounds.
When did she find the time to pick the extra for me? I wondered.
From that day, I made sure to spare Andrea the extra work and pick my own cotton. Soon enough, I could pick a solid 200 pounds myself, without Andrea’s help.
Still, picking cotton was back-breaking work. You spent about 13 hours of the day in the hot autumn sun with your back bent, dragging over a 100 pounds of cotton, working through saw briars and cuckle burrs, and avoiding the occasional pack saddle. An average cotton plant only grew to about 3 feet, so you had to bend real good to reach the cotton bolls. If you were tall, the worse for you. I saw people go down on their knees and crawl along the cotton rows because they had weak backs. I thought I had it rough in the Russell Manor. The Flounders meant business, literally. That’s how they got rich. Through planting and selling cotton. They sold other farm produce, yes, but cotton was their cash cow. That was why Master Flounder was especially displeased when you brought in less than your quota. He was probably calculating how much money you had lost him.
Every day, after we picked the cotton, and after being weighed, we would take it to the cotton gin that Master Flounder owned. It was a medium-sized machine in a separate shed near the stables. The “gin”, as it was popularly called, was actually a cotton engine, which separated cotton from the seeds stuck inside them. It was invented in 1794, and before then, separating the tiny seeds from the cotton was a long, arduous task done by hand. Not many farmers owned gins. In fact, I didn’t think any farmer around owned any gins except Andrew Flounder. Most others just preferred to carry their cotton bales to the local engines in town. What many would expend in paying workers and drivers to transport the cotton to the gins and back, Andrew Flounder added to his wealth.
One day, as we watched the gin work, Andrea whispered to me, “You know, we woulda bin outta slavery, if it wasn’t for that there gin.”
I liked how Andrea talked. She had a way of slurring her words, and it always sounded like she was singing. I kept mute and waited for her to explain. She had a way of making a story out of anything. God knew she kept our work in the cotton fields interesting with her tales.
“That gin was made by a man they called Eli Whitney. I have nothin’ against the man, but he picked a shitty ass time to show up with his gin. Before he made it, picking cotton was messy bin’ess. Even slave owners felt some of the heat, coz slaves would spend hours upon hours tryna sort the fluff from the seeds. At the end of the day, you wasn’t able to get the cotton out when it mattered the most, and before you knew it, the season was over. You done lost a lotta money.”
She paused, licked her lips, and continued. “Dem slavers was already decidin’ they didn’t need us slaves no more. Some of us was already tryna buy our way outta our masters’ houses. They didn’t need us no more, since sorting cotton was so damn hard. Then that Eli man had to go and make a machine that made it all easy for the slavers!”
Andrea spat. “Damn ‘im to hell and back! He wasn’t even no eng’neer or nothin’. Had no bin’ess bin ‘round no machine! Jus’ a damn lawyer who had too much time on his hands.”
I held my laughter. I didn’t want to interrupt her. It was the way she had pronounced “lawyer”. It sounded like “lor’er”.
“As soon as they ‘ad that machine,” Andrea was saying, “by God, they had us back before we was able to pack our bags. Bastards! Coz of the machine, cotton turned to gold, and they needed us slaves to spin it!”
Andrea spat again. I was about to ask what all the spitting was for, but she was talking again, rattling on at full speed. “We worked the fields, then came ‘ome to work the gin. Now we is invaluable,” she ended wryly, drawing all the syllables in the word, “invaluable”, like it was a big word. It probably was for her.
“That’s crazy,” was all I said.
“Damn right it is. And jus’ unfortunate too. Almos’ like the devil worked thru’ that one, Eli Whitney. Taught ‘im how to make a machine that would keep us slaves forever.”
I smirked. I was pretty sure the devil had nothing to do with Eli Whitney’s invention. The man was most likely just trying to help the cotton industry and lighten the workload. I said nothing though. I wasn’t going to correct Andrea. In my opinion, Eli Whitney deserved some dissing.
Andrea spat again.
“Whoa. That’s the third time,” I said. Some silence had come between us after Andrea had finished her story and we were watching the gin suck in the last of the cotton through its long metal tube to be sorted, seed from fluff.
“Is jus’ the smell, baby. All that churnin’s got me breathin’ in the gin’s work. I’m literally tasting cotton,” she said with a snort.
“Oh,” was all I said this time, taking her at her word. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that she wasn’t being honest with me. No one spat as frequently as that. Besides, this wasn’t the first time we had come to the cotton gin, and I hadn’t ever noticed her spitting like that.
Over the next couple of weeks, I noticed the changes. If I hadn’t been working closely with her, I might never have noticed. Because Andrea Wilson worked like a horse. But at some point, she began to slow. Though she still picked more than the quota, her sack fell below her usual weightage. In the middle of picking, she would sometimes retire under one of the trees to rest her back and take deep breaths.
I thought she was sick, and I was afraid to pry. Because no matter how carefree Andrea was with us, she had her secrets. If she was dying, she definitely wouldn’t want us to know until it was too late. I couldn’t decide if it was pride or stubbornness. She chose what questions she answered, and never gave up anything she didn’t feel like sharing. It was why whenever she told a story, people listened. Because you never knew if you were going to hear that story again.
But I couldn’t hold my tongue anymore when I found out what kind of sickness it was.
We were out in the fields, not cotton this time, but corn, and I had turned to discover that Andrea was no longer behind me. I looked to the trees, but couldn’t detect her there. So I went to look for her. I walked all the way over to the sleeping room but found it empty. Then I went over to the outside bathroom not far from it, aiming to see if she was there. That’s when I found her.
By the wall, puking into the dirt.
The answer slammed into me, even as she got up and faced me, a small trace of vomit still visible on her chin. She hadn’t been able to wipe it all off in her haste to stand up.
“You’re pregnant,” I breathed.
I wasn’t asking. I was telling her.
__________________________________________
Hey you!
Sorry this is late. As I always say, "work no dey finish." But it's still Sunday, so...
If at any point you don't understand how Andrea speaks, feel free to ask. It's called Ebonics, and it's pretty cool. Their 'th' is supposed to become 'd', but I left it that way so it wouldn't look too weird for you. But it's interesting to know the Black Americans pronounce 'th' just like we do!
Okay, that's it for now. You know what to do. Action words: Like, Share, Comment!
Till next time,
xoxo,
Ava.
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