“Ninety cents.”
“We’ll pick.
I hear fellas say nex’ year it’ll be seventy-five or even sixty.”
“That’s what I hear.”
“They’ll be trouble,” said Ma.
“Sure.
I know.
Little fella like me can’t do anything.
The Association sets the rate, and we got to mind.
If we don’t—we ain’t got a farm.
Little fella gets crowded all the time.”
They came to the camp.
“We’ll be there,” Ma said. “Not much pickin’ lef ’.” She went to the end boxcar and climbed the cleated walk.
The low light of the lantern made gloomy shadows in the car.
Pa and Uncle John and an elderly man squatted against the car wall.
“Hello,” Ma said. “Evenin’, Mr. Wainwright.”
He raised a delicately chiseled face.
His eyes were deep under the ridges of his brows.
His hair was blue-white and fine.
A patina of silver beard covered his jaws and chin.
“Evenin’, ma’am,” he said.
“We got pickin’ tomorra,” Ma observed. “Mile north.
Twenty acres.”
“Better take the truck, I guess,” Pa said. “Get in more pickin’.”
Wainwright raised his head eagerly.
“S’pose we can pick?”
“Why, sure.
I walked a piece with the fella.
He was comin’ to get pickers.”
“Cotton’s nearly gone.
Purty thin, these here seconds.
Gonna be hard to make a wage on the seconds.
Got her pretty clean the fust time.”
“Your folks could maybe ride with us,” Ma said. “Split the gas.”
“Well—that’s frien’ly of you, ma’am.”
“Saves us both,” said Ma.
Pa said,
“Mr. Wainwright—he’s got a worry he come to us about.
We was a-talkin’ her over.”
“What’s the matter?”
Wainwright looked down at the floor.
“Our Aggie,” he said. “She’s a big girl—near sixteen, an’ growed up.”
“Aggie’s a pretty girl,” said Ma.
“Listen ’im out,” Pa said.
“Well, her an’ your boy Al, they’re a-walkin’ out ever’ night.
An’ Aggie’s a good healthy girl that oughta have a husban’, else she might git in trouble.
We never had no trouble in our family.
But what with us bein’ so poor off, now, Mis’ Wainwright an’ me, we got to worryin’.
S’pose she got in trouble?”
Ma rolled down a mattress and sat on it.