LET us look into a cotton-field; we will take this one of a hundred acres. The cotton is planted in rows, and requires incessant tillage to secure a good crop. The weeds and long grass grow so rankly in this warm climate that great watchfulness and care are required to keep them down. If there should be much rain during the season, they will spread so rapidly as perhaps quite to outgrow and ruin the crop.
Two gangs of laborers work in the field. The plough-gang go first through the rows, turning up the soil, and are followed by the hoe-gang, who break out the weeds, and lay the soil carefully around the roots of the young plants. This operation has to be repeated again and again; and so important is it to have it done seasonably that the workers are urged on, early and late, until the field is in a flourishing condition. Hot or cold, wet or dry, day and night, sometimes, the poor creatures have to toil through this busy season. Then there is a little intermission of the severe labor until the picking time, when again they are obliged to work incessantly.
Most of the hoers are women and boys, some of whom do the whole allotted task; others only a quarter, half, or three quarters, according to their ability. When the children are first put into the field, they are only put to quarter tasks, and some of the women are unable to do more. The bell is rung for them at early dawn, when they rise, prepare and eat their breakfast, and move down to the field. Clad in coarse, filthy, and scanty clothing, they drag sullenly along, and use their implements of labor with a slow, reluctant motion, that says very plainly, "This work is not for ME. My toil will do ME no good." Oh, how would freedom, kindness, and good wages spur up those unwilling toilers! How would the bright faces, the cheerful words and songs of independent, self-interested, intelligent laborers, make those fields to rejoice, almost imparting vigor and growth to the cotton itself! But, alas! it is a sad place, a valley of sighs and groans and tears and blood, a realm of hate and malice, of imprecation and wrath, and every fierce and wicked passion.
A "water-toter" follows each gang with a pail and calabash; and the negro-driver stands among them with a long whip in his hand, which he snaps over their heads continually, and lets the lash fall, with more or less severity, on one and another, shouting and yelling meanwhile in a furious and brutal manner, as a boisterous teamster would do to his unruly oxen.
If the season is wet, the danger to the crop being greater, there is more necessity for constant toil, and the poor slaves are whipped, pushed, and driven to the very utmost, and allowed no time to rest. It is no matter if the old are over-worked, or the young too hardly pressed, or the feeble women faint under their burdens. So that a good crop is produced, and the planter can enjoy his luxuries, it is no consideration that tools are worn out, mules are destroyed, or the slaves die; more can be bought for next year, and the slaveholder says it pays to force a crop, though it be at the expense of life among the hands.
At noon, the dinner is brought to each gang in a cart. The hoers stop work only long enough to eat their poor fare standing,—and poor fare indeed it is. The corn that is made into bread is so filled with husks and ground so poorly that it is scarcely better than the fodder given to the cattle; and the bacon, if they have any, is badly cured and cooked. But they must eat that or starve; there is no chance of getting any thing better. The ploughmen take their dinners in the sheds where the mules are allowed to rest; and since two hours is usually given these animals, for rest and foddering, they, of course, must take the same.
At sunset they leave off work, and, tired and hungry, they have to prepare their own supper; and after hastily eating it, at nine o'clock the bell is rung for them to go to bed. Sundays they are not usually required to work, and some planters give their slaves a portion of Saturday, in the more leisure season; and this intermission of field labor is all the opportunity they have to wash and mend their clothes, or for any enjoyment. What a sorry life! sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, with a hoe in the hand, or a heavy cotton sack or basket tied about the neck, toiling on under the curses and lash of the driver and the overseer.
Tidy dreaded it. Brought up as she had been, accustomed to comparatively neat clothing, good food, cheerful associates, and light work, how could she live here? She felt that she could not long endure it. Her strength would fail, her task be unfinished, then she must be punished, and before long, through hard fare, unwearied toil, and ill usage, she felt that she should die. But there was no help. Once she had ventured to send an entreaty to her master to take her back to house service. But he was hardhearted and unrelenting, and declared with an oath that made her ears tingle that she should never leave the cotton-field till she died, and there was no power in heaven or earth that could make him change his determination. So she hopelessly plodded on, day after day, scorched beneath the hot sun, and drenched with the pouring rain, weak, faint, and thirsty, trembling before the coarse shouts, and shrinking from the tormenting lash of the pitiless driver, sure that her fate was sealed.
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Was there no eye to pity, and no arm to rescue? Yes, the unseen God, whose name is love, was leading her still. Through all the dark, rough places of her life, his kind, invisible hand was laying link to link in that wondrous chain which was finally to bring her safe and happy into his own bosom.
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