Burning Cotton

Kind of funny dad story

For those that don't know, my father passed away on Aug 1, 2014. 

I know it's long, but it's kind of funny and touching. He sent this to me in an email back in 2008. I've only edited it for a couple of typos. Other than that, I've left it unchanged.
-------------------------------------------------
The following took place in September of 1948 when I was six years old. At the time my dad was a sharecropper who grew cotton on a farm in Red River County, Texas. We were what one might call "dirt poor" and lived in a little unpainted shack of a house about a quarter of a mile from the Red River. We had only one family of white neighbors with all the rest being black folks who worked on our farm or other nearby farms. It literally rewards my soul when I think how very hard daddy worked to make sure we had food and clothing. It glorifies his name to me the manner in which he treated the blacks who worked alongside him. He was a fair and honest man who taught me so very much, not by words alone, but by example.

The only transportation we had at that time was a wagon and two mules and when those mules weren't hitched up to the wagon, one of them was pulling a plow through the fields with daddy right behind it holding the plow - and me, right behind daddy plodding along through fresh turned earth. Every so often daddy would stop to give the mule a rest. The mule would sit down and daddy would go around and talk to the mule. I've heard him tell the mule so many times, "We'll be done here in a little while." Then he'd motion with his hand how much more plowing he wanted to get done before they were finished for the day. The mule would even look in the direction of where daddy had pointed as if it actually understood every word that he had said. Daddy loved that old mule.

Sorry to have gotten so involved in treasured memories that I may have crowded out the story I was intent upon telling. So, it's September and it's time to get the cotton harvested. There were no machines in that day (at least that we had access to) to come in and strip the cotton from the stalks. It had to be done by hand. The procedure was that as the cotton was picked, each person would bring their cotton sack to the scales attached to a trailer, the sack was weighed, and the contents dumped into the trailer. After the trailer was full, a tractor would come and haul it to the cotton gin for processing.

On this particular day, though, the trailer had broken down and all the cotton was being piled onto the ground waiting for the trailer's repairs and subsequent return to the field. It was also on this particular day that some kids on the school bus coming home from school had been discussing whether cotton, when lit, would burn in much the same way as grass did, or would it flash over like a highly combustible material might do, or would it burn at all?

Now, I'm a person that expects that where there's a question, there must surely be an answer. So, as the school bus drops me off I immediately run into the house, grab a handful of matches, and go directly to the cotton field where people were picking cotton. To my great surprise I find this big pile of cotton laying on the ground. It would have filled a 10' X 10' room at least half full. Yes, I could have picked up a small amount of cotton and tried my experiment with the matches, but there's this whole big pile of it! So I tossed a lighted match in the middle of it.

I can tell you now from first hand experience that cotton, when ignited, flashes over almost like an explosion, then it smolders. Daddy must have seen the whole thing because he was there in a heartbeat. He wanted to know what happened. I explained that there must have been some way that the cotton had ignited itself. "An accident." I said.

Daddy pulled up a cotton stalk and took a few swats at my bottom. I broke loose and ran through thirteen rows of cotton before he caught me again. He then pulled up another cotton stalk and swatted me a few more times. Of course, my reaction to the punishment was far in excess of what the punishment had been. Daddy and some others were up most of the night turning the cotton and making sure it was all extinguished. I was not the most popular person in those parts for several days afterward.

Then, years later as my dad was within his last 28 days of life, he told me that he had not spanked me as much for lighting the cotton, but for lying about it. He had told me that at the time as well. He also told me in those last days of his that he had been paid more money for that particular load of cotton than for any other load he had sold - because it was wet and it sold by the pound.

I didn't mean to go into this, but since I brought it up let me tell you a little more about my dad. He died in 1970 from acute leukemia. Basically, he had had a sore throat for a couple of months before going to the doctor. After three days of tests, his doctor essentially told him he had about 30 days to live. He died 26 days later, but during those 26 days I was with him every week day from noon until 5 PM. We talked about the cotton I burned. We talked about everything.

One of the things we also talked about was a time when I was eight years old. Our living conditions had improved considerably, but we still lived on a farm with him as a sharecropper. We now had a tractor instead of mules so farming was a lot easier for him. I wanted a bicycle, but there was no money for it so daddy made a deal with me. He would plant 1/2 acre of cotton just for me. It was separate from the rest of the crop and I was to tend to it. This meant that I had to hoe it for weeds regularly, pick it when it was ready, pull the bowls when they were ready, and do all other things for my 1/2 acre that he did for the 300 acres he was responsible for. Once the cotton had been harvested Daddy bought me a new bicycle.

During one of those last days of his life he told me that he had something to tell me. Something that had bothered him for years and he wanted to finally get it off his mind. I asked him what it was. "The bicycle only cost $30.00." He said. "What?" I asked. "The cotton brought in close to $80.00." He answered.

I immediately knew what he was talking about. He explained that all these years he had thought about talking to me about it, but was too embarrassed that he had beat an eight year old kid out of fifty bucks. I reminded him that the deal was that I get a bicycle, not the entire amount the cotton sold for.

I never would have thought it possible to miss a person so much after they had been gone for 38 years. I miss that man with all my heart. ...and he forgave me for lying about how the cotton caught fire. I had never thought to ask before.