CONTINUED
” 1 got a straight back; it fust doesn’t bend”
The morning was cold. A heavy tule fog hung damply over the valley. Broth er Day was making his rounds through the camp when he noticed smoke seep ing from around a door in one o f the cabins. The door was locked and Broth er Day, with the help o f a migrant, smashed it open. Fire was licking rap idly across the paper-littered floor and two frightened children huddled in a corner. The migrant grabbed the children and Brother Day started dragging a mattress out o f the room. On the mat tress was what he thought was a dirty rag doll. Not until he picked it up by the hair did he realize it was a tiny baby, so skinny and dirty it didn’t look human in the smoke-filled room. Hours later the mother returned. Her only comment: "Why didn’t you let them burn up?” She had been keeping a tryst with a boy friend while her husband was working. They were a white family from Ken tucky. The husband was heart-broken because o f his wife’s actions. She figured cotton picking wasn’t for her. "I got a straight back; it just doesn’t bend,” she said. The last the Days heard from the family was that the wife was work ing in a bar and the father had taken the children back to Kentucky.
A young cotton picker and Missionary Day watch as a tiny whirl wind swirls through ankle-deep dust on the hot cotton field.
As each bag is filled it is carried or dragged (sometimes a quarter of a m ile) to truck where it is weighed and paid for at $3 a hundred.
Because of a withered leg this man must hobble along with the help of a stick.
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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