The Cotton-Pickers Read Free

English fluently. His Spanish was also very limited, so I imagine that he either came from Brazil or had smuggled himself over from Africa. He obviously wanted to get to the States, and it would be easier for him as a Negro to get over the border, even if his English was not very good, than for a white man who spoke the language well. He was the only one who regarded cotton-picking as a welcome and profitable occupation.
    Then there was Abraham, the little Negro from New Orleans, who wore a shirt as black as his skin, so that it wasn’t easy to distinguish between the shreds of his shirt and the skin it tried to cover. Abraham was the only one who wore a cap, oddly enough a blue-striped cap of the kind worn by railroad stokers and engineers. He had no bundle, but he carried a coffee pot and a frying pan, and some food in a small canvas bag. Abraham was wily, cunning, cheeky, and ever in good spirits. He had a mouth organ on which he played that silly tune “Yes, we have no bananas” so often that on the second day we let loose on him with our fists.
    Gonzalo said that Abraham stole like a crow, and Antonio said that he lied like a Dominican friar. On the third evening out, we caught Abraham stealing a slice of Antonio’s dried beef, but we relieved him of it before he got it into his frying pan and solemnly explained to him that if we caught him stealing again we would deal with him according to the law of the bushland. We would try him, duly sentence him, then take a cord from one of our bundles and hang him on the nearest ebony tree, leaving a note pinned on his body to explain why he had been hanged. Whereupon Abraham told us that we would not dare to lay a finger on him, for he was an American citizen, “native-born,” and would report us to the government in Washington if we so much as touched him. They would then come with a gunboat flying the stars and stripes and work vengeance on us. He was a free citizen “of the United States,” could prove it with certificates, and so had the right to be tried before a proper court. When we told him that no gunboat flying the stars and stripes could sail into the bush, he said, “Well, Gentlemen, Sirs, just touch me with the tip of one finger and see what happens.”
    What happened was that we caught him a few days later stealing a can of condensed milk from the Chink. He brazenly claimed he’d bought the milk at a store in Tampico, but we gave him such a beating that he couldn’t have held a pen to write to Washington. (Later, when he pilfered from others, that was, of course, none of our business.)
    Then last in line there was Gerard Gales — that’s my name. There’s not much to say about me. In dress I was indistinguishable from the others, and I was going cotton-picking — laborious, underpaid work — because there was no other work to be had and I badly needed a shirt, a pair of shoes, and some trousers. Even so, they would have to come from a second-hand shop. Ten weeks’ work at cotton-picking would never earn enough to buy them new.
    The sun was already low when we began to look around for a place to pitch camp.
    Before long we found a spot where high grass extended into the bush; we pulled out as much of it as was necessary to clear a camping ground and set fire to the surrounding grass, thereby gaining some freedom from insects and creeping vermin for the night. A freshly-burned grass area is supposed to be the best protection you can have if you are obliged to journey in these parts without the equipment of the tropical traveler.
    We had a campfire, but no water to cook with. At this point the Chink produced a bottle of cold coffee. We had had no idea that he was carrying such precious stuff with him. He heated the coffee and obligingly offered us all a drink. But what was a bottle of coffee among six men who had been plodding along in the tropical sun for half a day without a drop of water? Furthermore, it was probable that we’d find as little water