AUGUST 5: NOT QUIT COTTON PICKIN' TIME

This Is Linda's Birthday and I and We All Wish Her the Very Best

When Daddy took us, Donnie, Pallie and Me to see our new baby sister with Mother at Dr. Crow's clinic in Olustee, the first thing I noticed were how cute her ears were.  I don't remember noticing other baby ears before that time.  And I generally still don't pay much attention to them now.  Anyway we were glad to add Linda Kay to our growing crowd of farm hands.

When Linda got old enough to crawl, she didn't.  She sat up on her bottom and pushed herself across the floor with her right hand.  When she finally reached fifteen month of age, she evidently decided to look at things from a higher perspective.  One night Mother and I thought she should learn to walk.  Donnie and Pallie were there as the cheering section.  Mother held Linda up and I was very close in front of her coaching her along.  She came to me, then wanted to turn around and go back.  So we played that game together for quit a while.  I stepped back a step each time.  We all began to laugh. And Linda began to laugh.  We all started laughing and laughing.  That was the night Daddy came home from one of his sheep shearing runs.     (I'm not sure how to justify this part, because Daddy's shearing trips were in the spring and this puts him coming sometime in the fall.  Maybe some of the family can help clear it up.)

Cotton picking generally started about mid September.  School let out for four to six weeks for kids to work in the fields.  And goodness, NO, we didn't have homework.  So school almost always began during the first week of August.

Mother and Aunt Bonnie were top cotton pickers.  Even after Mother was having her family, I remember her picking cotton as she dragged her sack down the row with Donnie and Pallie, one year and two years old, riding on her sack.

The women of our family have always been hard workers, in the house or in the field.  Where help was needed, they were there.  On several occasions Mother put on her overalls and helped with grinding feed bundles for the cattle.  She milked cows by hand before we got the electric milkers and even then she was in the barn or not far away.  The girls milked cows, too.

By the time Linda was old enough, she had the joy of pulling cotton beside the rest of us.  Soon she was pulling faster than Donnie, Pallie or I.  If she was pulling in the row next to you, she'd be pulling off your row and getting ahead as well.  That gave her a real advantage back at the wagon when we weighed up on the scale.  And it was also a real big disadvantage for the rest of us at the end of the day when Daddy figured up our weight production.  OUCH!!! Big time!!! 

We all worked to make the farm go.  I don't remember Daddy ever having just one job.  There were always the multitude of chores and jobs on the farm and then he almost always had custom work for neighbor farmers or carpentry jobs somewhere.

Today in my Bible reading, one of my chapters was Psalm 5.   I thought it might be fitting to share on this special day.  There are twelve verses in the Psalm.  I focused on the first three.  The title of the Psalm is:  Prayer for Protection from the Wicked.   It is written For the choir director for flute accompaniment.  A PSALM OF DAVID. 
     v. 1  --  Listen:  "Give ear to my words,..."
     v. 2  --  Pay Attention:  "Heed the sound of my cry..."
     v. 3  --  The Lord Will Be There in the Morning:    "In the morning, O LORD, Thou wilt hear my voice..."                    

NOTICE:  It's a matter of confident calling on my / our part.
                   It's a matter of clearly expressing our heart's cry with our own words.
                   It's a matter, not of wondering, hoping, assuming, or wishing, but of confident faith that today, this very morning the Living Lord God Almighty has listened and paid attention to my very deep and earnest heart cry.  The hard part may be our waiting for the fulfillment of His will.

     v. 11  --  Sing with joy and gladness because He is our refuge and shelter.
                    Because you love His name, He will exalt you.
     v.12  --  A righteous man or woman or youth or child will be blessed by God and will be
                   surrounded by His favor as with a shield.