Read A Day to Pick Your Own Cotton for Free Online Page B

laughing.
    “You did it, Miss Katie,” I said. “You really made him believe your mama was right up there all the time!”
    A sheepish smile crept over her face. Then she started laughing too.
    We talked for a minute, then suddenly a startled look came over Katie’s face.
    “Oh, oh—I forgot about Emma!” she exclaimed.
    I’d forgotten too. “Where is she?” I said.
    But already Katie had turned and was running into the parlor. She threw up the carpet and opened the trapdoor in the floor leading down into the cellar. The instant she did, the sound of a baby crying came up from the blackness below.
    “You can come up now, Emma,” said Katie, taking two or three steps down the ladder. “Here, hand William up to me.”
    “Miz Katie,” I heard Emma calling from below, “it was so dark down dere, I wuz skeered.”
    “I’m sorry, Emma. It all happened so fast. But next time we’ll put a candle or lantern down there for you.”
    “You gwine make me go down dere agin, Miz Katie?” wailed Emma as she climbed up out of the dark hole.
    “Only if we have to, Emma. Only if someone comes again. But it will be better next time, I promise.”

A T ALK A BOUT G OD
9

    O NE DAY AFTER WE HAD JUST FINISHED THE milking, we were taking the cows out to pasture. As the two of us were walking along the road I glanced back. There were the eight or ten milk cows following lazily along, stretching out behind us in ones and twos. And I realized that we were doing it, we were getting up every morning and keeping things going. It might not have been much of a plantation, but at least the animals were still alive and we were surviving, although we were sure drinking a lot of milk. It was good for Emma, though. She was starting to fill out a little and was looking a mite less scrawny. And in time I reckoned William would start drinking some cow’s milk directly from a bottle instead of his mama’s breast.
    I glanced back again.
    The cows behind us didn’t care how old we were. They just went where we led them and ate the food we gave them and let us milk them. They didn’t care if we were black or white or young or old.
    A wave of happiness surged through me as we walked. I ain’t sure quite what caused it. But with the sun shining and the cows clomping along and me and Katie just going about the day like it wasn’t so unusual and like we actually knew what we were doing, it was just a good feeling.
    I snuck a glance over at Katie beside me. She had a contented, almost happy, carefree look on her face too. She had already changed so much from when I’d first come. I could see it in her expression, just in the way she walked and talked. She was so much more confident already. She didn’t look like a frightened little girl anymore. I think taking care of Emma had matured her more than anything. It made her feel useful and needed. She knew how much Emma and William depended on her for their very survival and that couldn’t help but make a body feel more grown up about things.
    “Miss Katie,” I said as we walked along, “do you ever wonder why God let all this happen—our families getting killed I mean?”
    “Do you think He let it happen, Mayme?” she said.
    “I thought He made everything happen,” I said. “I thought that’s what God’s will was, everything that happened.”
    “I don’t see how something as bad as that could be God’s will,” she said.
    I thought about what she’d said a minute.
    “I see what you mean. I guess I don’t see how it could be either, if He’s a good God,” I said. “But I thought everything was His will.”
    “I don’t know,” said Katie. “My mama and daddy didn’t teach me too much about God.”
    We walked along a while more. My mind was turning the thing around and around.
    “Do you think He is a good God, Miss Katie?” I said after a bit.
    “I don’t know. I just thought He was … God.”
    “But what’s He like?”
    “I don’t know. But doesn’t it seem like