After my Father passed away we were left to wonder what would happen to us, where would we live, how would we survive?
When you are tenant farmers, you live on someone else's land so we finished the crop that Daddy had started with the help of many people. The song, "With A Little Help From My Friends" was never more true than that year and the next few.Farming we soon discovered was not so easy without years of experience and my Daddy had that which I am told made him an excellent tobacco farmer; he was so good I am told that he won awards from the County and the State. Rufus Junior and Jimmy tried very hard and we finished that year and I was supposed to help because after all I was ten! The three of us went out to weed the corn crop and there I was with my well sharpenend hoe trudging along with my big brothers. Now the corn rows were long and it was HOT! I made it about half way down the first row and they are about three quarters away from me and I was so hot and so tired that I decided I needed help or something so I thought that I would bring them back to me. I came up with this bright idea, Snake I yelled as loud as I could and they came running only there was no snake; boy did I catch it from both of them. "Get back to work" is what I got from them and they went WAY back up the row and I was left to catch up so I hoed for another couple of hills and guess what? a huge black snake wrapped around a corn stalk!
I started screaming SNAKE, SNAKE and they yelled back, "that is not going to work this time" so I starting crying and screaming and finally Jimmy said, "Rufus I think she might be telling the truth this time" so here they came to my rescue. My Heros! I was told to stop crying and get my behind back to the house so off I ran to tell Mama of my escapade; she was not amused! "That will teach you to tell a lie" is what she said and left me to think about what I had put my two brothers through that day.
