Page 27 - barefoot-in-the-sand-remembering-the-waning-days-of-the-hopewell-community-(1998)-bruce-c-gragg

Barefoot In The Sand: Remembering the Waning Days of the Hopewell Community (1998) Bruce C. Gragg 23/123

FARM WORK WAS HARD--WE STILL HAD FUN

Another labor intense community effort was the planting and gathering
and curing of the tobacco crop. Tobacco became the main cash crop
after Mr. Boll Weevil created havoc in the cotton fields. Papa had
not planted his acreage for several years, although a tenant farmer
would usually plant it. Actually, I got most of my tobacco work
experience after we moved. We did help Mr. Rhoden for several years.
A couple of years Mr. Pafford rented our acreage, we helped him there
as well as what he planted on his own farm. The men usually did the
gathering of the crop put in sleds pulled usually by a mule and
carried to the barn where the women and children worked to put it on
the sticks to be placed in the barn for heat curing. One thing for
sure there was no problem of the mule trying to eat the crop like
when gathering produce to prepare for canning. Green tobacco was not
what even a mule would want to eat. The pay was not very high, at the
time it was good; and the work was very hard and tiring. The men
working to gather the tobacco, "cropping" earned about $4.00 per day
and dinner. The women and children working to "hand" the tobacco to
the "stringers" earned about $2.50-$3.00 per day and dinner. The
handers would get two to maybe four or five leaves per hand, and hand
it to the woman doing the stringing onto the stick. The stringers
would get about $4.00 per day and dinner. The sticks were about four
and a half feet long. In earlier years the pay was a lot less. The
wife of the farmer prepared some good Southern Cooking. After dinner
there was time for a short rest period then all headed back to work.
That was a hard way to try to make a living, not only for the farmer
but the neighbors hired to help gather the crop. When the men came in
from the field for dinner and late afternoon, they still had to climb
up in the barn and hang it on the tiers for curing, called "cooking
off." After working in the field for a half day they would often
carry on something silly just to help get alert before going up in
the barn, for it was a bit dangerous. The possibility of loosing
balance and falling was always on your mind. At this particular time
I was too small to be climbing up in the barn, but I experienced the
same thing in later years when working for neighbors in their tobacco
crops.

Often some of the mostly younger boys would have to try their luck
using some "Stingy Green." This is unprocessed tobacco, made into a
cigar or some even tried to chew it with usually bad results. It
didn't take long for the after effects to be evident, getting rather
sick to be exact. The name came from the fact that when sick, the
user usually turned a sick shade of green. I never heard of anyone
dying from it, but I'm sure some may have wished such at the time.

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