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Memories of Golde Dicks Markham (1996) Golde Markham Dicks 18/125

Nearly every Sunday morning Pa’s brothers, Walter, Henry, Press, and Drew (Ollie

was gone then), came to our house so Pa could give each of them a haircut. He had regular
barber scissors and hand clippers. Ma used those barber scissors until she died. I was the
barber for Tribble, Emerald, Opal, and Fay. A few years ago I told Tribble about these

haircuts—he was surprised to learn this.

ome

Pa planted cotton and picked it in August, September, and October. It was so hot the

cotton plants didn’t grow but eighteen inches high at best. The cotton pickers tied ropes or
strips of material to burlap bags to wear over their shoulders and neck to hold the cotton
they picked. When a sack was full, that strap could really cut into the shoulder and hurt.
My mother soaked a pot of navy beans overnight. Next morning, while she was fixing

breakfast, she started the beans cooking. She baked sweet potatoes in the oven. She made up
enough biscuits for breakfast and dinner—what we call “lunch” these days. She fried fat

bacon and dropped the bacon into the pot of dry beans.
Pa hitched up the mule to the wagon. We had to wear long sleeves or cut the toe out
of a pair of cotton hose to wear on our arms to keep the sun from blistering while we picked

cotton all day in the hot sun.
Ma put a quilt inside a large wooden box and loaded it into the wagon with a couple
of five-gallon jugs of water, a few ears of com, and a bundle of fodder or oats for the mule’s

dinner. They loaded the pot of beans, sweet potatoes, biscuits, and maybe an onion.
Boy, when noon finally arrived, that food sure tasted good! We stayed out all day,
from sunup to sundown in the field. The big box and quilt was my bed. I’d sleep all day. I

was the only child since Clarence had died.
The next year we had more cotton than Ma and Pa could pick by themselves, so Pa
went to town and hired a wagon load of black cotton pickers. They brought their bedding

and camped out in the old house. These pickers had two or three children about my age. It
was wonderful to play with them. While we were running around playing tag, their mothers
were cooking hoecake—a thin cake made from cornmeal. It smelled so good! I asked one of

the women if I could eat supper with them. They laughed and said that I could1 but Ma
wouldn’t let me.

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