than she asked, led her through such rough and crooked paths that she
was quite discouraged, and nearly gave up all for lost.

This was her painful condition when she was driven, for the first time
in her life, with a gang of men and women to work in the cotton-field.


CHAPTER XV.

COTTON.

LET us look into a cotton-field; we will take this one of a hundred acres.
The cotton is planted in rows, and requires incessant tillage to secure
a good crop. The weeds and long grass grow so rankly in this warm
climate that great watchfulness and care are required to keep them down.
If there should be much rain during the season, they will spread
so rapidly as perhaps quite to outgrow and ruin the crop.

Two gangs of laborers work in the field. The plough-gang
go first through the rows, turning up the soil, and are
followed by the hoe-gang, who break out the weeds, and lay
the soil carefully around the roots of the young plants.
This operation has to be repeated again and again; and so important
is it to have it done seasonably that the workers are urged on,
early and late, until the field is in a flourishing condition.
Hot or cold, wet or dry, day and night, sometimes, the poor
creatures have to toil through this busy season. Then there is
a little intermission of the severe labor until the picking time,
when again they are obliged to work incessantly.