long streamers from the live oak trees; the bayous, or arms of
the river, clogged with water hyacinths; the fields of sugar
cane; and the Negro cabins, with their glassless windows and
their big black kettles boiling in the back yards.

"But the funniest thing I saw," Rose-Ellen said later, "was a cow
lying in the bayou, with purple water hyacinths draped all over
her, as if it was on purpose."

After a few days, though, even this peekaneeka grew wearisome to
the children; while Daddy and Grandpa grew more and more anxious
about an angry spat-spat-spat from the Reo. So they were all
glad to reach the cotton fields they had been steering toward.

But there they did not find what they had hoped for. There were
too many workers ahead of them and too little left to do.
Tractors, it seemed, were taking the place of many men, one
machine driving out two to five families.

Though the camp was a fairly comfortable one, it proved lonesome
for the children for there was no Center, and it did not seem
worth while for them to start to school for so short a time. It
was doubtful, anyway, whether the school had room for them.

Grandma was too lame to work in the cotton. When she bent over,
she could hardly straighten up again; so she stayed home with
Jimmie and the baby, and Dick and Rose-Ellen picked. Rose-Ellen
felt superior, because there were children her age picking into
small sacks, like pillow-slips, and she used one of the regular
long bags, fastened to her belt and trailing on the ground