that would make you weep. But they wasn't no good huntin' no
more, and the kittles was empty. So we come down to the coal
mines, and when the mines shut down, we went on into the onions."

These were great marshes, drained like cranberry bogs and planted
in onions. Whole families could work there, planting, weeding,
pulling, packing.

("I've learned a lot!" thought Rose-Ellen. "I used to ask the
grocer for a nickel's worth of dry onions, and I never did guess
how they came to be there.")

The first year was dreary. Maw took the baby (Mary, then) and
laid her on a blanket at the end of the row she was working, with
Tom to watch her. Cissy worked along with the grown folks, or
some days stayed home and did the washing and minded Tom and
Mary.

"I shore didn't know how to wash good as I do now." She patted
her faded dress, pretty clean, though not like the clothes of
Grandma's washing.

There was one thing about it, Cissy said; after a day in onions,
with the sun shining hot on her sunbonnet and not much to eat,
she didn't care if there wasn't any play or fun at night; she was
glad enough to drop down on the floor and go to sleep as soon as
she'd had corn pone and coffee. Sometimes she was sick from the
sun beating down on her head and she had to crawl into the shade
of a crate and lie there.