Miriam McFate Travel Journal - 1926

Tue, Nov 2, 1926

Up at 5:00. Got breakfast. Just as I was ready to call the rest rap a tap, tap at our door. I opened it and there stood 2 boys about 18 years old. They had slept in a car all night and were about froze. One had a light cap and a sweater. The other had no coat of any kind. His cap was just an auto visor. They were hiking to St. Louis. I let them in. When they got warm they went their way. It froze water here last night. This is something very unusual here for this time of year the station keeper told us. Ready to leave here 7:00. Stopped in Jackson 7:40 for groceries. Fixed the Brake rods again. On gravel roads again. Drove on to Cape Giradeau. Country thro here about the same. Have to miles of pavement from here. More farming done thro this Section. Quite a lot of corn, but not extra good.

Passed the Marquette Cement Plant. This is in a lime rock bluff. We could see the chunks they had blasted out ready to grind up. Lots of rocky bluffs as we drive along. Left the town of Fornbelt Mo. on dirt and gravel roads again. Had to stop and put some little do dad on our engine to make it work better. On we go again. Still going up and coasting down. Engine stopped on us again. Had quite a time to locate the trouble. Found a wire broke in the switch. Eat our dinner, started again 1:00. Drove on into a very level stretch. This land lays like our levelst land in Iowa. Saw our first cotton fields this afternoon. Stopped and picked enough to send some back to the kids. This is planted in rows about 2 feet apart and about apart in the row. Grows about 3 feet in hight. Every one from the Mammy to the baby pickininny picks cotton. They have a long sack tied around their shoulders. This they drag along the ground behind them. They pick it off and poke it in the sack. In each field is one or two wagons with a square rack on it. Each wagon has a pair of scales on it. In this is dumped the cotton. It is hauled to the cotton gin this way.

Passed a lot of wagons as we go along. They load on all they can. Pile up bang boards as high as it is safe to do so. Some haul awful big loads. There is hundred of acres of cotton thro here. Lots of young orchard all thro the southern part of Mo. We have come out on to level stretch again. Our road now lays as level ahead of us as it has been rough behind us. All houses thro this section are tumble down affairs. Ever house is built up on cement blocks. No other foundations of any kind. You can see clear under every one. Most of these are Negroes home. They don’t know what paint is here in Missouri.

It would make you laugh to see them pick corn here. They only use a double box with 2 bang boards on the side. On the just have a double box and straddle one row. Then they pick up the down row. Most always see two at a wagon. Every one we seen working works at it as tho they hated the sight of corn. I would rather pick their corn than their cotton. This looks as tho it be an everlasting back breaking affair.

It is considered a good days work to pick 250 or 300 pounds of cotton. A good clean cotton picker can get 23 1/2 cents a pound. But he has got to be better than the average picker. 1500 to 2000 pounds to the acre is considered a good crop. They raise cotton in here like we do corn in Iowa. Pulled into camp on a vacant lot at New Madrid Mo. Have to work on our engine tomorrow. Three other parties here tonight.