New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-07-02
IN THE COTTON COUNTRY
by CONSTANCE Kenmore wOODSoN.

Do you know the cotton country, tn,
country of broad levels open to the sun
where the ungainly ragged bushes stand IL
on their backs? Not on their backs. either
for the white wool is scattered over the
branches and twige, looking, not az if il
grew there, but as if it had been blown
that way, and had caught and chung al
random. When first came to the cotton
country used to stand with my chin on
tho top rail Of the fences trying to lid my
sYes Of that first impression. l saw the
fields only when the cotton was white,
when there were no green leaves left, and
The fleecy down did not seem to me q
vegetable at all. Starved COWS passed
through the half-plucked rows attempted,
AID I said to myself, "Of course. Cows
30 not eat cotton any more than they
eat wool; but what bush is there at the
North they would not nibble if starv-
ing" Accustomed to the trim, soldiery
ranks of the western corn-ields, or the bill
Lowry grace Of the wheat, could think of
aoching save a parade of sturdy beggar-
men unwilling!y drawn up in line, when
W and generally lop-sided appearance of
@leee plants-plants, nevertheless. of
ssaalth, usefulness, and historic importance
II the annals of our land. But after a
while grew accustomed to their contrary
ways, and even began to like their de-
liant wildDess, as contrast, perhaps to the
,anguorous sky above, the true sky of the
cotton country. with its soft heat, its hazy
AIR, and its divine twilight that fingers so
long. I always walked abroad at sunset,
and it is in the sunset light that l ALWAYS
see the fields now when far away. No
doubt there was plenty of busy, prosaic re-
atty down there in the mornings, but l
never saw it; l only saw the beauty and the
fancies that come with the soft after glow
and the shadows of the night.
Down in the cotton country the sun.
shines steadily all day long, and the earth
is hot under your feet; there are few birds,
but at nightfall the crows begin to fly home
in q long line, going down into the red west
as though they had important business to
deliver to some imprisoned princess on the
edge of the horizon. One day 1 followed
Che crows. said to myself: "The princess
is ruse; they probably light not far from
here, and am going to find their place
The crows at home-that would be some
thing worth seeing" Turning from the
path, l went westward. What" said a
country woman, meeting Wadsworth on the
rcad, "are ye stepping westward, sir9 1,
zoo, stepped westward"
Field after field l crossed; at last the
4SuCCS CO0rCu, 0AO OutJ udll-u1lcu ullCuob
marked the boundary lines. The land
stopped downward slightly, and after
while the ridge behind me seemed like
line of heights, the old cotton plants on its
top standing out as dis tinctly as single pine
trees on q mountain summit outlined
against the sky; go comparative is height.
The crows still flew westward as l came out
upon q second level lower down than the
irst, and caugh golden CLEAN through
the fringe of bushes in the middle of the
plain. had unwittingly found the river
was down there sOmew here, although had
not seen it with my bodily eyes. had full
of what it was, though further
south, toward the ocean; knew the long
lrestle over the swamps and dark cane
brakes that stretched out for miles on each
,ide of the actual stream, trestles over
which the trains passed cautiously every
lay, the Northern passengers looking nerv-
1usly down at the Guaking, spongy sur
face below, and prophesying accidents as
certain some time-when they were not on
however, the river was more dOcile, there |
we're no tides to come up and destroy the |
banks, and with the exception of freshets |
he ha bits of the stream were orderly. The |
evels on each side might have been, |
should have been, rich with plenty. In |
Itead, they were uncultivsred and desolate.
te and there wild, 0utlawed cOttOn-bush |
cared its head, and could trace the old |
inc of the cart-road and cross-tracks; but
he soil was spongy and disintegrated, and
or long time evidently no care had been
'esto wed upon it. l crossed over to the
liver, and found that the earth-bank which
lad protected the field was broken down
nd washed away in many places; the low
rees and bushes on shore etill held the
travis and driftwOOd that showed the last
high water mark.
The river made an irregular bend short
istance below, and l etrOlled that way,
yalking now on the thick masses of lespe-
eza that carpeted the old roadtrack, and
ow on the singularly porous soil of the
vel, soil which even nv inexperienced
yes recognized as worthless, with all its
bod particles having been drained out Of it
I'd borne away on the triumphant tide Of
70 freshets. The crows still evaded me,
ossing the river in a straight line, and fly
g on toward the west, and, in that arbi-
airy way in which solitary pedestrians made
impacts with themselves, said, II will go
that tree at the exact turn of the bend,
ID not one step further" went to that
ee at the exact turn Of the bend, and then
for found there one SOL
IN, lonely old house. Now, ii there had | (
en- two, 1 should not have gone on; / ;
ould not have broken my compact. Two
uses are sOclable and commonplace; but
9 all alone on desolate waste like that
,Dired me wirh-let US call it interest, and
vent forward.
It was lodge rather than house; in its g
90 day 1t could never have been more than
Tery plain abode, and now, in its worst, it 9
med to have fallen into the hands of b
ant Despair. "Forlorn" was written over G