Take the boy out of the country

My Home Town

We sold our small farm and moved into the town of Hoxie about 1950. Living in town changed a lot of things for us, most of them for the better. We had electricity, gas heat and were one of the few families in the neighborhood who had a telephone. I think the first number was Turner 34, it later became Turner 3434.
It was common for neighbors to receive calls at our house, especially from their children and kinfolk up north. Good paying jobs were scarce in Hoxie and going north to work was about the only choice available. In the spring there were a few farm jobs, chopping cotton or driving a tractor and in the fall of the year you could pick cotton. These jobs would put food on the table for part of the year but were not permanent.
Dad worked at Combs Service Station and things were looking up for our family. Keeping 6 boys busy in town was going to take a bit of thinking but that was Mother's specialty. Many were the times Mother would come home from church with a list of jobs for us. I don't know if the farmers approached her or vice versa but come Monday morning they were there bright and early to pick us up. We were known as a hard working family and finding farm-work was not hard. We chopped and picked cotton for the same farmers most years. They would drive up and down the streets of Hoxie picking up workers until they had their quota filled. We would go as a group to one field and when it was picked we moved to another farm. Most of these farms were relatively small, not over 200 to 300 acres with only part of the farm planted in cotton. We spent a few days at each farm, however long it took to pick over his field. The first picking was the best and it took the longest. The second picking was several days or weeks later after more of the green cotton bolls had matured and opened in the hot sun. There was usually a third trip to the fields but it was very late in the season and it was called pulling bolls. This was done to get the last of the cotton out of the field and it was just what it was called. We stripped the bolls from the stalk by grabbing the cotton stalk at its base and stripping it to the top. This was usually done after winter had set in and sometimes we would wait until the muddy fields froze so we could work in them. Pulling bolls was cold, hard work that would ruin your hands even with gloves. It did not pay as much per pound as picking but it did get Christmas money many years.