Free The Widow Finds Love (Mail Order Bride Series) by Susan Leigh Carlton Page A

shape now.  If we can just get a little rain, I believe we’ll have a big crop this year, maybe even forty bales.”

Chapter 16:  We Have Problems
     
    It had been a wet August.  Like all vegetation, cotton needs a certain amount of rain to thrive.  The same rain that benefits cotton, also benefits its natural enemies.  Every three or four years, Texas cotton farmers are plagued by cotton worms, also known as army worms.  They are more likely to appear following a wet spell.  If they appear in mid to late September, their damage is minimal.
     
    Clint was in the fields from sunup to sundown.  The hot, muggy weather had made him irritable.  It was nearly dark every evening, when he came in from the fields.  It was so late, Sarah had done the milking, after hearing the bawling of the cows as their udders were painfully heavy with milk. 
     
    When he came in, his face, arms and hands were dirty.  Sarah was alarmed at his appearance.  “What’s going on?” she asked.  “You’ve been in the fields until dark every day, and you come in looking as if you’ve been rolling in the dirt.”
     
    “It’s hot and muggy out there, and it’s hard work,” he said irritably.
     
    “Clint, I was raised on a farm.  I know about hot and I know about hard work.  Don’t treat me as if I’m a child.  Something is bothering you and I want to know what it is.”
     
    “Did you have Texas cotton worms in South Carolina?” he asked.
     
    “ I never heard of a Texas cotton worm, but we had army worms.  They could ruin a cotton crop in no time,” she answered.
     
    “It’s probably the same thing we have here.  Last year, my crop was hurt by the worm.  One of my neighbors had his fields completely stripped and lost the whole crop. 
     
    “With all of the rain we had, I’ve been afraid they might be back.  At church last week, one of my neighbors told me he had seen some on his cotton.  I found them in the far field.  The plants are stripped.  I’ve already lost that field, now I’m trying to keep them away from the rest of the crop.”
     
    “What can you do about stopping them?” she asked.
     
    “You can sweep the plants and get a lot of them off.”
     
    “Papa dusted his cotton with poison mixed with flour, and that killed most of them.”
     
    “I can’t afford to spend much on something like that.  Besides, I don’t know where I could get one,” he said.
     
    “Can we afford not to?  I don’t know how much the poison cost, but it must have been worth it since it saved the cotton.  Papa made his duster.  It was a simple enough thing to do.  He took a board and nailed a bag on each end of the board.  He poured the poison into the bags and went up and down the rows.  The bouncing of the bags at the ends of the board shook the dust out.  He rode our mule up and down the rows with the bags shaking the poison out.”
     
    “I never heard of such a thing, but it sounds kind of simple.  Do you and the girls want to go into Marshall with me and see if we can find anything out about a worm poison?”
     
    “Whither thou goest, there I go also, husband of mine,” she said.
 
    “What kind of bag di d he use?  Seed bags?”               
     
    “I don’t think seed bags would be good, because they would let too much poison through.  I think Papa must have used flour sacks.  You know how the flour kind of comes out if you hit the bag with your hand?  That’s what you are trying for here.”
     
    * * *
     
    “Clint, you old stick!  How’ve you been?  I haven’t seen you for a while,” said Jud Hendricks, the proprietor of the general store.
     
    “I’ve been all right, Jud.  You didn’t meet my wife, Sarah yet, did you?” asked Clint.
     
    “No, I can’t say that I have.  I heard you got married though.”
     
    “Sarah, this here’s Jud Hendricks.  My family has done business with him for years.”
     
    “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Hendricks,”