He looked at her with twinkling eyes.
"Well, you see, Miss Taylor, it's like this: farming don't seem to be
your specialty."
The word was often on Miss Taylor's lips, and she recognized it. Despite
herself she smiled again.
"Of course, it isn't--I don't know anything about farming. But what did
I say so funny?"
Bles was now laughing outright.
"Why, Miss Taylor! I declare! Goobers don't grow on the tops of vines,
but underground on the roots--like yams."
"Is that so?"
"Yes, and we--we don't pick cotton stalks except for kindling."
"I must have been thinking of hemp. But tell me more about cotton."
His eyes lighted, for cotton was to him a very real and beautiful thing,
and a life-long companion, yet not one whose friendship had been
coarsened and killed by heavy toil. He leaned against his hoe and talked
half dreamily--where had he learned so well that dream-talk?
"We turn up the earth and sow it soon after Christmas. Then pretty soon
there comes a sort of greenness on the black land and it swells and
grows and, and--shivers. Then stalks shoot up with three or four leaves.
That's the way it is now, see? After that we chop out the weak stalks,
and the strong ones grow tall and dark, till I think it must be like the
ocean--all green and billowy; then come little flecks here and there
and the sea is all filled with flowers--flowers like little bells, blue
and purple and white.
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