“Away down South in the land of cotton
Cinnamon seed and sandy bottom
Look away, look away, look away down South in Dixie,”
sang the boy named Billy.
“Wherever did you dig up that old Dixie song?” Somebody asked,
smiling. “I haven’t heard it in years.”
“Bob White’s Grandfather is always singing it,” said the boy
named Billy, “and we play soldier to it--it has such a dandy
swing to it--listen:
“‘In Dixie Land I’ll take my stand
To live and die for Dixie--Look away--
Look away--look away down South in Dixie’
--it’s an old war song, isn’t it?”
“It is one of the old negro melodies which the boys adopted as a
marching song in the Civil War,” said Somebody, “and very dear to
the hearts of everyone from the ‘land of cotton’.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask something about cotton--Teacher says
that if coal is king in America cotton is easily queen. I did
not know before that it was so important--I thought you just
made house dresses and aprons of it. Bob White says that when he
was down South with his folks last winter the fields were all
blossomed out white and the people were picking the flowers.”
“Bob should have asked questions about it,” said Somebody, “and
in that way he would have found out that the white ‘blooms’ were
in reality the ripened cotton, or boll, as it is called. When the
cotton has gone to seed it is ready to be picked, and if left to
itself would in time blow away in the winds, scattering its seeds
just as old Grandfather dandelion does his.
“But it is far too valuable to be left to do that, so it is
carefully picked and prepared for market; but valuable as the
fibre, the seed, which is deeply embedded in the cotton, is
almost more so. But the seed is very hard to get at, and before
the cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney it was a year’s work
for one person to clean the seeds from enough cotton to make one
bale, but now with the machinery they have it is easy to prepare
many bales in one day.”
“Where did it come from?” asked Billy.
“Most of it,” said Somebody, “came from our own Southern States,
but it has been grown in Asia and Egypt for centuries, being one
of the oldest plants on record.”
“What are some of the uses of cotton?” asked Billy.
“They are so many I couldn’t begin to tell you,” said Somebody,
“but all our bed linen is made from it, as well as most of our
curtains, and underwear and the dainty things Little Sister
wears, as well as the lovely voile dresses that make Mother look
like a bunch of posies. It is indispensable for bandages and pads
to dress wounds with and for many other things.”
“I think it’s wonderful,” said the boy named Billy, “how many of
the things that we use every day just grow.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Somebody, “Mother Nature has put everything
we could possibly need, in this good old world of ours, and
expects us to use our brains to find out just how to use them.”
“Thanks, Somebody,” said the boy named Billy, “I’m going over to
tell Bob White all about those wonderful cotton flowers he thinks
he saw!”