The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills
year in an' year out, an' let us pray God, forever. It was not mine
to begin with--it belonged to the worl'. God put the coal and iron in
the ground, not for me, but for everybody. An' so I've given it to
everybody. Because I happened to own the lan' didn't make the
treasure God put there mine, any mo' than the same land will be mine
after I've passed away. We're only trustees for humanity for all we
make mo' than we need, jus' as we're only tenants of God while we
live on the earth."
As for children, the bishop settled that quickly and effectively. His
rule was that no boy or girl under sixteen should be permitted to
work in the mill, and to save any parents, weakly inclined, from the
temptation, he established a physical standard in weight, height and
health.
He found afterwards there was really small need of his stringent
rule, for under this system of management the temptations of child
labor were removed.
Among the good features of the mill, established by Alice Travis, was
a library, a pretty little building in the heart of Cottontown. It
was maintained yearly by the mill, together with donations, and
proved to be the greatest educational and refining influence of the
mill. It was kept, for one week at a time, by each girl in the mill
over twenty, the privilege always being given by the mill's physician
to the girl who seemed most in need of a week's rest. It came to be a
great social feature also, and any pretty afternoon, and all Saturday
afternoon,--for the mill never ran then--could be seen there the
young girls and boys of Cottontown.
To this was afterwards added a Cottontown school for the younger
children, who before had been slaves to the spinner and doffer carts.
And so it ran on several years, but still the Bishop could see that
something was lacking--that there was too much sickness, that in
spite of only eight hours his people, year in and year out, grew
tired and weak and disheartened, and with his great good sense he put
his finger on it.
"Now, it's this away," he said to his directors, "God never intended
for any people to work all the time between walls an' floors. Tilling
the soil is the natural work of man, an' there is somethin' in the
very touch of the ground to our feet that puts new life in our
bodies.
"The farmin' instinct is so natural in us that you can't stop it by
flood or drought or failure. Year in an' year out the farmer will
plant an' work his crop in spite of failure, hopin' every year to
hit it the nex' time. Would a merchant or manufacturer or anybody
else do that? No, they'd make an assignment the second year of
failure. But not so with the farmer, and it shows God intended he
shu'd keep at it.
"Now, I'm goin' to give this mill a chance to raise its own cotton,
besides everything else its people needs to eat. I figger we can
raise cotton cheaper than we can buy it, an' keep our folks healthy,
too."
Near Cottontown was an old cotton plantation of four thousand acres.
It had been sadly neglected and run down. This the bishop purchased
for the company for only ten dollars an acre, and divided it into
tracts of twenty acres each, building a neat cottage, dairy and barn,
and other outhouses on each tract--but all arranged for a family of
four or five, and thus sprang up in a year a new settlement of two
hundred families around Cottontown. It was no trouble to get them,
for the fame of The Model Mill had spread, and far more applied
yearly for employment than could be accommodated. This large farm,
when equipped fully, represented fifty thousand dollars more, or an
investment of ninety thousand dollars, and immediately became a
valuable asset of the mill.
It was divided into four parts, each under the supervision of a manager,
a practical and experienced cotton farmer of the valley, and the tenants
were selected every year from among all the workers of the mill,
preference always being given to the families who needed the outdoor
work most, and those physically weak from long work in the mill. It was
so arranged that only fifty families, or one-fourth of the mill, went
out each year, staying four years each on the farm. And thus every four
years were two hundred families given the chance in the open to get in
touch with nature, the great physician, and come again. After four years
they went back to the mill, sunburnt, swarthy, and full of health, and
what is greater than health,--cheerfulness--the cheerfulness that comes
with change.
On the farm they received the same wages as when in the mill, and each
family was furnished with a mule, a cow, and poultry, and with a good
garden.
To reclaim this land and build up the soil was now the chief work of the
old man; but having been overseer on a large cotton plantation, he knew
his business, and set to work at it with all the zeal and good sense of
his nature.
He knew that cotton was one of the least exhaustive crops of the world,
taking nearly all its sustenance from the air, and that it was also one
of the most easily raised, requiring none of the complicated and
expensive machinery necessary for wheat and other smaller grains. He
knew, too, that under the thorough preparation of the soil necessary for
cotton, wheat did best after it, and with clover sown on the wheat, he
would soon have nature's remedy for reclaiming the soil. He also knew
that the most expensive feature of cotton raising was the picking--the
gathering of the crop--and in the children of Cottontown, he saw at once
that he had a quick solution--one which solved the picking problem and
yet gave to each growing boy and girl three months, in the cool,
delightful fall, of healthful work, with pay more than equal to a year
of the old cheap labor behind the spinners. For,--as it proved, at
seventy-five cents per hundred pounds for the seed cotton picked,--these
children earned from seventy-five cents to a dollar and a half a day.
The first year, only half of the land was put in cotton, attention being
given to reclaiming the other half. But even this proved a surprise for
all, for nearly one thousand bales of cotton were ginned, at a total
cost to the mill of only four cents per pound, while Cottontown had been
fed during summer with all the vegetables and melons needed--all raised
on the farm.
That fall, the land, under the clean and constant plowing necessary
to raise the cotton, was ready to sow in wheat, which in February was
followed with clover--nature's great fertilizer--the clover being
sown broadcast on the wheat, behind a light harrow run over the
wheat. The wheat crop was small, averaging less than ten bushels to
the acre, but it was enough to keep all Cottontown in bread for a
year, or until the next harvest time, and some, even, to sell. Behind
the wheat, after it was mowed, came the clover, bringing in good
dividends. After two years, it was turned under, and then it was that
the two thousand acres of land produced fifteen hundred bales of
cotton at a total cost of four cents per pound, or twenty dollars per
bale. And this included everything, even the interest on the money
and the paying of seventy-five cents per hundred pounds to the
Cottontown children for picking and storing the crop.
In a few years, under this rotation, the farm produced all the cotton
necessary to run The Model Mill, besides raising all its vegetables,
fruit, and bread for all the families of Cottontown.
But the most beautiful sight to the old man was to see the children
every fall picking the cotton. Little boys and girls, who before had
worked twelve hours a day in the old, hot, stifling, ill-smelling
mill, now stood out in the sunshine and in the frosty air of the
mornings, each with sack to side, waist deep in pure white cotton,
flooded in sunshine and health and sweetness.
They were deft with their fingers--the old mill had taught many of
them that--and their pay, daily, ran from seventy-five cents to a
dollar and a half--as much as some of them had earned in a week of
the old way. And, oh, the health of it, the glory of air and sky and
sunshine, the smell of dew on the bruised cotton-heads, the rustle of
the mountain breeze cooling the heated cheeks; the healthy hunger,
and the lunches in the shade by the cool spring; the shadows of
evening creeping down from the mountains, the healthy fatigue--and
the sweet home-going in the twilight, riding beneath the silent stars
on wagons of snowy seed cotton, burrowing in bed of down and purest
white--this snow of a Southern summer--with the happy laughter of
childhood and the hunger of home-coming, and the glory and freedom of
it all!
THE END.