Cornelia tried to talk him out of it, but she could not deny that the family needed the money badly, and at last she gave in. She was never really happy about it, however. It hurt to see her son trudge off just after daybreak each morning and then slump home fourteen hours later, exhausted and grimy. Harry was not unused to hard work—he had spent much of the winter and early spring chopping wood—but this field labor was grueling. When he returned home at dusk he would collapse wordlessly into a chair, doze for a while, and then head upstairs to bed, too tired to join the family’s evening get-togethers or even to read. He never complained, however, and he stuck to the work manfully despite the long hours, the increasingly hot weather, and the paltry wages.1 Cornelia was unhappy about Harry’s job not only because it took such a physical toll on him, but also because she thought it degrading. Here was her first-born hoeing and plowing some planter’s cornfield, side-by-side with blacks, when he should be in school preparing for a profession.
