HOW THEY NAMED HIM BOWEAVER
©2000 James David Pearce
Boweaver was born in a cotton patch.
His mother really shouldn't have gone out to pick cotton that day, but the bolls were full, fluffy and bright-white, the pickers were getting a penny a pound, the times were tight, and pennies were hard to come by.
When Boweaver came on the scene, the erstwhile midwives washed him with water from their drinking bucket, cut his umbilical cord, placed him gently on a tow-sack and told his mother to just sit with him and rest while they finished out the row.
He was born with almost a full shock of white hair that looked for all the world like the bolls of the cotton plants, which happened to be crawling at the time with an unwelcome little weevily immigrant from south of the border.
When the mother's helpers returned, they found her asleep and Boweaver's white hair full of the weevils, jumping at another chance to find a new home.
As they began to pick the little bugs from his hair, Boweaver stirred and inquired with his big brown eyes: "What are you doing?"
"Picking boll weevils from your hair," they replied.
At the time, Boweaver was unable to speak very distinctly, and he repeated, quizzically: "Boweaver?"
"Yes," they said, "now go back to sleep, little Boweaver, while we finish picking the cotton."
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Stanley
1935
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Hertford County cotton
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