Any of you remember what it's like to put that first wet and sandy bunch of tobacco leaves under your arm at the first light of day. If you do, you know you started early to avoid the heat. And sure enough, it's not hot when you arrived, but it sure is muggy sometimes, and sometimes foggy. But it's not an unpleasant time of the morning, but you know that's coming.
By about 10:00 AM, that moisture is gone from the leaves, and even though you already could hold a ton of leaves under your arm before you're forced to go to the sled, now you can hold even more because your side and carrying arm are completely covered with sticky tobacco gum with sand embedded in it, so leaves that touch there aren't going anywhere.
Still, that may not be a bad day priming tobacco if you are nearly done. Frequently we were near done, but different ripening patterns may sometimes mean that we had to work until noon, or even 3:00 pm. That is a bad day of priming tobacco since it gets pretty darn hot in NC out in a tobacco fields. It didn't seem to bother the huge tobacco worms that much, so maybe I should have tried eating tobacco leaves like the worms and like Dolly the mule.
I've mentioned Dolly before...so if you've seen it, we're done here.
Although most farmers used a sled row wide enough to run a tractor down and used some small tractor for the sled pulling task, one farmer I primed for was unwilling to go that wide, so he used a narrow sled and a mule named Dolly.
Unfortunately, he used "whoa" for stop and a kissing sound for go. Some of us kids tried to develop special techniques to break the tobacco off the stalk to minimize the chance of getting a kissing sound, since if that sound emanated, Dolly
would spring into action. But once Dolly was on the move, the farmer didn't just say "whoa" which meant stop, but instead he said
"WHOA" which is a more complex command.
Based on observation, big "whoa" meant "go all the way down to the end of the sled row, but stop with your head one foot within the row, and then eat tobacco like you are starved, nervous, and on that 'wacky tobaccy' I hear about on the TV news. And the closer I get, the faster you eat. And when I get beside you and kick you in the gut, that means flea sideways and wipe out some of the tobacco and almost turn the sled over. I'll signal you when you have done enough by no longer beating you toward directions I wish you wouldn't go. The I'll take your halter, scream "
whoa means Whoa!", swear loudly using words these children should never hear (and better not repeat lest their fathers treat me like I am treating you.) Finally I'll punch you on the head a time or two to demonstrate that phrase 'hard headed as a mule' has merit. And because you deliberately hurt my fist, I will finish up by showing these children an unusual use of head gear as I use my hat to beat
your hat (the one I put on you when I liked you better this morning.)
A few years later, I heard he replaced Dolly with a Cub and he was running down the row when yellow jackets swarmed him and he jumped off the Cub, and the tractor, needless to say, failed to respond to his clear and concise verbal commands and drug the sled into the pond right along behind it.
When some of us kids heard about it we laughed, but not at his troubles, but at the idea of Dolly slapping him with HER hat.
Dolly looked like this in her hat, but I never saw her in boots or pants.
PS: Remember the smell of a freshly emptied flue-cured tobacco barn. It's just a wonderful scent.