A Cup of Water
© 1997 Don Rogers
She said,
I grew up in a very poor area of the south. We lived on what passed for a farm. This was during a time when the races, back and white, were living in friendly separation.
There was a railroad track running through our collection of houses, wasn't really big enough to be called a town. The whites lived on one side of the tracks and the blacks, now designated African Americans, lived on the other.
One springtime our mule got sick or lame or something. I was so young that I don't remember the problem. I do remember that we couldn't plow with our mule and so couldn't get the land ready for planting. My father went across the tracks and talked to Otie, who seemed to me to be one of the oldest African Americans I'd ever seen. My father asked Otie if he would plow our land using his healthy mule. Some pay would be involved.
Otie agreed and came to plow. He was a hot day. Otie worked the soil out in that sun, plowing back and forth. Sometime during that time he came to sit for a spell under the meager shade of our tree. I saw him and thought he must be thirsty. I went in our house, got him a glass of cool water (we didn't have cold water), and took it to him.
Otie was surprised. I guess things like that weren't done, but I was young and didn't know that. He took the glass of water, said "This is so kind" and drank it slowly. I watched. And I saw tears running down his cheeks. He was so grateful at my childish offer that he was silently crying.
I learned a lot in that moment. It changed my life, that moment.