| Seven year old Luke Chandler lives with his parents and grandparents on a cotton farm in Arkansas in the 1950's. They are struggling to pay off debts on the farm, yet must find workers to pick the large cotton crop. If they don't pay the going rate, the hill people and Mexicans looking for work will go to a farm that certainly will. Pappy, Luke's grandfather is a tough but fair man, and he manages to find a family from the hills, who will camp in the front yard, and a group of Mexicans, who will live in the freshly cleaned hay loft during the picking season. Luke is expected to pick cotton every day as well. They work hard, and on Saturday afternoons they go to town to bring the cotton to the gin and to buy supplies.
Luke looks forward to Saturdays, but even before the first dreadful thing he witnesses the first Saturday, he is aware that several of the new workers are not only tough, but very mean. One of the workers kills a local man in a brawl, and threatens Luke not to tell what he has seen. Luke has never kept a secret or told a lie in his life. Now he is torn and also very scared. Because he is so little, he can sometimes hide amongst the cotton, and he also discovers a love affair between a young girl and one of the most dangerous of the Mexican workers. This scares him, too, because he has a secret crush on the girl, and doesn't want her to get hurt. Then he witnesses another murder. The first murderer is killed by the mean Mexican! | ||
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Plot & Themes Tone of book? - depressed Time/era of story - 1930's-1950's Kids growing up/acting up? Yes Kids: - struggling to earn a living to survive Poverty, surviving Yes Kind of living: - farm poverty Main Character Gender - Male Age: - a kid Ethnicity/Nationality Main Adversary Identity: - Male Age: - 20's-30's How sensitive is this character? Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor Intelligence - Average intelligence Setting How much descriptions of surroundings? - 5 () Farm/Ranch? Yes Farm/Ranch: - farm - lot of descript of crop raising Writing Style Amount of dialog - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog |
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