Michael Phillips-A Day To Pick Your Own Cotton

Although Katie and Mayme are only teenagers, they are trying to run the Rosewood Plantation on their own and convince everyone in the nearby town of Greens Crossing that nothing is amiss. Under their watch, Rosewood becomes a sanctuary for several other young women in trouble, including a girl whose mother died when she and her daughter were fleeing her abusive husband, and an ex-slave who is hiding herself and her new baby from a cruel former master. Throughout the novel the four girls struggle to survive, keep one step ahead of those who would harm them, and find a way to pay the bank loans against the property