My mom would pack me a lunch then I'd walk down to the road at 6:30 a.m. and wait for the truck from the orchard to come by and pick me up. It was coming from town where it had picked up a bunch of other kids too and take us to the orchard.
We'd pick all day then the truck would drive us home. If I remember correctly, we only got about 75 cents per lug and depending how fast you could pick and steal cherries from the other kids' lugs, you'd get from 6 to ten lugs in a day.
Looking back on it, that was slave labor and I should have reported the farmer to the Department of Labor..........LOL!
ROFL!!!!
Your story reminds me of an older gentleman my daughter and I encountered when we were picking strawberries at a U-pick place a few years back. He was telling us (really her) about how when he was her age - she was about 8 at the time - he used to get picked up and taken to the strawberry field and was paid 10 cents a quart and would do it every day he could during strawberry season. It was fascinating listening to him, and also watching him - even though he was engrossed in his story he never missed a beat with picking berries. That was 5 or 6 years ago and that man was easily 80, if he were a day!
Back in 1962, we got put in the fields picking green beans. Hot and humidity almost killed us. We got a penny a pound for the work.
I made $5.00 one day! Thought I was in hog heaven! Then the weather turned dry and hotter. We picked the same amount of beans but I never made more than $2.50 a day after that. The buyer then upped the pay to a whole 1 1/2 cents lb.
The next year it was back to the bean fields. It was so hot my brother passed out in the fields.