"Picking Cotton" is one of Erskine Caldwell's earlier short stories, included in We Are the Living (1933), conspicuous for its humorous treatment of the theme—highly controversial, and illegal in a lot of the United States at the time of writing—of inter-racial sex. On some occasions Harry, the narrator, was paired off with an African American named Sonny. He welcomed such occasions since Sonny worked as a houseboy to Mrs. Williams and could tell a lot of interesting gossip.