The Grapes of Wrath (62 page)

“Two.”

“Kids?”

“Two.”

“Can all of you work?”

“Why—I guess so.”

“O.K. Find house sixty-three. Wages five cents a box. No bruised fruit. All right, move along now. Go to work right away.”

The cars moved on. On the door of each square red house a number was painted. “Sixty,” Tom said. “There’s sixty. Must be down that way. There, sixty-one, sixty-two—There she is.”

Al parked the truck close to the door of the little house. The family came down from the top of the truck and looked about in bewilderment. Two deputies approached. They looked closely into each face.

“Name?”

“Joad,” Tom said impatiently. “Say, what is this here?”

One of the deputies took out a long list. “Not here. Ever see these here? Look at the license. Nope. Ain’t got it. Guess they’re O.K.”

“Now you look here. We don’t want no trouble with you. Jes’ do your work and mind your own business and you’ll be all right.” The two turned abruptly and walked away. At the end of the dusty street they sat down on two boxes and their position commanded the length of the street.

Tom stared after them. “They sure do wanta make us feel at home.”

Ma opened the door of the house and stepped inside. The floor was splashed with grease. In the one room stood a rusty tin stove and nothing more. The tin stove rested on four bricks and its rusty stovepipe went up through the roof. The room smelled of sweat and grease. Rose of Sharon stood beside Ma. “We gonna live here?”

Ma was silent for a moment. “Why, sure,” she said at last. “It ain’t so bad once we wash it out. Get her mopped.”

“I like the tent better,” the girl said.

“This got a floor,” Ma suggested. “This here wouldn’ leak when it rains.” She turned to the door. “Might as well unload,” she said.

The men unloaded the truck silently. A fear had fallen on them. The great square of boxes was silent. A woman went by in the street, but she did not look at them. Her head was sunk and her dirty gingham dress was frayed at the bottom in little flags.

The pall had fallen on Ruthie and Winfield. They did not dash away to inspect the place. They stayed close to the truck, close to the family. They looked forlornly up and down the dusty street. Winfield found a piece of baling wire and he bent it back and forth until it broke. He made a little crank of the shortest piece and turned it around and around in his hands.

Tom and Pa were carrying the mattresses into the house when a clerk appeared. He wore khaki trousers and a blue shirt and a black necktie. He wore silver-bound eyeglasses, and his eyes, through the thick lenses, were weak and red, and the pupils were staring little bull’s eyes. He leaned forward to look at Tom.

“I want to get you checked down,” he said. “How many of you going to work?”

Tom said, “They’s four men. Is this here hard work?”

“Picking peaches,” the clerk said. “Piece work. Give five cents a box.”

“Ain’t no reason why the little fellas can’t help?”

“Sure not, if they’re careful.”

Ma stood in the doorway. “Soon’s I get settled down I’ll come out an’ help. We got nothin’ to eat, mister. Do we get paid right off ?”

“Well, no, not money right off. But you can get credit at the store for what you got coming.”

“Come on, let’s hurry,” Tom said. “I want ta get some meat an’ bread in me tonight. Where do we go, mister?”

“I’m going out there now. Come with me.”

Tom and Pa and Al and Uncle John walked with him down the dusty street and into the orchard, in among the peach trees. The narrow leaves were beginning to turn a pale yellow. The peaches were little globes of gold and red on the branches. Among the trees were piles of empty boxes. The pickers scurried about, filling their buckets from the branches, putting the peaches in the boxes, carrying the boxes to the checking station; and at the stations, where the piles of filled boxes
waited for the trucks, clerks waited to check against the names of the pickers.

“Here’s four more,” the guide said to a clerk.

“O.K. Ever picked before?”

“Never did,” said Tom.

“Well, pick careful. No bruised fruit, no windfalls. Bruise your fruit an’ we won’t check ’em. There’s some buckets.”

Tom picked up a three-gallon bucket and looked at it. “Full a holes on the bottom.”

“Sure,” said the near-sighted clerk. “That keeps people from stealing them. All right—down in that section. Get going.”

The four Joads took their buckets and went into the orchard. “They don’t waste no time,” Tom said.

“Christ Awmighty,” Al said. “I ruther work in a garage.”

Pa had followed docilely into the field. He turned suddenly on Al. “Now you jus’ quit it,” he said. “You been a-hankerin’ an’ a-complainin’ an’ a-bullblowin’. You get to work. You ain’t so big I can’t lick you yet.”

Al’s face turned red with anger. He started to bluster.

Tom moved near to him. “Come on, Al,” he said quietly. “Bread an’ meat. We got to get ’em.”

They reached for the fruit and dropped them in the buckets. Tom ran at his work. One bucket full, two buckets. He dumped them in a box. Three buckets. The box was full. “I jus’ made a nickel,” he called. He picked up the box and walked hurriedly to the station. “Here’s a nickel’s worth,” he said to the checker.

The man looked into the box, turned over a peach or two. “Put it over there. That’s out,” he said. “I told you not to bruise them. Dumped ’em outa the bucket, didn’t you? Well, every damn peach is bruised. Can’t check that one. Put ’em in easy or you’re working for nothing.”

“Why—goddamn it——”

“Now go easy. I warned you before you started.”

Tom’s eyes drooped sullenly. “O.K.” he said. “O.K.” He went quickly back to the others. “Might’s well dump what you got,” he said. “Yours is the same as mine. Won’t take ’em.”

“Now, what the hell!” Al began.

“Got to pick easier. Can’t drop ’em in the bucket. Got to lay ’em in.”

They started again, and this time they handled the fruit gently. The boxes filled more slowly. “We could figger somepin out, I bet,” Tom said. “If Ruthie an’ Winfiel’ or Rosasharn jus’ put ’em in the boxes, we could work out a system.” He carried his newest box to the station. “Is this here worth a nickel?”

The checker looked them over, dug down several layers. “That’s better,” he said. He checked the box in. “Just take it easy.”

Tom hurried back. “I got a nickel,” he called. “I got a nickel. On’y got to do that there twenty times for a dollar.”

They worked on steadily through the afternoon. Ruthie and Winfield found them after a while. “You got to work,” Pa told them. “You got to put the peaches careful in the box. Here, now, one at a time.”

The children squatted down and picked the peaches out of the extra bucket, and a line of buckets stood ready for them. Tom carried the full boxes to the station. “That’s seven,” he said. “That’s eight. Forty cents we got. Get a nice piece of meat for forty cents.”

The afternoon passed. Ruthie tried to go away. “I’m tar’d,” she whined. “I got to rest.”

“You got to stay right where you’re at,” said Pa.

Uncle John picked slowly. He filled one bucket to two of Tom’s. His pace didn’t change.

In mid-afternoon Ma came trudging out. “I would a come before, but Rosasharn fainted,” she said. “Jes’ fainted away.”

“You been eatin’ peaches,” she said to the children. “Well, they’ll blast you out.” Ma’s stubby body moved quickly. She abandoned her bucket quickly and picked into her apron. When the sun went down they had picked twenty boxes.

Tom set the twentieth box down. “A buck,” he said. “How long do we work?”

“Work till dark, long as you can see.”

“Well, can we get credit now? Ma oughta go in an’ buy some stuff to eat.”

“Sure. I’ll give you a slip for a dollar now.” He wrote on a strip of paper and handed it to Tom.

He took it to Ma. “Here you are. You can get a dollar’s worth of stuff at the store.”

Ma put down her bucket and straightened her shoulders. “Gets you, the first time, don’t it?”

“Sure. We’ll all get used to it right off. Roll on in an’ get some food.”

Ma said, “What’ll you like to eat?”

“Meat,” said Tom. “Meat an’ bread an’ a big pot a coffee with sugar in. Great big piece a meat.”

Ruthie wailed, “Ma, we’re tar’d.”

“Better come along in, then.”

“They was tar’d when they started,” Pa said. “Wild as rabbits they’re a-gettin’. Ain’t gonna be no good at all ’less we can pin ’em down.”

“Soon’s we get set down, they’ll go to school,” said Ma. She trudged away, and Ruthie and Winfield timidly followed her.

“We got to work ever’ day?” Winfield asked.

Ma stopped and waited. She took his hand and walked along holding it. “It ain’t hard work,” she said. “Be good for you. An’ you’re helpin’ us. If we all work, purty soon we’ll live in a nice house. We all got to help.”

“But I got so tar’d.”

“I know. I got tar’d too. Ever’body gets wore out. Got to think about other stuff. Think about when you’ll go to school.”

“I don’t wanta go to no school. Ruthie don’t, neither. Them kids that goes to school, we seen ’em, Ma. Snots! Calls us Okies. We seen ’em. I ain’t a-goin’.”

Ma looked pityingly down on his straw hair. “Don’ give us no trouble right now,” she begged. “Soon’s we get on our feet, you can be bad. But not now. We got too much, now.”

“I et six of them peaches,” Ruthie said.

“Well, you’ll have the skitters. An’ it ain’t close to no toilet where we are.”

The company’s store was a large shed of corrugated iron. It had no display window. Ma opened the screen door and went in. A tiny man stood behind the counter. He was completely bald, and his head was blue-white. Large, brown eyebrows covered his eyes in such a high arch that his face seemed surprised and a little frightened. His nose was long and thin, and curved like a bird’s beak, and his nostrils were blocked with light brown hair. Over the sleeves of his blue shirt he wore black
sateen sleeve protectors. He was leaning on his elbows on the counter when Ma entered.

“Afternoon,” she said.

He inspected her with interest. The arch over his eyes became higher. “Howdy.”

“I got a slip here for a dollar.”

“You can get a dollar’s worth,” he said, and he giggled shrilly. “Yes, sir. A dollar’s worth. One dollar’s worth.” He moved his hand at the stock. “Any of it.” He pulled his sleeve protectors up neatly.

“Thought I’d get a piece of meat.”

“Got all kinds,” he said. “Hamburg, like to have some hamburg? Twenty cents a pound, hamburg.”

“Ain’t that awful high? Seems to me hamburg was fifteen las’ time I got some.”

“Well,” he giggled softly, “yes, it’s high, an’ same time it ain’t high. Time you go on in town for a couple poun’s of hamburg, it’ll cos’ you ’bout a gallon gas. So you see it ain’t really high here, ’cause you got no gallon a gas.”

Ma said sternly, “It didn’ cos’ you no gallon a gas to get it out here.”

He laughed delightedly. “You’re lookin’ at it bass-ackwards,” he said. “We ain’t a-buyin’ it, we’re a-sellin’ it. If we was buyin’ it, why, that’d be different.”

Ma put two fingers to her mouth and frowned with thought. “It looks all full a fat an’ gristle.”

“I ain’t guaranteein’ she won’t cook down,” the storekeeper said. “I ain’t guaranteein’ I’d eat her myself; but they’s lots of stuff I wouldn’ do.”

Ma looked up at him fiercely for a moment. She controlled her voice. “Ain’t you got some cheaper kind a meat?”

“Soup bones,” he said. “Ten cents a pound.”

“But them’s jus’ bones.”

“Them’s jes’ bones,” he said. “Make nice soup. Jes’ bones.”

“Got any boilin’ beef ?”

“Oh, yeah! Sure. That’s two bits a poun’.”

“Maybe I can’t get no meat,” Ma said. “But they want meat. They said they wanted meat.”

“Ever’body wants meat—needs meat. That hamburg is purty nice stuff. Use the grease that comes out a her for gravy. Purty nice. No waste. Don’t throw no bone away.”

“How—how much is side-meat?”

“Well, now you’re gettin’ into fancy stuff. Christmas stuff. Thanksgivin’ stuff. Thirty-five cents a poun’. I could sell you turkey cheaper, if I had some turkey.”

Ma sighed. “Give me two pounds hamburg.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He scooped the pale meat on a piece of waxed paper. “An’ what else?”

“Well, some bread.”

“Right here. Fine big loaf, fifteen cents.”

“That there’s a twelve-cent loaf.”

“Sure, it is. Go right in town an’ get her for twelve cents. Gallon a gas. What else can I sell you, potatoes?”

“Yes, potatoes.”

“Five pounds for a quarter.”

Ma moved menacingly toward him. “I heard enough from you. I know what they cost in town.”

The little man clamped his mouth tight. “Then go git ’em in town.”

Ma looked at her knuckles. “What is this?” she asked softly. “You own this here store?”

“No. I jus’ work here.”

“Any reason you got to make fun? That help you any?” She regarded her shiny wrinkled hands. The little man was silent. “Who owns this here store?”

“Hooper Ranches, Incorporated, ma’am.”

“An’ they set the prices?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She looked up, smiling a little. “Ever’body comes in talks like me, is mad?”

He hesitated for a moment. “Yes, ma’am.”

“An’ that’s why you make fun?”

“What cha mean?”

“Doin’ a dirty thing like this. Shames ya, don’t it? Got to act flip, huh?” Her voice was gentle. The clerk watched her, fascinated. He
didn’t answer. “That’s how it is,” Ma said finally. “Forty cents for meat, fifteen for bread, quarter for potatoes. That’s eighty cents. Coffee?”

“Twenty cents the cheapest, ma’am.”

“An’ that’s the dollar. Seven of us workin’, an’ that’s supper.” She studied her hand. “Wrap ’em up,” she said quickly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Thanks.” He put the potatoes in a bag and folded the top carefully down. His eyes slipped to Ma, and then hid in his work again. She watched him, and she smiled a little.

“How’d you get a job like this?” she asked.

“A fella got to eat,” he began; and then, belligerently, “A fella got a right to eat.”