The Grapes of Wrath (55 page)

“Well, I’m glad,” Lisbeth said. “The sinners is awful strong aroun’ here. You come to a awful place. They’s wicketness all around about. Wicket people, wicket goin’s-on that a lamb’-blood Christian jes’ can’t hardly stan’. They’s sinners all around us.”

Ma colored a little, and shut her mouth tightly. “Seems to me they’s nice people here,” she said shortly.

Mrs. Sandry’s eyes stared. “Nice!” she cried. “You think they’re nice when they’s dancin’ an’ huggin’? I tell ya, ya eternal soul ain’t got a chancet in this here camp. Went out to a meetin’ in Weedpatch las’ night. Know what the preacher says? He says, ‘They’s wicketness in that camp.’ He says, ‘The poor is tryin’ to be rich.’ He says, ‘They’s dancin’ an’ huggin’ when they should be wailin’ an’ moanin’ in sin.’ That’s what he says. ‘Ever’body that ain’t here is a black sinner,’ he says. I tell you it made a person feel purty good to hear ’im. An’ we knowed we was safe. We ain’t danced.”

Ma’s face was red. She stood up slowly and faced Mrs. Sandry. “Git!” she said. “Git out now, ’fore I git to be a sinner a-tellin’ you where to go. Git to your wailin’ an’ moanin’.”

Mrs. Sandry’s mouth dropped open. She stepped back. And then she became fierce. “I thought you was Christians.”

“So we are,” Ma said.

“No, you ain’t. You’re hell-burnin’ sinners, all of you! An’ I’ll mention it in meetin’, too. I can see your black soul a-burnin’. I can see that innocent child in that there girl’s belly a-burnin’.”

A low wailing cry escaped from Rose of Sharon’s lips. Ma stooped down and picked up a stick of wood.

“Git!” she said coldly. “Don’ you never come back. I seen your kind before. You’d take the little pleasure, wouldn’ you?” Ma advanced on Mrs. Sandry.

For a moment the woman backed away and then suddenly she threw back her head and howled. Her eyes rolled up, her shoulders and arms flopped loosely at her side, and a string of thick ropy saliva ran from the corner of her mouth. She howled again and again, long deep animal howls. Men and women ran up from the other tents, and they stood near—frightened and quiet. Slowly the woman sank to her knees and the howls sank to a shuddering, bubbling moan. She fell sideways and her arms and legs twitched. The white eye-balls showed under the open eyelids.

A man said softly, “The sperit. She got the sperit.” Ma stood looking down at the twitching form.

The little manager strolled up casually. “Trouble?” he asked. The crowd parted to let him through. He looked down at the woman. “Too bad,” he said. “Will some of you help get her back to her tent?” The silent people shuffled their feet. Two men bent over and lifted the woman, one held her under the arms and the other took her feet. They carried her away, and the people moved slowly after them. Rose of Sharon went under the tarpaulin and lay down and covered her face with a blanket.

The manager looked at Ma, looked down at the stick in her hand. He smiled tiredly. “Did you clout her?” he asked.

Ma continued to stare after the retreating people. She shook her head slowly. “No—but I would a. Twicet today she worked my girl up.”

The manager said, “Try not to hit her. She isn’t well. She just isn’t well.” And he added softly, “I wish she’d go away, and all her family. She brings more trouble on the camp than all the rest together.”

Ma got herself in hand again. “If she comes back, I might hit her. I ain’t sure. I won’t let her worry my girl no more.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Joad,” he said. “You won’t ever see her again. She works over the newcomers. She won’t ever come back. She thinks you’re a sinner.”

“Well, I am,” said Ma.

“Sure. Everybody is, but not the way she means. She isn’t well, Mrs. Joad.”

Ma looked at him gratefully, and she called, “You hear that, Rosasharn? She ain’t well. She’s crazy.” But the girl did not raise her head. Ma
said, “I’m warnin’ you, mister. If she comes back, I ain’t to be trusted. I’ll hit her.”

He smiled wryly. “I know how you feel,” he said. “But just try not to. That’s all I ask—just try not to.” He walked slowly away toward the tent where Mrs. Sandry had been carried.

Ma went into the tent and sat down beside Rose of Sharon. “Look up,” she said. The girl lay still. Ma gently lifted the blanket from her daughter’s face. “That woman’s kinda crazy,” she said. “Don’t you believe none of them things.”

Rose of Sharon whispered in terror, “When she said about burnin’, I—felt burnin’.”

“That ain’t true,” said Ma.

“I’m tar’d out,” the girl whispered. “I’m tar’d a things happenin’. I wanta sleep. I wanta sleep.”

“Well, you sleep, then. This here’s a nice place. You can sleep.”

“But she might come back.”

“She won’t,” said Ma. “I’m a-gonna set right outside, an’ I won’t let her come back. Res’ up now, ’cause you got to get to work in the nu’sery purty soon.”

Ma struggled to her feet and went to sit in the entrance to the tent. She sat on a box and put her elbows on her knees and her chin in her cupped hands. She saw the movement in the camp, heard the voices of the children, the hammering of an iron rim; but her eyes were staring ahead of her.

Pa, coming back along the road, found her there, and he squatted near her. She looked slowly over at him. “Git work?” she asked.

“No,” he said, ashamed. “We looked.”

“Where’s Al and John and the truck?”

“Al’s fixin’ somepin. Had ta borry some tools. Fella says Al got to fix her there.”

Ma said sadly, “This here’s a nice place. We could be happy here awhile.”

“If we could get work.”

“Yeah! If you could get work.”

He felt her sadness, and studied her face. “What you a-mopin’ about? If it’s sech a nice place why have you got to mope?”

She gazed at him, and she closed her eyes slowly. “Funny, ain’t it. All the time we was a-movin’ an’ shovin’, I never thought none. An’ now these here folks been nice to me, been awful nice; an’ what’s the first thing I do? I go right back over the sad things—that night Grampa died an’ we buried him. I was all full up of the road, and bumpin’ and movin’, an’ it wasn’t so bad. But now I come out here, an’ it’s worse now. An’ Granma—an’ Noah walkin’ away like that! Walkin’ away jus’ down the river. Them things was part of all, an’ now they come a-flockin’ back. Granma a pauper, an’ buried a pauper. That’s sharp now. That’s awful sharp. An’ Noah walkin’ away down the river. He don’ know what’s there. He jus’ don’ know. An’ we don’ know. We ain’t never gonna know if he’s alive or dead. Never gonna know. An’ Connie sneakin’ away. I didn’ give ’em brain room before, but now they’re a-flockin’ back. An’ I oughta be glad ’cause we’re in a nice place.” Pa watched her mouth while she talked. Her eyes were closed. “I can remember how them mountains was, sharp as ol’ teeth beside the river where Noah walked. I can remember how the stubble was on the groun’ where Grampa lies. I can remember the choppin’ block back home with a feather caught on it, all criss-crossed with cuts, an’ black with chicken blood.”

Pa’s voice took on her tone. “I seen the ducks today,” he said. “Wedgin’ south—high up. Seems like they’re awful dinky. An’ I seen the blackbirds a-settin’ on the wires, an’ the doves was on the fences.” Ma opened her eyes and looked at him. He went on, “I seen a little whirlwin’, like a man a-spinnin’ acrost a fiel’. An’ the ducks drivin’ on down, wedgin’ on down to the southward.”

Ma smiled. “Remember?” she said. “Remember what we’d always say at home? ‘Winter’s a-comin’ early,’ we said, when the ducks flew. Always said that, an’ winter come when it was ready to come. But we always said, ‘She’s a-comin’ early.’ I wonder what we meant.”

“I seen the blackbirds on the wires,” said Pa. “Settin’ so close together. An’ the doves. Nothin’ sets so still as a dove—on the fence wires—maybe two, side by side. An’ this little whirlwin’—big as a man, an’ dancin’ off acrost a fiel’. Always did like the little fellas, big as a man.”

“Wisht I wouldn’t think how it is home,” said Ma. “It ain’t our home no more. Wisht I’d forget it. An’ Noah.”

“He wasn’t ever right—I mean—well, it was my fault.”

“I tol’ you never to say that. Woudn’ a lived at all, maybe.”

“But I should a knowed more.”

“Now stop,” said Ma. “Noah was strange. Maybe he’ll have a nice time by the river. Maybe it’s better so. We can’t do no worryin’. This here is a nice place, an’ maybe you’ll get work right off.”

Pa pointed at the sky. “Look—more ducks. Big bunch. An’ Ma, ‘Winter’s a-comin’ early.”’

She chuckled. “They’s things you do, an’ you don’ know why.”

“Here’s John,” said Pa. “Come on an’ set, John.”

Uncle John joined them. He squatted down in front of Ma. “We didn’ get nowheres,” he said. “Jus’ run aroun’. Say, Al wants to see ya. Says he got to git a tire. Only one layer a cloth lef’, he says.”

Pa stood up. “I hope he can git her cheap. We ain’t got much lef’. Where is Al?”

“Down there, to the nex’ cross-street an’ turn right. Says gonna blow out an’ spoil a tube if we don’ get a new one.” Pa strolled away, and his eyes followed the giant V of ducks down the sky.

Uncle John picked a stone from the ground and dropped it from his palm and picked it up again. He did not look at Ma. “They ain’t no work,” he said.

“You didn’ look all over,” Ma said.

“No, but they’s signs out.”

“Well, Tom musta got work. He ain’t been back.”

Uncle John suggested, “Maybe he went away—like Connie, or like Noah.”

Ma glanced sharply at him, and then her eyes softened. “They’s things you know,” she said. “They’s stuff you’re sure of. Tom’s got work, an’ he’ll come in this evenin’. That’s true,” She smiled in satisfaction. “Ain’t he a fine boy!” she said. “Ain’t he a good boy!”

The cars and trucks began to come into the camp, and the men trooped by toward the sanitary unit. And each man carried clean overalls and shirt in his hand.

Ma pulled herself together. “John, you go find Pa. Get to the store. I want beans an’ sugar an’—a piece of fryin’ meat an’ carrots an’—tell Pa to get somepin nice—anything—but nice—for tonight. Tonight—we’ll have—somepin nice.”

The migrant people, scuttling for work, scrabbling to live, looked always for pleasure, dug for pleasure, manufactured pleasure, and they were hungry for amusement. Sometimes amusement lay in speech, and they climbed up their lives with jokes. And it came about in the camps along the roads, on the ditch banks beside the streams, under the sycamores, that the story teller grew into being, so that the people gathered in the low firelight to hear the gifted ones. And they listened while the tales were told, and their participation made the stories great.

I was a recruit against Geronimo——

And the people listened, and their quiet eyes reflected the dying fire.

Them Injuns was cute—slick as snakes, an’ quiet when they wanted. Could go through dry leaves, an’ make no rustle. Try to do that sometime.

And the people listened and remembered the crash of dry leaves under their feet.

Come the change of season an’ the clouds up. Wrong time. Ever hear of the army doing anything right? Give the army ten chances, an’ they’ll stumble along. Took three regiments to kill a hundred braves—always.

And the people listened, and their faces were quiet with listening. The story tellers, gathering attention into their tales, spoke in great rhythms, spoke in great words because the tales were great, and the listeners became great through them.

They was a brave on a ridge, against the sun. Knowed he stood out. Spread his arms an’ stood. Naked as morning, an’ against the sun. Maybe he was crazy. I don’ know. Stood there, arms spread out; like a cross he looked. Four hunderd yards. An’ the men—well, they raised their sights an’ they felt the wind with their fingers; an’ then they jus’ lay there an’
couldn’ shoot. Maybe that Injun knowed somepin. Knowed we couldn’ shoot. Jes’ laid there with the rifles cocked, an’ didn’ even put ’em to our shoulders. Lookin’ at him. Head-band, one feather. Could see it, an’ naked as the sun. Long time we laid there an’ looked, an’ he never moved. An’ then the captain got mad. “Shoot, you crazy bastards, shoot!” he yells. An’ we jus’ laid there. “I’ll give you to a five-count, an’ then mark you down,” the captain says. Well, sir—we put up our rifles slow, an’ ever’ man hoped somebody’d shoot first. I ain’t never been so sad in my life. An’ I laid my sights on his belly, ’cause you can’t stop a Injun no other place—an’—then. Well, he jest plunked down an’ rolled. An’ we went up. An’ he wasn’ big—he’d looked so grand—up there. All tore to pieces an’ little. Ever see a cock pheasant, stiff and beautiful, ever’ feather drawed an’ painted, an’ even his eyes drawed in pretty? An’ bang! You pick him up—bloody an’ twisted, an’ you spoiled somepin better’n you; an’ eatin’ him don’t never make it up to you, ’cause you spoiled somepin in yaself, an’ you can’t never fix it up.

And the people nodded, and perhaps the fire spurted a little light and showed their eyes looking in on themselves.

Against the sun, with his arms out. An’ he looked big—as God.

And perhaps a man balanced twenty cents between food and pleasure, and he went to a movie in Marysville or Tulare, in Ceres or Mountain View. And he came back to the ditch camp with his memory crowded. And he told how it was:

They was this rich fella, an’ he makes like he’s poor, an’ they’s this rich girl, an’ she purtends like she’s poor too, an’ they meet in a hamburg’ stan’.

Why?

I don’t know why—that’s how it was.

Why’d they purtend like they’s poor?

Well, they’re tired of bein’ rich.

Horseshit!

You want to hear this, or not?

Well, go on then. Sure, I wanta hear it, but if I was rich, if I was rich I’d git so many pork chops—I’d cord ’em up aroun’ me like wood, an’ I’d eat my way out. Go on.

Well, they each think the other one’s poor. An’ they git arrested an’
they git in jail, an’ they don’ git out ’cause the other one’d find out the first one is rich. An’ the jail keeper, he’s mean to ’em ’cause he thinks they’re poor. Oughta see how he looks when he finds out. Jes’ nearly faints, that’s all.

What they git in jail for?

Well, they git caught at some kind a radical meetin’ but they ain’t radicals. They jes’ happen to be there. An’ they don’t each one wanta marry fur money, ya see.