The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck [131]
That so?
And the great question, How’s the water?
Well, she don’t taste so good, but they’s plenty.
Well, thank ya.
No thanks to me.
But the courtesies had to be. The car lumbered over the ground to the end tent, and stopped. Then down from the car the weary people climbed, and stretched stiff bodies. Then the new tent sprang up; the children went for water and the older boys cut brush or wood. The fires started and supper was put on to boil or to fry. Early comers moved over, and States were exchanged, and friends and sometimes relatives discovered.
Oklahoma, huh? What county?
Cherokee.
Why, I got folks there. Know the Allens? They’s Allens all over Cherokee. Know the Willises?
Why, sure.
And a new unit was formed. The dusk came, but before the dark was down the new family was of the camp. A word had been passed with every family. They were known people—good people.
I knowed the Allens all my life. Simon Allen, ol’ Simon, had trouble with his first wife. She was part Cherokee. Purty as—as a black colt.
Sure, an’ young Simon, he married a Rudolph, didn’ he? That’s what I thought. They went to live in Enid an’ done well—real well.
Only Allen that ever done well. Got a garage.
When the water was carried and the wood cut, the children walked shyly, cautiously among the tents. And they made elaborate acquaintanceship gestures. A boy stopped near another boy and studied a stone, picked it up, examined it closely, spat on it, and rubbed it clean and inspected it until he forced the other to demand, What you got there?
And casually, Nothin’. Jus’ a rock.
Well, what you lookin’ at it like that for?
Thought I seen gold in it.
How’d you know? Gold ain’t gold, it’s black in a rock.
Sure, ever’body knows that.
I bet it’s fool’s gold, an’ you figgered it was gold.
That ain’t so, ’cause Pa, he’s foun’ lots a gold an’ he tol’ me how to look.
How’d you like to pick up a big ol’ piece a gold?
Sa-a-ay! I’d git the bigges’ old son-a-bitchin’ piece a candy you ever seen.
I ain’t let to swear, but I do, anyways.
Me too. Le’s go to the spring.
And young girls found each other and boasted shyly of their popularity and their prospects. The women worked over the fire, hurrying to get food to the stomachs of the family—pork if there was money in plenty, pork and potatoes and onions. Dutch-oven biscuits or cornbread, and plenty of gravy to go over it. Side-meat or chops and a can of boiled tea, black and bitter. Fried dough in drippings if money was slim, dough fried crisp and brown and the drippings poured over it.
Those families which were very rich or very foolish with their money ate canned beans and canned peaches and packaged bread and bakery cake; but they ate secretly, in their tents, for it would not have been good to eat such fine things openly. Even so, children eating their fried dough smelled the warming beans and were unhappy about it.
When supper was over and the dishes dipped and wiped, the dark had come, and then the men squatted down to talk.
And they talked of the land behind them. I don’ know what it’s coming to, they said. The country’s spoilt.
It’ll come back though, on’y we won’t be there.
Maybe, they thought, maybe we sinned some way we didn’t know about.
Fella says to me, gov’ment fella, an’ he says, she’s gullied up on ya. Gov’ment fella. He says, if ya plowed ’cross the contour, she won’t gully. Never did have no chance to try her. An’ the new super’ ain’t plowin’ ’cross the contour. Runnin’ a furrow four miles long that ain’t stoppin’ or goin’ aroun’ Jesus Christ Hisself.
And they spoke softly of their homes: They was a little cool-house under the win’mill. Use’ ta keep milk in there ta cream up, an’ watermelons. Go in there midday when she was hotter’n a heifer, an’ she’d be jus’ as cool, as cool as you’d want. Cut open a melon in there an’ she’d hurt your mouth, she was so cool. Water drippin’ down from the tank.
They spoke of their tragedies: Had a brother Charley, hair as yella as corn, an’ him a growed man. Played the ’cordeen nice too. He was harrowin’ one day an’ he went up to clear his lines. Well, a rattlesnake buzzed an