The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck [192]
The children looked up. A pig-tailed little girl said, “Nex’ game you kin.’’
“I wanta play now,’’ Ruthie cried.
“Well, you can’t. Not till nex’ game.’’
Ruthie moved menacingly out on the court. “I’m a-gonna play.’’ The pig-tails gripped her mallet tightly. Ruthie sprang at her, slapped her, pushed her, and wrested the mallet from her hands. “I says I was gonna play,’’ she said triumphantly.
The elderly lady stood up and walked onto the court. Ruthie scowled fiercely and her hands tightened on the mallet. The lady said, “Let her play—like you done with Ralph las’ week.’’
The children laid their mallets on the ground and trooped silently off the court. They stood at a distance and looked on with expressionless eyes. Ruthie watched them go. Then she hit a ball and ran after it. “Come on, Winfiel’. Get a stick,’’ she called. And then she looked in amazement. Winfield had joined the watching children, and he too looked at her with expressionless eyes. Defiantly she hit the ball again.
She kicked up a great dust. She pretended to have a good time. And the children stood and watched. Ruthie lined up two balls and hit both of them, and she turned her back on the watching eyes, and then turned back. Suddenly she advanced on them, mallet in hand. “You come an’ play,’’ she demanded. They moved silently back at her approach. For a moment she stared at them, and then she flung down the mallet and ran crying for home. The children walked back on the court.
Pigtails said to Winfield, “You can git in the nex’ game.’’
The watching lady warned them, “When she comes back an’ wants to be decent, you let her. You was mean yourself, Amy.’’ The game went on, while in the Joad tent Ruthie wept miserably.
The truck moved along the beautiful roads, past orchards where the peaches were beginning to color, past vineyards with the clusters pale and green, under lines of walnut trees whose branches spread half across the road. At each entrance-gate Al slowed; and at each gate there was a sign: “No help wanted. No trespassing.’’
Al said, “Pa, they’s boun’ to be work when them fruits gets ready. Funny place—they tell ya they ain’t no work ’fore you ask ’em.’’ He drove slowly on.
Pa said, “Maybe we could go in anyways an’ ask if they know where they’s any work. Might do that.’’
A man in blue overalls and a blue shirt walked along the edge of the road. Al pulled up beside him. “Hey, mister,’’ Al said. “Know where they’s any work?’’
The man stopped and grinned, and his mouth was vacant of front teeth. “No,’’ he said. “Do you? I been walkin’ all week, an’ I can’t tree none.’’
“Live in that gov’ment camp?’’ Al asked.
“Yeah!’’
“Come on, then. Git up back, an’ we’ll all look.’’ The man climbed over the side-boards and dropped in the bed.
Pa said, “I ain’t got no hunch we’ll find work. Guess we got to look, though. We don’t even know where-at to look.’’
“Shoulda talked to the fellas in the camp,’’ Al said. “How you feelin’, Uncle John?’’
“I ache,’’ said Uncle John. “I ache all over, an’ I got it comin’. I oughta go away where I won’t bring down punishment on my own folks.’’
Pa put his hand on John’s knee. “Look here,’’ he said, “don’ you go away. We’re droppin’ folks all the time—Grampa an’ Granma dead, Noah an’ Connie—run out, an’ the preacher—in jail.’’
“I got a hunch we’ll see that preacher agin,’’ John said.
Al fingered the ball on the gear-shift lever. “You don’ feel good enough to have no hunches,’’ he said. “The hell with it. Le’s go back an’ talk, an’ find out where they’s some work. We’re jus’ huntin’ skunks under water.’’ He stopped the truck and leaned out the window and called back, “Hey! Lookie! We’re a-goin’ back to the camp an’ try an’ see where they’s work. They ain’t no use burnin’ gas like this.’’
The man leaned over the truck side. “Suits me,’’ he said. “My dogs is wore clean up to the ankle. An’ I ain’t even got a nibble.’’
Al turned around in the middle of the road and headed back.
Pa said, “Ma’s gonna be purty hurt, ’specially when Tom got work so easy.’’
“Maybe he never got none,’’ Al said. “Maybe he jus’ went lookin