The Grapes of Wrath

“Ya goddamn right I want,” Tom said. “Jus’ wait a minute. I’ll tell my folks.” He hurried to the Joad tent and bent over and looked inside. In the gloom under the tarpaulin he saw the lumps of sleeping figures. But a little movement started among the bedclothes. Ruthie came wriggling out like a snake, her hair down over her eyes and her dress wrinkled and twisted. She crawled carefully out and stood up. Her gray eyes were clear and calm from sleep, and mischief was not in them. Tom moved off from the tent and beckoned her to follow, and when he turned, she looked up at him.

“Lord God, you’re growin’ up,” he said.

She looked away in sudden embarrassment. “Listen here,” Tom said. “Don’t you wake nobody up, but when they get up, you tell ’em I got a chancet at a job, an’ I’m a-goin’ for it. Tell Ma I et breakfas’ with some neighbors. You hear that?”

Ruthie nodded and turned her head away, and her eyes were little girl’s eyes. “Don’t you wake ’em up,” Tom cautioned. He hurried back to his new friends. And Ruthie cautiously approached the sanitary unit and peeked in the open doorway.

The two men were waiting when Tom came back. The young woman had dragged a mattress out and put the baby on it while she cleaned up the dishes.

Tom said, “I wanted to tell my folks where-at I was. They wasn’t awake.” The three walked down the street between the tents.

The camp had begun to come to life. At the new fires the women worked, slicing meat, kneading the dough for the morning’s bread. And the men were stirring about the tents and about the automobiles. The sky was rosy now. In front of the office a lean old man raked the ground carefully. He so dragged his rake that the tine marks were straight and deep.

“You’re out early, Pa,” the young man said as they went by. “Yep, yep. Got to make up my rent.”

“Rent, hell!” the young man said. “He was drunk last Sat’dy night.

Sung in his tent all night. Committee give him work for it.” They walked along the edge of the oiled road; a row of walnut trees grew beside the way. The sun shoved its edge over the mountains.

Tom said, “Seems funny. I’ve et your food, an’ I ain’t tol’ you my name— nor you ain’t mentioned yours. I’m Tom Joad.”

The older man looked at him, and then he smiled a little. “You ain’t been out here long?”

“Hell, no! Jus’ a couple days.”

“I knowed it. Funny, you git outa the habit a mentionin’ your name. They’s so goddamn many. Jist fellas. Well, sir— I’m Timothy Wallace, an’ this here’s my boy Wilkie.”

“Proud to know ya,” Tom said. “You been out here long?”

“Ten months,” Wilkie said. “Got here right on the tail a the floods las’ year. Jesus! We had a time, a time! Goddamn near starve’ to death.” Their feet rattled on the oiled road. A truckload of men went by, and each man was sunk into himself. Each man braced himself in the truck bed and scowled down.

“Goin’ out for the Gas Company,” Timothy said. “They got a nice job of it.”

“I could of took our truck,” Tom suggested.

“No.” Timothy leaned down and picked up a green walnut. He tested it with his thumb and then shied it at a blackbird sitting on a fence wire. The bird flew up, let the nut sail under it, and then settled back on the wire and smoothed its shining black feathers with its beak.

Tom asked, “Ain’t you got no car?”

Both Wallaces were silent, and Tom, looking at their faces, saw that they were ashamed.

Wilkie said, “Place we work at is on’y a mile up the road.”

Timothy said angrily, “No, we ain’t got no car. We sol’ our car. Had to. Run outa food, run outa ever’thing. Couldn’ git no job. Fellas come aroun’ ever’ week, buyin’ cars. Come aroun’, an’ if you’re hungry, why, they’ll buy your car. An’ if you’re hungry enough, they don’t hafta pay nothin’ for it. An’— we was hungry enough. Give us ten dollars for her.” He spat into the road.

Wilkie said quietly, “I was in Bakersfiel’ las’ week. I seen hera-settin’ in a use’-car lot— settin’ right there, an’ seventy-five dollars was the sign on her.”

“We had to,” Timothy said. “It was either us let ’em steal our car or us steal somepin from them. We ain’t had to steal yet, but, goddamn it, we been close!”

Tom said, “You know, ’fore we lef’ home, we heard they was plenty work out here. Seen han’bills, askin’ folks to come out.”

“Yeah,” Timothy said. “We seen ’em too. An’ they ain’t much work. An’ wages is comin’ down all a time. I git so goddamn tired jus’ figgerin’ how to eat.”

“You got work now,” Tom suggested.

“Yeah, but it ain’t gonna las’ long. Workin’ for a nice fella. Got a little place. Works ’longside of us. But, hell— it ain’t gonna las’ no time.”

Tom said, “Why in the hell you gonna git me on? I’ll make it shorter. What you cuttin’ your own throat for?”

Timothy shook his head slowly. “I dunno. Got no sense, I guess. We figgered to get us each a hat. Can’t do it, I guess. There’s the place, off to the right there. Nice job, too. Gettin’ thirty cents an hour. Nice frien’ly fella to work for.”