The Grapes of Wrath

“I’m a goin’ to vomit,” Rose of Sharon whined.

“Well, go an’ vomit. ’Course you’re gonna vomit. Ever’body does. Git it over an’ then you clean up, an’ you wash your legs an’ put on them shoes of yourn.” She turned back to her work. “An’ braid your hair,” she said.

A frying pan of grease sputtered over the fire, and it splashed and hissed when Ma dropped the pone in with a spoon. She mixed flour with grease in a kettle and added water and salt and stirred the gravy. The coffee began to turn over in the gallon can, and the smell of coffee rose from it.

Pa wandered back from the sanitary unit, and Ma looked critically up. Pa said, “Ya say Tom’s got work?”

“Yes, sir. Went out ’fore we was awake. Now look in that box an’ get you some clean overhalls an’ a shirt. An’ Pa, I’m awful busy. You git in Ruthie an’ Winfiel’s ears. They’s hot water. Will you do that? Scrounge aroun’ in their ears good, an’ their necks. Get’ em red an’ shinin’.”

“Never seen you so bubbly,” Pa said.

Ma cried, “This here’s the time the fambly got to get decent. Comin’ acrost they wasn’t no chancet. But now we can. Th’ow your dirty overhalls in the tent an’ I’ll wash’ em out.”

Pa went inside the tent, and in a moment he came out with pale blue, washed overalls and shirt on. And he led the sad and startled children toward the sanitary unit.

Ma called after him, “Scrounge aroun’ good in their ears.”

Uncle John came to the door of the men’s side and looked out, and then he went back and sat on the toilet a long time and held his aching head in his hands.

Ma had taken up a panload of brown pone and was dropping spoons of dough in the grease for a second pan when a shadow fell on the ground beside her. She looked over her shoulder. A little man dressed all in white stood behind her— a man with a thin, brown, lined face and merry eyes. He was lean as a picket. His white clean clothes were frayed at the seams. He smiled at Ma. “Good morning,” he said.

Ma looked at his white clothes and her face hardened with suspicion.

“Mornin’,” she said.

“Are you Mrs. Joad?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m Jim Rawley. I’m camp manager. Just dropped by to see if everything’s all right. Got everything you need?”

Ma studied him suspiciously. “Yes,” she said.

Rawley said, “I was asleep when you came last night. Lucky we had a place for you.” His voice was warm.

Ma said simply, “It’s nice. ’Specially them wash tubs.”

“You wait till the women get to washing. Pretty soon now. You never heard such a fuss. Like a meeting. Know what they did yesterday, Mrs. Joad? They had a chorus. Singing a hymn tune and rubbing the clothes all in time. That was something to hear, I tell you.”

The suspicion was going out of Ma’s face. “Must a been nice. You’re the boss?”

“No.” he said. “The people here worked me out of a job. They keep the camp clean, they keep order, they do everything. I never saw such people. They’re making clothes in the meeting hall. And they’re making toys. Never saw such people.”

Ma looked down at her dirty dress. “We ain’t clean yet,” she said. “You jus’ can’t keep clean a-travelin’.”

“Don’t I know it,” he said. He sniffed the air. “Say— is that your coffee smells so good?”

Ma smiled. “Does smell nice, don’t it? Outside it always smells nice.” And she said proudly, “We’d take it in honor ’f you’d have some breakfus’ with us.”

He came to the fire and squatted on his hams, and the last of Ma’s resistance went down. “We’d be proud to have ya,” she said. “We ain’t got much that’s nice, but you’re welcome.”

The little man grinned at her. “I had my breakfast. But I’d sure like a cup of that coffee. Smells so good.”

“Why— why, sure.”

“Don’t hurry yourself.”

Ma poured a tin cup of coffee from the gallon can. She said, “We ain’t got sugar yet. Maybe we’ll get some today. If you need sugar, it won’t taste good.”

“Never use sugar,” he said. “Spoils the taste of good coffee.”

“Well, I like a little sugar,” said Ma. She looked at him suddenly and closely, to see how he had come so close so quickly. She looked for motive on his face, and found nothing but friendliness. Then she looked at the frayed seams on his white coat, and she was reassured.

He sipped the coffee. “I guess the ladies’ll be here to see you this morning.”

“We ain’t clean,” Ma said. “They shouldn’t be comin’ till we get cleaned up a little.”

“But they know how it is,” the manager said. “They came in the same way. No, sir. The committees are good in this camp because they do know.” He finished his coffee and stood up. “Well, I got to go on. Anything you want, why, come over to the office. I’m there all the time. Grand coffee. Thank you.” He put the cup on the box with the others, waved his hand, and walked down the line of tents. And Ma heard him speaking to the people as he went.

Ma put down her head and she fought with a desire to cry.