The Grapes of Wrath

“Oh, my!” Ma said wearily. “Oh! My dear sweet Lord Jesus asleep in a manger! What we goin’ to do now?” She put her forehead in her hand and rubbed her eyes. “What we gonna do now?” A smell of burning potatoes came from the roaring stove. Ma moved automatically and turned them.

“Rosasharn!” Ma called. The girl appeared around the curtain. “Come watch this here supper. Winfiel’, you go out an’ you fin’ Ruthie an’ bring her back here.”

“Gonna whup her, Ma?” he asked hopefully.

“No. This here you couldn’ do nothin’ about. Why, I wonder, did she haf’ to do it? No. It won’t do no good to whup her. Run now, an’ find her an’ bring her back.”

Winfield ran for the car door, and he met the three men tramping up the cat-walk, and he stood aside while they came in. Ma said softly, “Pa, I got to talk to you. Ruthie tol’ some kids how Tom’s a-hidin’.”

“What?”

“She tol’. Got in a fight an’ tol’.”

“Why, the little bitch!”

“No, she didn’ know what she was a-doin’. Now look, Pa. I want you to stay here. I’m goin’ out an’ try to fin’ Tom an’ tell him. I got to tell ’im to be careful. You stick here, Pa, an’ kinda watch out for things. I’ll take ’im some dinner.”

“Awright,” Pa agreed. “Don’ you even mention to Ruthie what she done. I’ll tell her.” At that moment Ruthie came in, with Winfield behind her. The little girl was dirtied. Her mouth was sticky, and her nose still dripped a little blood from her fight. She looked shamed and frightened. Winfield triumphantly followed her. Ruthie looked fiercely about, but she went to a corner of the car and put her back in the corner. Her shame and fierceness were blended.

“I tol’ her what you done,” Winfield said.

Ma was putting two chops and some fried potatoes on a tin plate. “Hush, Winfiel’,” she said. “They ain’t no need to hurt her feelings no more’n what they’re hurt.”

Ruthie’s body hurtled across the car. She grabbed Ma around the middle and buried her head in Ma’s stomach, and her strangled sobs shook her whole body. Ma tried to loosen her, but the grubby fingers clung tight. Ma brushed the hair on the back of her head gently, and she patted her shoulders. “Hush,” she said. “You didn’ know.”

Ruthie raised her dirty, tear-stained, bloody face. “They stoled my Cracker Jack!” she cried. “That big son-of-a-bitch of a girl, she belted me—” She went off into hard crying again.

“Hush!” Ma said. “Don’t talk like that. Here. Let go. I’m a-goin’ now.”

“Whyn’t ya whup her, Ma? If she didn’t git snotty with her Cracker Jack ’twouldn’ a happened. Go on, give her a whup.”

“You jus’ min’ your business, mister,” Ma said fiercely. “You’ll git a whup yourself. Now leggo, Ruthie.”

Winfield retired to a rolled mattress, and he regarded the family cynically and dully. And he put himself in a good position of defense, for Ruthie would attack him at the first opportunity, and he knew it. Ruthie went quietly, heart-brokenly to the other side of the car.

Ma put a sheet of newspaper over the tin plate. “I’m a-goin’ now,” she said. “Ain’t you gonna eat nothin’ yourself?” Uncle John demanded. “Later. When I come back. I wouldn’ want nothin’ now.” Ma walked to the open door; she steadied herself down the steep, cleated cat-walk.

On the stream side of the boxcars, the tents were pitched close together, their guy ropes crossing one another, and the pegs of one at the canvas line of the next. The lights shone through the cloth, and all the chimneys belched smoke. Men and women stood in the doorways talking. Children ran feverishly about. Ma moved majestically down the line of tents. Here and there she was recognized as she went by. “Evenin’, Mis’ Joad.”

“Evenin’.”

“Takin’ somepin out, Mis’ Joad?”

“They’s a frien’. I’m takin’ back some bread.” She came at last to the end of the line of tents. She stopped and looked back. A glow of light was on the camp, and the soft overtone of a multitude of speakers. Now and then a harsher voice cut through. The smell of smoke filled the air. Someone played a harmonica softly, trying for an effect, one phrase over and over.