The Grapes of Wrath

Aggie joined them behind the brush pile. Aggie’s lean face and yellow hair showed in the lamplight, and her nose was long and sharp in the shadow of her head on the wall.

Ruthie whispered, “You ever saw a baby bore?”

“Sure,” said Aggie. “Well, when’s she gonna have it?”

“Oh, not for a long, long time.”

“Well, how long?”

“Maybe not ‘fore tomorrow mornin’.”

“Shucks!” said Ruthie. “Ain’t no good watchin’ now, then. Oh! Look!”

The walking women had stopped. Rose of Sharon had stiffened, and she whined with pain. They laid her down on the mattress and wiped her forehead while she grunted and clenched her fists. And Ma talked softly to her. “Easy,” Ma said. “Gonna be all right— all right. Jus’ grip ya hans’. Now then, take your lip inta your teeth. Tha’s goodtha’s good.” The pain passed on. They let her rest awhile, and then helped her up again, and the three walked back and forth, back and forth between the pains.

Pa stuck his head in through the narrow opening. His hat dripped with water. “What ya shut the door for?” he asked. And then he saw the walking women.

Ma said, “Her time’s come.”

“Then— then we couldn’ go ’f we wanted to.”

“No.”

“Then we got to buil’ that bank.”

“You got to.”

Pa sloshed through the mud to the stream. His marking stick was four inches down. Twenty men stood in the rain. Pa cried, “We got to build her. My girl got her pains.” The men gathered about him.

“Baby?”

“Yeah. We can’t go now.”

A tall man said, “It ain’t our baby. We kin go.”

“Sure,” Pa said. “You can go. Go on. Nobody’s stoppin’ you. They’s only eight shovels.” He hurried to the lower part of the bank and drove his shovel into the mud. The shovelful lifted with a sucking sound. He drove it again, and threw the mud into the low place on the stream bank. And beside him the other men ranged themselves. They heaped the mud up in a long embankment, and those who had no shovels cut live willow whips and wove them in a mat and kicked them into the bank. Over the men came a fury of work, a fury of battle. When one man dropped the shovel, another took it up. They had shed their coats and hats. Their shirts and trousers clung tightly to their bodies, their shoes were shapeless blobs of mud. A shrill scream came from the Joad car. The men stopped, listened uneasily, and then plunged to work again. And the little levee of earth extended until it connected with the highway embankment on either end. They were tired now, and the shovels moved more slowly. And the stream rose slowly. It edged above the place where the first dirt had been thrown.

Pa laughed in triumph. “She’d come over if we hadn’ a built up!” he cried.

The stream rose slowly up the side of the new wall, and tore at the willow mat. “Higher!” Pa cried. “We got to git her higher!”

The evening came, and the work went on. And now the men were beyond weariness. Their faces were set and dead. They worked jerkily, like machines. When it was dark the women set lanterns in the car doors, and kept pots of coffee handy. And the women ran one by one to the Joad car and wedged themselves inside.

The pains were coming close now, twenty minutes apart. And Rose of Sharon had lost her restraint. She screamed fiercely under the fierce pains. And the neighbor women looked at her and patted her gently and went back to their own cars.

Ma had a good fire going now, and all her utensils, filled with water, sat on the stove to heat. Every little while Pa looked in the car door. “All right?” he asked.

“Yeah! I think so,” Ma assured him.

As it grew dark, someone brought out a flashlight to work by. Uncle John plunged on, throwing mud on top of the wall.

“You take it easy,” Pa said. “You’ll kill yaself.”

“I can’t he’p it. I can’t stan’ that yellin’. It’s like— it’s like when—”

“I know,” Pa said. “But jus’ take it easy.”

Uncle John blubbered, “I’ll run away. By God, I got to work or I’ll run away.”

Pa turned from him. “How’s she stan’ on the last marker?”

The man with the flashlight threw the beam on the stick. The rain cut whitely through the light. “Comin’ up.”

“She’ll come up slower now,” Pa said. “Got to flood purty far on the other side.”

“She’s comin’ up, though.”

The women filled the coffee pots and set them out again. And as the night went on, the men moved slower and slower, and they lifted their heavy feet like draft horses. More mud on the levee, more willows interlaced. The rain fell steadily. When the flashlight turned on faces, the eyes showed staring, and the muscles on the cheeks were welted out.

For a long time the screams continued from the car, and at last they were still.

Pa said, “Ma’d call me if it was bore.” He went on shoveling the mud sullenly.