The Grapes of Wrath

The women sat among the doomed things, turning them over and looking past them and back. This book. My father had it. He liked a book.

Pilgrim’s Progress. Used to read it. Got his name in it. And his pipe— still smells rank. And this picture— an angel. I looked at that before the fust three come— didn’t seem to do much good. Think we could get this china dog in? Aunt Sadie brought it from the St. Louis Fair. See? Wrote right on it. No, I guess not. Here’s a letter my brother wrote the day before he died. Here’s an old-time hat. These feathers— never got to use them. No, there isn’t room.

How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past? No. Leave it. Burn it.

They sat and looked at it and burned it into their memories.

How’ll it be not to know what land’s outside the door? How if you wake up in the night and know— and know the willow tree’s not there? Can you live without the willow tree? Well, no, you can’t. The willow tree is you. The pain on that mattress there— that dreadful pain— that’s you.

And the children— if Sam takes his Injun bow an’ his long roun’ stick, I get to take two things. I choose the fluffy pilla. That’s mine.

Suddenly they were nervous. Got to get out quick now. Can’t wait. We can’t wait. And they piled up the goods in the yards and set fire to them. They stood and watched them burning, and then frantically they loaded up the cars and drove away, drove in the dust. The dust hung in the air for a long time after the loaded cars had passed.

CHAPTER 10

WHEN THE TRUCK had gone, loaded with implements, with heavy tools, with beds and springs, with every movable thing that might be sold, Tom hung around the place. He mooned into the barn shed, into the empty stalls, and he walked into the implement leanto and kicked the refuse that was left, turned a broken mower tooth with his foot. He visited places he remembered— the red bank where the swallows nested, the willow tree over the pig pen. Two shoats grunted and squirmed at him through the fence, black pigs, sunning and comfortable. And then his pilgrimage was over, and he went to sit on the doorstep where the shade was lately fallen. Behind him Ma moved about in the kitchen, washing children’s clothes in a bucket; and her strong freckled arms dripped soapsuds from the elbows. She stopped her rubbing when he sat down. She looked at him a long time, and at the back of his head when he turned and stared out at the hot sunlight. And then she went back to her rubbing.

She said, “Tom, I hope things is all right in California.” He turned and looked at her. “What makes you think they ain’t?” he asked.

“Well— nothing. Seems too nice, kinda. I seen the han’bills fellas pass out, an’ how much work they is, an’ high wages an’ all; an’ I seen in the paper how they want folks to come an’ pick grapes an’ oranges an’ peaches. That’d be nice work, Tom, pickin’ peaches. Even if they wouldn’t let you eat none, you could maybe snitch a little ratty one sometimes. An’ it’d be nice under the trees, workin’ in the shade. I’m scared of stuff so nice. I ain’t got faith. I’m scared somepin ain’t so nice about it.”

Tom said, “Don’t roust your faith bird-high an’ you won’t do no crawlin’ with the worms.”

“I know that’s right. That’s Scripture, ain’t it?”

“I guess so,” said Tom. “I never could keep Scripture straight sence

I read a book name ’The Winning of Barbara Worth’.”

Ma chuckled lightly and scrounged the clothes in and out of the bucket. And she wrung out overalls and shirts, and the muscles of her forearms corded out. “Your Pa’s pa, he quoted Scripture all the time. He got it all roiled up, too. It was the Dr. Miles’ Almanac he got mixed up. Used to read ever’ word in that almanac out loudletters from folks that couldn’t sleep or had lame backs. An’ later he’d give them people for a lesson, an’ he’d say, ’That’s a par’ble from Scripture.’ Your Pa an’ Uncle John troubled ’im some about it when they’d laugh.” She piled wrung clothes like cord wood on the table. “They say it’s two thousan’ miles where we’re goin’. How far ya think that is, Tom? I seen it on a map, big mountains like on a post card, an’ we’re goin’ right through ’em. How long ya s’pose it’ll take to go that far, Tommy?”

“I dunno,” he said. “Two weeks, maybe ten days if we got luck. Look, Ma, stop your worryin’. I’m a-gonna tell you somepin about bein’ in the pen. You can’t go thinkin’ when you’re gonna be out. You’d go nuts. You got to think about that day, an’ then the nex’ day, about the ball game Sat’dy. That’s what you got to do. Ol’ timers does that. A new young fella gets buttin’ his head on the cell door. He’s thinkin’ how long it’s gonna be. Whyn’t you do that? Jus’ take ever’ day.”