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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18681-h.zip b/18681-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..163e9bd --- /dev/null +++ b/18681-h.zip diff --git a/18681-h/18681-h.htm b/18681-h/18681-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..56ad6f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/18681-h/18681-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2884 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Across the Fruited Plain, by Florence Crannell Means</title> +<style type="text/css"> + hr { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + pre {font-size:55%;} + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + body {background:#fdfdfd; + color:black; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + font-size: large; + margin-top:100px; + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align:justify} + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 align="center">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Across the Fruited Plain, by Florence +Crannell Means, Illustrated by Janet Smalley</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Across the Fruited Plain</p> +<p>Author: Florence Crannell Means</p> +<p>Release Date: June 25, 2006 [eBook #18681]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACROSS THE FRUITED PLAIN***</p> +<br><br><center><h3>E-text prepared by Meredith Minter Dixon (dixonm@pobox.com)</h3></center><br><br> +<hr noshade> +<BR> +<BR> +<CENTER><IMG SRC= "images/fruited01.png" width="600" ALT= "Cover Illustration: Cars"> +<IMG SRC= "images/fruited02.png" width= "600" ALT= "Cover Illustration: Hoeing"></CENTER> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<H1 ALIGN= CENTER>Across the Fruited Plain</H1> +<H2 ALIGN= CENTER>by Florence Crannell Means</H2> +<H2 ALIGN= CENTER>with illustrations by Janet Smalley</H2> +<H2 ALIGN= CENTER>New York : Friendship Press, c1940</H2> +<BR> +<BR> +<BR> +<CENTER><IMG SRC= "images/fruited03.png" width="600" ALT= "Cover Illustration: Picking"> +<IMG SRC= "images/fruited04.png" width= "600" ALT= "Cover Illustration: Weeding"></CENTER> +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P><EM>Plans and procedures for using <U>Across The Fruited Plain</U> will be +found in "A Junior Teacher's Guide on the Migrants," by E. Mae +Young. Photographs of migrant homes and migrant Centers will be +found in the picture story book <U>Jack Of The Bean Fields</U>, by Nina +Millen.</EM> +<P>This book is dedicated to a whole troop of children "across the +fruited plain": Tomoko, Willie May, Fei-Kin, Nawamana, Candelaria +and Isabell, and to the newest child of all--our little Mary +Margaret. + +<br><br><br><center><a href=""> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited05.png" width="600" +ALT= "Illustration: Cissy and Tommy at the Center"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> + + +<H2>CONTENTS</H2> +<UL> +<LI><A HREF= "#foreword"> Foreword</A></LI> +</UL> +<OL> +<LI><A HREF= "#house"> The House Of Beecham</A></LI> +<LI><A HREF= "#bog"> The Cranberry Bog</A></LI> +<LI><A HREF= "#oysters"> Shucking Oysters</A></LI> +<LI><A HREF= "#peekaneeka"> Peekaneeka?</A></LI> +<LI><A HREF= "#cissy"> Cissy From The Onion Marshes</A></LI> +<LI><A HREF= "#edge"> At The Edge Of A Mexican Village</A></LI> +<LI><A HREF= "#boy"> The Boy Who Didn't Know God</A></LI> +<LI><A HREF= "#hopyards"> The Hopyards</A></LI> +<LI><A HREF= "#seth"> Seth Thomas Strikes Twelve</A></LI> +</OL> +<BR> +<BR> +<BR> + +<H2><A NAME= "foreword"> FOREWORD</A></H2> +<P>Dear Mary and Bonnie and Jack and the rest of my readers: +<P>Maybe you've heard about the migrants lately, or have seen +pictures of them in the magazines. But have you thought that many +of them are families much like yours and mine, traveling +uncomfortably in rattly old jalopies while they go from one crop +to another, and living crowded in rickety shacks when they stop +for work? +<P>There have always been wandering farm laborers because so many +crops need but a few workers part of the year and a great many at +harvest. A two-thousand-acre peach orchard needs only thirty +workers most of the year, and one thousand seven hundred at +picking time. Lately, though, there have been more migrants than +ever. One reason is that while in the past we used to eat fresh +peas, beans, strawberries, and the like only in summer, now we +want fresh fruits and vegetables all year round. To supply our +wants, great quantities of fresh fruit and vegetables must be +raised in the warm climates where they will grow. +<P>Another reason is that more farm machinery is used now, and one +tractor will do as much work as several families of farm +laborers. So the extra families have taken to migrating or +wandering about the country wherever they hope to find work. +<P>A further cause of the wandering is the long drought which turned +part of our Southwestern country where there had been good +farming into a dry desert that wouldn't grow crops any more. The +people from the Dust Bowl, as the district is called, had to +migrate, or starve. A great many of them went to the near-by +state Of California, which grows much fruit and vegetables. There +are perhaps two hundred thousand people migrating to California +alone each year. +<P>Of course there isn't nearly enough work for them all, and there +aren't good living places for those who have work. That means +that the children--like you--don't have the rights of young +American citizens--like you. A great many of them can't go to +school, and are growing up ignorant; and they don't have church, +with all it means to us. They don't have proper homes or food, so +they haven't good health; and because they are not in their home +state or county, they cannot get medical and hospital care. +<P>You may think we have nothing to do with them when you sometimes +pass a jalopy packed inside with a whole family, from grandma to +baby, and outside with bedding and what-not. +<P>But we have something to do with them many times a day. Every +time we sit down at our table we have something to do with them. +Our sugar may come from these children's work; our oranges, too, +and our peas, lettuce, melons, berries, cranberries, walnuts . . . ! +Every time we put on a cotton dress, we accept something from +them. +<P>For years no one thought much of trying to help these wanderers. +No one seemed to notice the unfairness of letting some children +have all the blessings of our country and others have none. By +and by, the counties and states and Federal government tried to +help the migrant families. In a few places the government has set +up comfortable camps and part-time farms such as this story +describes. The church has tried to do something, also. +<P>About twenty years ago, the Council of Women for Home Missions, +made up of groups of women from the different churches, began to +make plans for helping. They opened some friendly rooms where +they took care of the children who were left alone while their +parents worked. The rooms were often no more than a made-over +barn, but in these "Christian Centers," as they were called, the +children were given cleanliness, food, happiness and the care of +a nurse, and were taught something about a loving Father God. The +children who worked in the fields and the older people were also +helped. From the seven with which a beginning was made, the +number of Centers has grown to nearly sixty. +<P>There is a great deal more to do in starting more Centers, and in +equipping those we have, and we can do part of it. With our +church school classes, we can give CleanUp and Kindergarten Kits +like Cissy's and Jimmie's and our leaders will tell us other +things we can do, such as collecting bedding and clothing and +toys and money. Best of all, we can give our friendship to these +homeless people. +<P>For they're just children like you. When you grow up, perhaps you +may help our country become a place where no single child need be +homeless. + +<P><STRONG>Florence Crannell Means<BR> +Denver, Colorado</STRONG> +<BR> +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited06.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited06.png" width="600" ALT= "Illustration: Beechams in Reo"></a></center> +<BR> +<BR> +<BR> + +<HR> +<H1 ALIGN= CENTER>ACROSS THE FRUITED PLAIN</H1> +<HR> +<BR> +<BR> +<BR> +<H2 ALIGN= CENTER><A NAME= "house"> THE HOUSE OF BEECHAM</A></H2> +<BR> +<P>"Oh, Rose-Ellen!" Grandma called. +<P>Rose-Ellen slowly put down her library book and skipped into the +kitchen. Grandma peppered the fried potatoes, sliced some +wrinkled tomatoes into nests of wilting lettuce, and wiped her +dripping face with the hem of her clean gingham apron. The +kitchen was even hotter than the half-darkened sitting room where +crippled Jimmie sprawled on the floor listlessly wheeling a toy +automobile, the pale little baby on a quilt beside him. +<P>Grandma squinted through the door at the old Seth Thomas dock in +the sitting room. "Half after six! Rose-Ellen, you run down to +the shop and tell Grandpa supper's spoiling. Why he's got to hang +round that shop till supper's spoilt when he could fix up all the +shoes he's got in two-three hours, I don't understand. 'Twould be +different if he had anything to do. . . ." +<P>Rose-Ellen said, "O.K., Gramma!" and ran through the hall. She'd +rather get away before Grandma talked any more about the shop. +Day after day she had heard about it. Grandma talked to her, +though she was only ten, because she and Grandma were the only +women in the family, since last winter when Mother died. +<P>As Rose-Ellen let the front door slam behind her, she saw Daddy +coming slowly up the street. The way his broad shoulders drooped +and the way he took off his hat and pushed back his thick, dark +hair told her as plainly as words that he hadn't found work that +day. Even though you were a child, you got so tired--so tired--of +the grown folks' worrying about where the next quart of milk +would come from. So Rose-Ellen patted him on the arm as they +passed, saying, "Hi, Daddy, I'm after Grampa!" and hop-skipped on +toward the old cobbler shop. Before Rose-Ellen was born, when +Daddy was a boy, even, Grandpa had had his shop at that corner of +the city street. +<P>There he was, standing behind the counter in the shadowy shop, +his shoulders drooping like Daddy's. He was a big, kind-looking +old man, his gray hair waving round a bald dome, his eyes bright +blue. He was looking at a newspaper. It was a crumpled old +paper that had been wrapped around someone's shoes; the Beechams +didn't spend pennies for newspapers nowadays. +<P>The long brushes were quiet from their whirling. On the rack of +finished shoes two pairs awaited their owners; on the other rack +were a few that had evidently just come in. Yet Grandpa looked +as tired as if he had mended a hundred pairs. +<P>He looked up when the bell tinkled. "Oh, Ellen-girl! Anything +wrong?" +<P>"Only Gramma says please come to supper. Everything's getting +spoiled." +<P>Grandpa glanced at his old clock. It said half-past five. "I keep +tinkering with it, but it's seen its best days. Like me." +<P>He took off his denim apron, rolled down his sleeves, put on his +hat and coat, and locked the door behind them. But not before he +had looked wistfully around the little place, with its smell of +beeswax, leather and dye, where he had worked so long. Its walls +were papered with his favorite calendars: country scenes that +reminded him of his farm boyhood; roly-poly babies in bathtubs; a +pretty girl who looked, he said, like Grandma--a funny idea to +Rose-Ellen. Patched linoleum, doorstep hollowed by thousands of +feet--Grandpa looked at everything as if it were new and bright, +and as if he loved it. +<P>Starting home, he took Rose-Ellen's small damp hand in his big +damp one. The sun blinded them as they walked westward, and the +heat struck at them fiercely from pavement and wall, as if it +were fighting them. Rose-Ellen was strong and didn't mind. She +held her head straight to make her thick brown curls hit against +her backbone. She knew she was pretty, with her round face and +dark-lashed hazel eyes; and that nobody would think her starchy +short pink dress was old, because Grandma had mended it so +nicely. Grandma had darned the short socks that turned down to +her stout slippers, too; and Grandpa had mended the slippers till +the tops would hardly hold another pair of soles. +<P>"Hi, Rosie!" called Julie Albi, who lived next door. "C'm'out and +play after supper?" +<P>"Next door" was the right way to say it. This Philadelphia street +was like two block-long houses, facing each other across a strip +of pavement, each with many pairs of twin front doors, each pair +with two scrubbed stone steps down to the sidewalk, and two bay +windows bulging out upstairs, so that they seemed nearly to touch +the ones across the narrow street. Rose-Ellen and Julie shared +twin doors and steps; and inside only a thin wall separated them. +<P>At the door Dick overtook Grandpa and Rose-Ellen. Dick was +twelve. Sometimes Rose-Ellen considered him nothing but a +nuisance, and sometimes she was proud of his tallness, his curly +fair hair and bright blue eyes. He dashed in ahead when Grandpa +turned the key, but Grandpa lingered. +<P>Rose-Ellen said, "Hurry, Grampa, everything's getting cold." But +she understood. He was thinking that their dear old house was no +longer theirs. Something strange had happened to it, called "sold +for taxes," and they were allowed to live in it only this summer. +<P>Grandma blamed the shop. It had brought in the money to buy the +house in the first place and had kept it up until a few years +ago. It had put Daddy through a year in college. Now it was +failing. Once, it seemed, people bought good shoes and had them +mended many times. Then came days when many people were poor. +They had to buy shoes too cheap to be mended; so when the soles +wore out, the people threw the shoes away and bought more cheap +ones. No longer were Grandpa's shoe racks crowded. No longer was +there money even for taxes. All Grandpa took in was barely enough +for food and shop rent. But what else besides mending shoes and +farming did he know how to do? And who would hire an old man when +jobs were so few? +<P>Even young Daddy had lost his job as a photograph finisher, and +had brought his wife and three children home to live with Grandpa +and Grandma. There Baby Sally was born; and there, before the +baby was a month old, Mother had died. Soon after, the old house +had been sold for taxes. +<P>Grandma went about her work with the strong lines of her square +face fixed in sadness. She was forever begging Grandpa to give up +the shop, but Grandpa smashed his fist down on the table and said +it was like giving up his life. . . . And day after day Daddy hunted +work and was cross because he could find none. +<P>For Dick and Rose-Ellen the summer had not been very different +from usual. Dick blacked boots on Saturdays to earn a few dimes; +Rose-Ellen helped Grandma with the "chores." They had long hours +of play besides. +<P>But the hot summer had been hard for nine-year-old Jimmie and the +baby. They drooped like flowers in baked ground. Since Jimmie's +infantile paralysis, three years before, he had been able to walk +very little, and school had seemed out of the question. Unable to +read or to run and play, he had a dull time. +<P>Grandpa and Rose-Ellen went through the clean, shabby hall to the +kitchen, where Grandma was rocking in the old rocker, Sally +whimpering on her lap. +<P>"Well, for the land's sakes," said Grandma, "did you make up your +mind to come home at last? Mind Baby, Rose-Ellen, while I dish +up." +<P>After supper, Daddy sat hopelessly studying the "Help Wanted" +column in last Sunday's paper, borrowed from the Albis. Jimmie +looked at the funnies, and Grandma and Rose-Ellen did the dishes. +Julie Albi, who had come to play, sat waiting with heels hooked +over a chair-rung. +<P>The shabby kitchen was pleasant, with rag rugs on the painted +floor and crisp, worn curtains. The table and chairs were +cream-color, and the table wore an embroidered flour-sack cover. +Grandpa pottered with a loose door-latch until Grandma wrung the +suds from her hands and cried fiercely, "What's the use doing +such things, Grampa? You know good and well we can't stay on +here. Everything's being taken away from us, even our +children. . . ." + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited07.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited07.png" width="400" +ALT= "Illustration: Grandpa pottering"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P>"Miss Piper come to see you, too?" Grandpa groaned. +<P>"Taken away? Us?" gasped Rose-Ellen. +<P>"What's all this?" Daddy demanded. He stood in the doorway +staring at Grandpa and Grandma, and his bright dark eyes looked +almost as unbelieving as they had when Mother slipped away from +him. "You can't mean they want to take away our children?" +<P>Dick came to the door with half of Jimmie's funnies, his mouth +open; and Jimmie hobbled in, bent almost double, thin hand on +crippled knee. Julie slipped politely away. +<P>Then the news came out. The woman from the "Family Society" had +called that day and had advised Grandma to put the children into +a Home. When Grandma would not listen, the woman went on to the +shop and talked with Grandpa. +<P>"Her telling us they wasn't getting enough milk and vegetables!" +Grandma scolded, wiping her eyes with one hand and smoothing back +Rose-Ellen's curls with the other. "Saying Jimmie'd ought to be +where he'd get sunshine without roasting. Good as telling me we +don't know how to raise children, and her without a young-one to +her name." +<P>Grandpa blew his nose. "Well, it takes money to give the kids the +vittles they ought to have." +<P>"I won't go away from my own house!" howled Jimmie. +<P>Rose-Ellen and Dick blinked at each other. It was one thing to +scrap a little and quite another to be entirely apart. And the +baby. . . . +<P>"Would Miss Piper take . . . Sally?" Rose-Ellen quavered. +<P>Grandma nodded, lips tight. +<P>"They shan't!" Rose-Ellen whispered. +<P>"Nonsense!" Daddy said hoarsely, his hands tightening on Jimmie's +shoulder and Rose-Ellen's. "It's better for families to stick +together, even if they don't get everything they need. Ma, you +think it's better, don't you?" +<P>He looked anxiously at his parents and they looked pityingly at +him, as if he were a boy again, and before they knew it the whole +family were crying together, Grandpa and Daddy pretending they +had colds. +<P>Then came a knock at the door, and Grandma mopped her eyes with +her apron and answered. Julie's mother stood there, a comfortable +brown woman with shining black hair and gold earrings, the +youngest Albi enthroned on her arm. Mrs. Albi's eyebrows had +risen to the middle of her forehead, and she patted Grandma's +shoulder plumply. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited08.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited08.png" width="400" +ALT= "Illustration: Mrs. Albi"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P>"Now, now, now, now!" she comforted in a big voice. "All will be +well, praise God. Julie, she tell me. All will be well." +<P>"How on earth can all be well?" Grandma protested. "I don't see +no prospects." + +<P>"This summer as you know," said Mrs. Albi, "we went into Jersey. +For two months we all pick the berries. Enough we earn to put-it +food into our mouth. And the keeds! They go white and skinny, and +they come home, like you see it, brown and fat." Her voice rose +and she waved the baby dramatically. "Not so good the houses, I +would not lie to you. But we make like we have the peekaneeka. By +night the cool fresh air blow on us and by day the warm fresh +air. And vegetables and fruit so cheap, so cheap." +<P>"But what good will that do us, Mis' Albi?" Grandma asked flatly. +"It's close onto September and berries is out." +<P>"The cranberry bog!" Mrs. Albi shouted triumphantly. "Only today +the <U>padrone</U>, he come to my people asking who will pick the +cranberry. And that Jersey air, it will bring the fat and the red +to these Jimmie's cheeks and to the _bambina_'s!" Mrs. Albi wheezed +as she ran out of breath. +<P>The Beechams stared at her. Many Italians and Americans went to +the farms to pick berries and beans. The Beechams had never +thought of doing so, since Grandpa had his cobbling and Daddy his +photograph finishing. +<P>"Well, why shouldn't we?" Daddy fired the question into the +stillness. +<P>"But school?" asked Rose-Ellen, who liked school. +<P>Mrs. Albi waved a work-worn palm. "You smart, Rosie. You ketch up +all right." +<P>"That's okeydoke with me!" Dick exclaimed, yanking his sister's +curls. "You can have your old school." +<P>Sally woke with a cry like a kitten's mew and Rose-Ellen lugged +her out, balanced on her hip. Mrs. Albi's Michael was the same +age, but he would have made two of Sally. Above Sally's small +white face her pale hair stood up thinly; her big gray eyes and +little pale mouth were solemn. +<P>"Why," Grandma said doubtfully, "we . . . why, if Grandpa would give +up his shop--just for the cranberry season. We got no place else +to go." +<P>Grandpa sighed. "Looks like the shop's give me up already. We +could think about it." +<P>"All together!" whooped Dick. "And not any school!" +<P>"Now, hold your horses," Grandma cautioned. "Beechams don't run +off nobody knows where, without anyway sleeping over it." +<P>But though they "slept over" the problem and talked it over as +hard as they could, going to the cranberry bogs was the best +answer they could find for the difficulty. It seemed the only way +for them to stay together. +<P>"Something will surely turn up in a month or two," Daddy said. +"And without my kids"--he spread his big hands--"I haven't a +thing to show for my thirty-two years." + +<P>"The thing is," Grandpa summed it up, "when we get out of this +house we've got to pay rent, and I'm not making enough for rent +and food, too. No place to live, or else nothing to eat." +<P>Finally it was decided that they should go. +<P>Now there was much to do. They set aside a few of their most +precious belongings to be stored, like Grandma's grandma's +painted dower chest, full of treasures, and Grandpa's tall desk +and Rose-Ellen's dearest doll. Next they chose the things they +must use during their stay in Jersey. Finally they called in the +second-hand man around the corner to buy the things that were +left. +<P>Poor Grandma! She clenched her hands under her patched apron when +the man shoved her beloved furniture around and glanced +contemptuously at the clean old sewing machine that had made them +so many nice clothes. "One dollar for the machine, lady." +<P>Rose-Ellen tucked her hand into Grandma's as they looked at the +few boxes and pieces of furniture they were leaving behind, +standing on stilts in Mrs. Albi's basement to keep dry. +<P>"It's so funny," Rose-Ellen stammered; "almost as if that was all +that was left of our home." +<P>"Funny as a tombstone," said Grandma. Then she went and grabbed +the old Seth Thomas clock and hugged it to her. "This seems the +livingest thing. It goes where I go." +<P>At last, everything was disposed of, and the padrone's agent's +big truck pulled up to their curb. Two feather beds, a trunk, +pots, pans, dishes and the Beechams were piled into the space +left by some twenty-five other people. The truck roared away, +with the neighbors shouting good-by from steps and windows. +<P>Grandma kept her eyes straight ahead so as not to see her house +again. Grandpa shifted Jimmie around to make his lame leg more +comfortable, just as they passed the cobbler's shop with "TO LET" +in the window. Grandpa did not lift his eyes. +<P>"I hope Mrs. Albi will sprinkle them Bronze Beauty chrysanthemums +so they won't all die off," Grandma said in a choked voice. +<BR> +<BR> +<BR> +<H2 ALIGN=CENTER><A NAME= "bog">THE CRANBERRY BOG</A></H2> +<BR> +<P>The truck rumbled through clustering cities, green country and +white villages. All the children stared in fascination until +Jimmie grew too tired and huddled down against Grandma's knees, +whining because he ached and the sun was hot and the truck was +crowded. +<P>Grandpa kept pointing out new things-holly trees; muskrat houses +rising in small stick-stacks from the ponds; farms that made +their own rain, with rows and rows of pipes running along six +feet in air, to shower water on the vegetables below. +<P>It was late afternoon, and dark because of the clouds, when the +truck reached the bogs. These bogs weren't at all what Rose-Ellen +and Dick had expected, but only wet-looking fields of low bushes. +There was no chance to look at them now, for everyone was +hurrying to get settled. +<P>The <U>padrone</U> led them to a one-room shed built of rough boards +and helped dump their belongings inside. Grandma stood at the +door, hands on hips, and said, "Well, good land of love! If +anybody'd told me I'd live in a shack!" +<P>Rose-Ellen danced around her, shrieking joyously, "Peekaneeka, +Gramma! Peekaneeka!" +<P>Grandma's face creased in an unwilling smile and she said, +"You'll get enough peekaneeka before you're done, or I miss my +guess." +<P>"Got here just in time, just in time!" chanted Dick and +Rose-Ellen, as a sudden storm pounded the roof with rain and +split the air with thunder and lightning. +<P>"My land!" cried Grandma. "S'pose this roof will leak on the +baby and Seth Thomas?" +<P>For an hour the Beechams dashed around setting up campkeeping. +For supper they finished the enormous lunch Grandma had brought. +After that came bedtime. +<P>Rose-Ellen lay across the foot of Grandpa and Grandma's +goosefeather bed, spread on the floor. After the rain stopped, +fresh air flowed through the light walls. +<P>Cranberry-picking did not start next morning till ground and +bushes had dried a little. Grandpa and Daddy had time first to +knock together stools and a table, and to find on a dumpheap a +little old stove, which they propped up and mended so Grandma +could cook on it. +<P>"The land's sakes," Grandma grumbled, "a hobo contraption like +that!" +<P>While they washed the breakfast dishes and straightened the one +room, the grown-ups discussed whether the children should work in +the bog. +<P>Their Italian neighbor in the next shack had said, "No can maka +da living unless da keeds dey work, too. Dey can work. My +youngest, he four year and he work good." +<P>"Likely we could take Baby along, and Jimmie could watch her +while we pick," Grandma said dubiously. "But my fingers are all +thumbs when I've got them children on my mind.--Somebody's at the +door." +<P>A tall young girl with short yellow curls stood tapping at the +open door. Grandma looked at her approvingly, her blouse was so +crisply white. +<P>"Good morning," said the girl. "I've come from the Center, where +we have a day nursery for the little folks." She smiled down at +Jimmie and Sally. "Wouldn't you like us to take care of yours +while the grown-ups are working?" She made the older children +feel grown-up by the polite way she looked at them. +<P>"I've heard of the Centers," Grandma said, leaning on her broom. +"But I never did get much notion what you did with the young-ones +there." +<P>"Well, all sorts of things," said the girl. "They sing and make +things and learn Bible verses. And in the afternoon they have a +nap-time. It's loads of fun for them." +<P>"They take their lunch along?" Grandma inquired. +<P>"Oh, no! A good hot lunch is part of the program." +<P>"But, then, how much does it cost?" +<P>"A nickel apiece a day." +<P>"Come, come, young lady, that don't make sense," Grandpa +objected. "You'd lose money lickety-split." +<P>The girl laughed. "We aren't doing it for money. We get money +and supplies from groups of women in all the different churches. +The owner of the bog helps, too. But we'll have to hurry, or +your row boss will be tooting his whistle." Her eyes were +admiring children and shack as she talked. Though not like +Grandma's lost house, this camp was already clean and orderly. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited09.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited09.png" width="600" +ALT="Illustration: On the way to the Center"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P>So the three went to the Center, the girl carrying Sally, and +Jimmie hobbling along in sulky silence. +<P>Jimmie had stayed so much at home that he didn't know how to +behave with strangers. Because he didn't want anyone to guess +that he was bashful, he frowned fiercely. Because he didn't want +anyone to think him "sissy," he had his wavy hair clipped till his +head looked like a golf ball. He was a queer, unhappy boy. +<P>He was unhappier when they reached the big, bright, shabby house +that was the Center. Could it be safe to let Sally mingle with +the ragged, dirty children who were flocking in, he wondered? +<P>His anxiety soon vanished. The babies were bathed and the bigger +children sent to rows of wash-basins. In a jiffy, clean babies +lay taking their bottles in clean baskets and clean children were +dressed in clean play-suits. +<P>Besides the yellow-haired girl (her name was Miss Abbott, but +Jimmie never called her anything but "Her" and "She"), there were +two girls and an older woman, all busy. When clean-up time was +past and the babies asleep, the older ones had a worship service +with songs and stories. +<P>After worship came play. Outdoors were sandpiles and swings. +Indoors were books and games. Jimmie longed for storybooks and +reading class; but how could he tell Her that he was nine years +old and couldn't read? He huddled in a corner, scowling, and +turned pages as if he were reading. +<P>Meanwhile the rest of the family had answered the whistle of the +row boss, and were being introduced to the cranberries. Dick and +Rose-Ellen were excited and happy, for it was the first fruit +they had ever picked. Though the wet bushes gave them shower +baths, the sun soon dried them. Since the ground was deep in +mud, they had gone barefoot, on the advice of Pauline Isabel, the +colored girl in a neighboring shack. The cool mud squshed up +between their toes and plastered their legs pleasantly. +<P>The grown folks had been given wooden hands for picking--scoops +with finger-like cleats! At first they were awkward at stripping +the branches, but soon the berries began to drop briskly into the +scoops. The children, who could get at the lower branches more +easily, picked by hand; and before noon all the Beecham fingers +were sore from the prickly stems and leaves. In the afternoon +they had less trouble, for an Italian family near by showed them +how to wrap their fingers with adhesive tape. +<P>But picking wasn't play. The Beechams trudged back to their +shack that night, sunburned and dirty and too stiff to straighten +their backs, longing for nothing but to drop down on their beds. +<P>"Good land of love!" Grandma scolded. "Lie down all dirty on my +clean beds? I hope I ain't raised me up a mess of pigs. You +young-ones, you fetch a pail of water from the pump, and we'll +see how clean we can get. My land, what wouldn't I give for a +bathtub and a sink! And a gas stove!" +<P>"Peekaneeka, Gramma!" Dick reminded her, squeezing her. +<P>"Picnic my foot! I'm too old for such goings-on." + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited10.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited10.png" height="500" +ALT="Illustration: Lying down on the beds"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P>Though Grandma's rheumatism had doubled her up like a jack-knife, +she scrubbed herself with energy and soon had potatoes boiling, +pork sizzling, and tea brewing on the rickety stove. Daddy +brought Jimmie and Sally from the Center. After supper they felt +a little better. +<P>Jimmie wouldn't tell about the Center, but from inside his blouse +he hauled a red oilcloth bag, and emptied it out on the table. +There were scissors, crayons, paste, pencil, and squares of +colored paper. And there was a note which Jimmie smoothed out +and handed to Daddy. +<P>"From Jimmie Brown," he read, "Bethel Church, Cleveland." +<P>"We-we were s'posed to write thank-you letters!" Jimmie burst out +miserably. "She sat us all down to a table and gave us pens and +paper." +<P>"And what did you do, Son?" Daddy asked, smoothing the bristly +little head. "I said could I take mine home," Jimmie mumbled, +fishing a tight-folded sheet of paper from his pocket. +<P>"I'll write it for you," Rose-Ellen offered. She sat down and +began the letter, with Jimmie telling her what he wanted to say. +<P>"But the real honest thing to do will be to tell her you didn't +write it yourself," Grandma said pityingly. +<P>"They have stories and games at night," Jimmie said, changing the +subject. "She said to bring Dick and Rose-Ellen." +<P>Dick and Rose-Ellen were too tired for stories and games that +night. They tumbled into bed as soon as supper was done, and had +to be dragged awake for breakfast. Not till a week's picking had +hardened their muscles did they go to the Center. +<P>When they did go--Jimmie limping along with his clipped head +tucked sulkily between his shoulders as if he were not really +proud to take them-they found the place alive with fun. Besides +the three girls and the woman, there was a young man from a +near-by university. He was organizing ping-pong games and indoor +baseball for the boys and girls and even volleyball for some +grown men who had come. Everyone was busy and everyone happy. +<P>"It's slick here, some ways," Dick said that night. +<P>"For a few weeks," Daddy agreed. +<P>"If it wasn't for the misery in my back, it wouldn't be bad," +Grandma murmured. "But an old body'd rather settle down in her +own place. Who'd ever've thought I'd leave my solid oak dining +set after I was sixty! But I'd like the country fine if we had a +real house to live in." +<P>"I'm learning to do spatter prints--for Christmas," said +Rose-Ellen, brushing her hair before going to bed. +<P>"Jimmie, why on earth don't you take this chance to learn +reading?" Daddy coaxed. +<P>"Daddy, you won't tell Her I can't read?" Jimmie begged. +<P>Yet, as October passed, something happened to change Jimmie's +mind. +<P>As October passed, too, the Beechams grew skillful at picking. +They couldn't earn much, for it took a lot of cranberries to fill +a peck measure-two gallons-especially this year, when the berries +were small; and the pickers got only fifteen cents a peck. The +bogs had to be flooded every night to keep the fruit from +freezing; so every morning the mud was icy and so were the +shower-baths from the wet bushes. But except for Grandma, they +didn't find it hard work now. +<P>"It's sure bad on the rheumatiz," said Grandma one morning, as +she bent stiffly to wash clothes in the tub that had been filled +and heated with such effort. "If we was home, we'd be lighting +little kindling fires in the furnace night and morning. And hot +water just by lighting the gas! Land, I never knew my own luck." +<P>"But I like it here!" Jimmie burst out eagerly. "Do you know +something? I'm going to learn to read! I colored my pictures +the neatest of anyone in the class, and She put them all on the +wall. So then I didn't mind telling her how I never learned to +read and write and how Rose-Ellen wrote my letter to Jimmie Brown +in Cleveland." +<P>He beamed so proudly that Grandpa, wringing a sheet for Grandma, +looked sorrowfully at him over his glasses. "It's a pity you +didn't tell her sooner, young-one," he said. "The cranberries +will be over in a few more days, and we'll be going back." +<P>"Back to Philadelphia?" Rose-Ellen demanded. "Where? Not to a +Home? I won't! I'd rather go on and shuck oysters like Pauline +Isabel and her folks. I'd rather go on where they're cutting +marsh hay. I'd rather--" +<P>"Well, now," Grandpa's words were slow, "what about it, kids? +What about it, Grandma? Do we go back to the city and-and part +company till times are better? Or go on into oysters together?" +<P>The tears stole down Jimmie's cheeks, but he didn't say anything. +Daddy didn't say anything, either. He picked Sally up and hugged +her so hard that she grunted and then put her tiny hands on his +cheeks and peered into his eyes, chirping at him like a little +bird. +<P>"I calculate we'll go on into oysters," said Grandpa. +<BR> +<BR> +<BR> +<H2 ALIGN=CENTER><A NAME= "oysters">SHUCKING OYSTERS</A></H2> +<BR> +<P>This picnic way of living had one advantage; it made moving easy. +One day the Beechams were picking; the next day they had joined +with two other families and hired a truck to take them and their +belongings to Oystershell, on the inlet of the bay near by. +<P>Pauline Isabel's family were going to a Negro oystershucking +village almost in sight of Oystershell. "It's sure nice there!" +Pauline assured them happily. "I belong to a girls' club that +meets every day after school; in the Meth'dis' church. We got a +sure good school, too, good as any white school, up the road a +piece." +<P>The Beechams said good-by to Pauline's family, who had become +their friends. Then they said good-by to Miss Abbott. That was +hard for Jimmie. He butted his shaven little head against Her +and then limped away as fast as he could. +<P>The ride to Oystershell was exciting. Autumn had changed the +look of the land. "God has taken all the red and yellow he's +got, and just splashed it on in gobs," said Rose-Ellen as they +traveled toward the seashore. +<P>"What I like," Dick broke in, "is to see the men getting in the +salt hay with their horses on sleds." +<P>The marshes were too soft to hold up anything so small as a hoof, +so when farmers used horses there, they fastened broad wooden +shoes on the horses' feet. Nowadays, though, horses were giving +place to tractors. +<P>The air had an increasingly queer smell, like iodized salt in +boiling potatoes. The Beechams were nearing the salt-water +inlets of the bay, where the tides rose and fell like the +ocean-of which the inlets were part. +<P>The tide was high when they drove down from Phillipsville to the +settlement of Oystershell. The rows of wooden houses, the +oyster-sheds and the company store seemed to be wading on stilts, +and most people wore rubber boots. +<P>Grandma said, "If the bog was bad for my rheumatiz, what's this +going to be?" +<P>A man showed the Beechams a vacant house in the long rows. "Not +much to look at," he acknowledged, "but the rent ain't much, +either. The roofs are tight and a few have running water, case +you want it bad enough to pay extra." +<P>"To think a rusty pipe and one faucet in my kitchen would ever be +a luxury!" Grandma muttered. "But, my land, even the humpy +wall-paper looks good now." +<P>It was gay, clean paper, though pasted directly on the boards. +The house had a kitchen-dining-sitting room and one bedroom, with +walls so thin they let through every word of the next-door radio. +<P>"That's going to be a peekaneeka, sure," Grandma said grimly. +<P>Children were not allowed to work in the oysters, but Grandma was +going to try. The children could tell she was nervous about it, +by the way her foot jerked up and down when she gave Sally her +bottle that night; but she said she expected she wasn't too dumb +to do what other folks could. +<P>The children were still asleep when the grown-ups went to work in +the six o'clock darkness of that November Saturday. When they +woke, mush simmered on the cookstove and a bottle of milk stood +on the table. It took time to feed Sally and wash dishes and +make beds; and then Dick and Rose-Ellen ran over to the nearest +long oyster-house and peeked through a hole in the wall. +<P>Down each side, raised above the fishy wet floor, ran a row of +booths, each with a desk and step, made of rough boards. On each +step stood a man or woman, in boots and heavy clothes, facing the +desk. Only instead of pen and paper, these people had buckets, +oysters, knives. As fast as they could, they were opening the +big, horny oyster shells and emptying the oysters into the +buckets. +<P>Next time, Dick stayed with Sally, and Rose-Ellen and Jimmie +peeked. They were startled when a big hand dropped on each of +their heads. +<P>"You kids skedaddle," ordered a big man. "If you want to see +things, come back at four." +<P>By four o'clock the grown folks were home, tired and smelling of +fish; Dick and Rose-Ellen were prancing on tiptoe to go, and +even Jimmie was ready. +<P>"This is what he is like," said Rose-Ellen, "the man who said +we could." She stuck in her chin and threw out her chest and +tried to stride. +<P>"That's the Big Boss, all right," Daddy said, laughing. "Guess +it's O.K. But mind your _p_'s and _q_'s." +<P>"And stick together. Specially in a strange place." Grandma +wearily picked up the baby. +<P>The Big Boss saw them as soon as they tiptoed into the +oyster-house. "Ez," he called, "here's some nice kids. Show 'em +around, will you?" +<P>Ez was opening clams with a penknife, and spilling them into his +mouth. "Want some?" he asked. +<P>The children shook their heads vigorously. + +<P>He closed his knife and dropped it into his pocket. +<P>"Well, now first you want to see the dredges come in from the +bay." He took them through the open front of the shed to the +docks outside. The boats had gone out at three o'clock in the +morning, he said, in the deep dark. They were coming in now +heavily, loaded high with horny oysters, and Ez pointed out the +rake-set iron nets with which the shellfish were dragged from +their beds. "Got 'em out of bed good and early!" +<P>"I'd hate to have to eat 'em all," Jimmie said suddenly in his +husky little voice. +<P>Everyone laughed, for the big rough shells were traveling into +the oyster-house by thousands, on moving belts. Some shells +looked as if they were carrying sponges in their mouths, but Ez +said it was a kind of moss that grew there. Already the pile of +unopened oysters in the shed was higher than a man. The shuckers +needed a million to work on next day, Ez said. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited11.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited11.png" height="500" +ALT="Illustration: Watching the dredges"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P>When the children had watched awhile, and the boatmen had asked +their names, and how old they were and where they came from, Ez +took them inside the shed to show them the handling of the newly +shucked oysters. First the oysters were dumped into something +that looked like Mrs. Albi's electric washer, and washed and +washed. Then they were emptied into a flume, a narrow trough +along which they were swept into bright cans that held almost a +gallon each. The cans were stored in ice-packed barrels, and +early next morning would go out in trains and trucks to all parts +of the country. +<P>"How many pearls have they found in all these oysters?" Dick +demanded in a businesslike voice. "Not any!" Ez said. +<P>"Why can't you eat oysters in months that don't have R in them?" +asked Rose-Ellen. +<P>"You could, if there wasn't a law against selling them. It's +only a notion, like not turning your dress if you put it on wrong +side out. Summer's when oysters lay eggs. You don't stop eating +hens because they lay eggs, do you? But now scram, kids. I got +work to do." +<P>They left, skipping past the mountains of empty shells outside. +<P>Next day the children went to church school alone. The grown +folks were too tired. And on Monday Dick and Rose-Ellen went up +the road to the school in the little village. +<P>It was strange to be in school again, and with new schoolmates +and teachers and even new books, since this was a different +state. Rose-Ellen's grade, the fifth, had got farther in long +division than her class at home, and she couldn't understand what +they were doing. Dick had trouble, too, for the seventh grade +was well started on United States history, and he couldn't catch +up. But that was not the worst of it. The two children could +not seem to fit in with their schoolmates. The village girls +gathered in groups by themselves and acted as if the oyster-shuckers' +children were not there at all; and the boys did not give Dick even +a chance to show what a good pitcher he was. Both Rose-Ellen +and Dick had been leaders in the city school, and now they felt +so lonesome that Rose-Ellen often cried when she got home. +<P>It was too long a walk for Jimmie, who begged not to go anyway. +Besides, he was needed at home to mind Sally. +<P>Of course the grown folks wanted to earn all they could. The pay +was thirty cents a gallon; and just as it took a lot of +cranberries to make a peck, it took a lot of these middle-sized +oysters to make a gallon. To keep the oysters fresh, the sheds +were left so cold that the workers must often dip their numb +hands into pails of hot water. All this was hard on Grandma's +rheumatism; but painful as the work was, she did not give it up +until something happened that forced her to. +<P>It was late November, and the fire in the shack must be kept +going all day to make the rooms warm enough for Sally. She was +creeping now, and during the long hours when the grown folks were +working and the older children at school, she had to stay in a +chair with a gate across the front which her father had fixed out +of an old kitchen armchair. Grandma cushioned it with rags, but +it grew hard and tiresome, and sometimes Jimmie could not keep +her contented there. +<P>One day Sally cried until he wriggled her out of her nest and +spread a quilt for her in a corner of the room as Grandma did. +There he sat, fencing her in with his legs while he drew pictures +of oyster-houses. He was so busy drawing roofs that he had +forgot all about Sally until he was startled by her scream. He +jerked around in terror. Sally had clambered over the fence of +his legs and crept under the stove after her ball. Perhaps a +spark had snapped through the half-open slide in the stove door; +however it had happened, the flames were running up her little +cotton dress. +<P>Poor Baby Sally! Jimmie had never felt so helpless. Hardly +knowing why he did it, he dragged the wool quilt off Grandma's +bed and scooted across the floor in a flash. While Sally +screamed with fright, he wrapped the thick folds tightly around +her and hugged her close. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited12.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited12.png" width="600" +ALT="Illustration: Jimmie saving Sally"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P>When the grown folks came from work, just ahead of the school +children, they found Jimmie and Sally white and shaky but safe. +The woolen quilt had smothered out the flames before Sally was +hurt at all; and Jimmie had only a pair of blistered hands. +<P>"If I hadn't put a wool petticoat on her, and wool stockings," +Grandma kept saying, while she sat and rocked the whimpering +baby. "And if our Jimmie hadn't been so smart as to think of the +bedclothes. . . . +<P>"Not all children have been so lucky," Daddy said in a +shaky voice, crouching beside Grandma and touching Sally's downy +head. +<P>"But I hadn't ought to have left her with poor Jimmie," +Grandma mourned. "If only they had a Center, like at the bogs. I +don't believe I can bear it to stay here any longer after this. +Maybe we best go back to the city and put them in a Home." +<P>Daddy objected. "We'll not leave the kids alone again, of +course; but we're making a fair living and the Boss says there'll +be work through April, and then Pa and I can go out and plant +seed oysters if we want." +<P>"Where's the good of a fair living if it's the death of you?" +Grandma's tone was tart. "No, sir, I ain't going to stay, tied +in bowknots with rheumatiz, and these poor young-ones. . . ." +<P>Grandpa made a last effort, though he knew it was of little use +when Grandma was set. "I bet we could go to work on one of these +truck farms, come summer." +<P>Grandma only rocked her straight chair, jerking one foot up and +down. +<P>"One of these <U>padrones</U>," Daddy said slowly, "is trying to get +families to work in Florida. In winter fruits." +<P>Grandma brightened. "Floridy might do us a sight of good, and I +always did hanker after palm trees. But how could we get there?" +<P>"They send you down in a truck," said Daddy. "Charge you so much +a head and feed and lodge you into the bargain. I figure we've +got just about enough to make it." +<P>South into summer! +<P>"That really would be a peekaneeka!" crowed Rose-Ellen. +<BR><BR><BR> +<H2 ALIGN=CENTER><A NAME="peekaneeka">PEEKANEEKA?</A></H2> +<BR> +<P>That trip to Florida surprised the Beechams, but not happily. +<P>First, the driver shook his head at featherbeds, dishes, trunk. +"I take three grown folks, three kids, one baby, twenty-eight +dollars," he growled. "No furniture." +<P>Argument did no good. Hastily the family sorted out their most +needed clothing and made it into small bundles. The driver +scowled at even those. +<P>"My featherbeds!" cried Grandma, weeping for once. +<P>Hurriedly she sold the beds for a dollar to her next-door +neighbor. The clock she would not leave and it took turns with +the baby sitting on grown-up laps. +<P>At each stop the springless truck seats were crowded tighter with +people, till there was hardly room for the passengers' feet. The +crowding did help warm the unheated truck; but Grandma's face +grew gray with pain as cold and cramp made her "rheumatiz tune +up." +<P>And there was no place at all to take care of a baby. +<P>When they had traveled two hours they wondered how they could +bear thirteen hundred miles, cold, aching, wedged motionless. +All they could look forward to was lunchtime, when they could +stretch themselves and ease their gnawing stomachs; but the sun +climbed high and the truck still banged along without stopping. +<P>The children could hear a man in front angrily asking the driver, +"When we get-it--the dinner?" +<P>The driver faced ahead as if he were deaf. +<P>"When we get-it--the grub?" roared the man, pounding the driver's +shoulder. +<P>"If we stop once an hour, we don't get there in time for your +jobs," the driver growled, and drove on. +<P>Not till dark did they stop to eat. Grandpa, clambering down +stiffly, had to lift Grandma and Sally out. Daddy took Jimmie, +sobbing with weariness. Dick and Rose-Ellen tumbled out, feet +asleep and bodies aching. When they stumbled into the roadside +hamburger stand, the lights blurred before their eyes, and the +hot steamy air with its cooking smells made Rose-Ellen so dizzy +that she could hardly eat the hamburger and potato chips and +coffee slammed down before her on the sloppy counter. Jimmie +went to sleep with his head in his plate and had to be wakened to +finish. +<P>Still, the food did help them, and when they were wedged into +their seats again, they could begin to look forward to the +night's rest. Grandpa said likely they wouldn't drive much after +ten, and Grandma said, "Land of love, ten? Does he think a +body's made of leather?" +<P>On and on they went, toppling sleepily against each other, aching +so hard that the ache wakened them, hearing dimly the same angry +man arguing with the driver. "When we stop to sleep, hah? I ask +you, when we stop to sleep?" +<P>They didn't stop at all. +<P>Rose-Ellen was forever wishing she could wake up enough to pull +up the extra quilt which always used to be neatly rolled at the +foot of her bed. Once, through uneasy dreams, she felt Daddy +shaking her gently, and while she tried to pull away and back +into sleep, Grandpa's determinedly cheerful voice said, "Always +did want to see Washington, D. C., and here we are. Look quick +and you'll see the United States Capitol." +<P>From the rumbling truck, Rose-Ellen and Dick focused +sleep-blurred eyes with a mighty effort and saw the great dome +and spreading wings, flooded with light. +<P>"Puts me in mind of a mother eagle brooding her young," Grandpa +muttered. +<P>"Land of love, enough sight of them eaglets is out from under her +wings, finding slim pickin's," Grandma snapped. +<P>"Looks like white wax candles." Rose-Ellen yawned widely and went +to sleep again. +<P>When gray morning dawned, she did not know which was worse-the +sleepiness or the hunger. The angry man demanded over and over, +"When we stop for breakfast?" +<P>They didn't stop. +<P>Grandma had canned milk and boiled water along, and with all the +Beechams working together, they got the baby's bottles filled. +Poor Sally couldn't understand the cold milk, but she was so +hungry she finally drank it, staring reproachfully at her bottle. +<P>Not till he had engine trouble did the driver halt. Fortunately +the garage where he stopped had candy and pop for sale. Grandpa +had his family choose each a chocolate bar and a bottle. He +wanted to get more, for fear they would not stop for the noon +meal, but in five minutes all the supplies were sold. +<P>Rose-Ellen tried to make her chocolate almond bar last; she +chewed every bite till it slid down her throat; and then, alas, +she was so sick that it didn't stay down. +<P>Grandpa and Daddy talked with others about making the driver give +them rest and food; but there was nothing they could do: the +padrone, back in Philadelphia, already had their money for the +trip. +<P>The children walked about while they waited. It was not cold, +but the dampness chilled them. It was queer country, the highway +running between swamps of black water, where gray trees stood +veiled in gray moss. Gray cabins sat every-which-way in the +clearing, heavy shutters swinging at their glassless windows. +<P>A pale, thin girl talked to Rose-Ellen. She was Polish, and her +name was Rose, too. When Rose-Ellen asked her if she had ever +heard of such a dreadful trip, she shrugged and said she was used +to going without sleep. +<P>Last year, in asparagus, she and her parents and two brothers +cared for twenty-two acres, and when it grew hot "dat grass, +oooop she go and we work all night for git ahead of her." +Asparagus, even Rose-Ellen knew could grow past using in a day. +<P>The Polish Rose said that they got up at four in the morning and +were in the fields at half-past; and sometimes worked till near +midnight. +<P>"Mornings," she said, "I think I die, so bad I want the sleep. +And then the boss, he no give us half our wages. Now most a year +it has been." +<P>Curiously Rose-Ellen asked her about school. +<P>"No money, no time, no clo'es," said Polish Rose. +<P>The truck-driver shouted to his people to pile in and the truck +went on. By noon the Beechams were seeing their first palm trees +and winter flowers. Grandpa and Daddy tried to tell the children +about the things they were passing, but the children were too +sleepy and sickish to care. Grandma's mouth was a thin line of +pain and the baby wailed until people looked around crossly, +though there were other crying babies. +<P>The truck reached its destination late on the second evening and +piled out its passengers at a grapefruit camp. Rose-Ellen had +been picturing a village of huts like those at the bogs, or +bright-papered shacks like the oystershuckers'. Though the +featherbeds were gone, it would be delicious to lie on the floor, +uncrowded, and sheltered from the night. +<P>But no such shelter awaited them. Instead, they were pointed to +a sort of hobo camp with lights glimmering through torn canvas. +A heavy odor scented the darkness. +<P>Grandpa said, "They can't expect decent folks . . . !" +<P>Grandma said, "We've got to stretch out somewheres. Even under a +tree. This baby. . . ." +<P>Sally was crying a miserable little cry, and an Italian woman who +reminded Rose-Ellen of Mrs. Albi peered out of a patched tent and +said, "Iss a <U>bambina</U>! Oooh, the little so-white <U>bambina</U>! Look +you here, quick! The people next door have leave these tent. You +move in before some other bodies." +<P>"These tent" was a top and three walls of dirty canvas. "If +you'd told me a Beecham would lay down in a filthy place like +this. . . ." Grandma declared. Rose-Ellen did not hear the end of +the sentence. She was asleep on the earth floor. +<P>Next day when the men and Dick were hired to pick grapefruit, +Grandpa asked the boss about better living quarters. +<P>"He said there wasn't any," Grandpa reported later. +<P>"My land of love, you mean we've got to stay here?" Grandma +groaned. +<P>Grimly she set to work. The Italian neighbor had brought her a +pot of stew and some coffee, but now Grandma and Rose-Ellen must +go to the store for provisions. They brushed their clothes, all +wrinkles from the long trip, and demanding the iron Grandma did +not have. They combed their hair and washed. They set out, +leaving the baby with Jimmie. +<P>"Shall I send these?" the grocer asked respectfully, when they +had given their order. "You're new here, aren't you?" Mussed as +they were, the Beechams still looked respectable. +<P>Grandma flushed. She hated to have anyone see that flapping +canvas room, but the heap of supplies was heavy. "Please. We're +working in the grapefruit," she said. +<P>The grocer's face lost its smile. "Oh, we don't deliver to the +camps," he snapped. "And it's strictly cash." +<P>Grandma handed him the coins, and she and Rose-Ellen silently +piled their purchases into the tub they had bought. They had to +set it down many times on their way back. +<BR><BR><BR> +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited13.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited13.png" width="600" +ALT="Illustration: Bringing back the groceries"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P>Next Grandma made a twig broom and they swept the dirty ground. +Mrs. Rugieri, next door, showed Grandma her beds, made of +automobile seats put together on the ground. That night the +Beecham men went to the nearest dumps and found enough seats to +make a bed for Grandpa and Grandma and the baby. Fortunately it +was not cold; coats were covering enough. +<P>On the dump Daddy found also an old tub, from which he made a +stove, cutting holes in it, turning it upside down, and fastening +in a stovepipe. +<P>"I don't feel to blame folks so much as I used to for being +dirty," Grandma admitted, when they had done their best to make +the shelter a home. "But all the same, I want for you young-ones +to keep away from them. I saw a baby that looked as if it had +measles." +<P>"If only there was a Center," Rose-Ellen complained, "or if they +even had room for us in school. I feel as if I'd scream, staying +in this horrid tent so much." +<P>"I didn't know," said Daddy, "that there was a place in our whole +country where you couldn't live decent and send your kids to +school if you wanted to." +<P>It was pleasant in the grapefruit grove, where the rich green +trees made good-smelling aisles of clean earth, and the men +picked the pale round fruit ever so carefully, clipping it gently +so as not to bruise the skin and cause decay. It hardly seemed +to belong to the same world as the ill-smelling pickers' camp of +rags, boards, and tin. +<P>Dick lost his job after the first few days. He had been hired +because he was so tall and strong; but the foreman said he was +bruising too much fruit. At first Grandma said she was glad he +was fired, for he had been making himself sick eating fruit. But +she was soon sorry that he had nothing to do. +<P>"And them young rapscallions you run with teach you words and +ways I never thought to see in a Beecham," Grandma scolded. +<P>But if camp was hard for them all, it was hardest for Grandma and +Jimmie and Sally, who seemed always ailing. +<P>"We've got to grit our teeth and hang on," said Grandma. +<P>Then came the Big Storm. +<P>All day the air had been heavy, still; weatherwise pickers +watched the white sky anxiously. In the middle of the night, +Rose-Ellen woke to the shriek of wind and the crack of canvas. +Then, with a splintering crash, the tent-poles collapsed and she +was buried under a mass of wet canvas. +<P>At first she could hear no voice through the howling wind and +battering rain. Then Sally's wail sounded, and Grandma's call: +"Rose-Ellen! Jimmie! Dick! You all right?" +<P>Until dawn the Beechams could only huddle together in the small +refuge Daddy contrived against the dripping, pricking blackness. +When day came, the rain still fell and the wind still blew; but +fitfully, as if they, too, were tired out. The family scurried +around putting up the tent and building a fire and drying things +out before the men must go to the grove. Rose-Ellen and Dick and +even Jimmie felt less dismal when they steamed before the washtub +stove and ate something hot. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited14.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited14.png" height="500" +ALT="Illustration: Putting up the tent"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> +<P>Grandma and Sally felt less relief. Sally's cheeks were hot and +red, and she turned her head from side to side, crying and +coughing. Grandma was saying, "My land, my land, I'd give five +years of my life to be in my own house with this sick little +mite!" when a smooth gray head thrust aside the tent flap and a +neighborly voice said, "Oh, mercy me!" +<P>Then without waiting for invitation, a crisp gingham dress +followed the gray head in. "Is she bad sick? Have you-all had +the doctor? I'm Mrs. King, from town." +<P>"And you really think we're humans?" Grandma demanded, her cheeks +as red as Sally's. "If you do, you're the first since we struck +this place. You'll have to excuse me," she apologized, as the +children stared at her with astonished eyes. "Seems like we've +lost our manners along with everything else." +<P>"I don't wonder. I don't wonder a bit. Our preacher telephoned +this morning that there was a heap of suffering here in the camp, +or like enough we'd not have ought of it, and us church folks, +too. Now I got my Ford out on the road; you tote the baby and +we'll take her to my doctor." +<P>Mrs. King's doctor gave Sally medicine and told Grandma about +feeding her orange juice and chopped vegetables and eggs as well +as milk. Grandma sighed as she wondered how she would get these +good things for the sick baby. However, Sally did seem to be +somewhat better when they returned. Mrs. King and Grandma were +talking over how to get supplies when the men came back to the +tent. +<P>"Laid off," said Grandpa wearily, not seeing the caller. "Storm's +wrecked the crop so bad he's laying off the newest hired. Says +it's like to ruin him." +<P>Grandma sat still with the baby whining on her lap. "My land of +love," she said, "what will we do now?" +<BR><BR><BR> +<H2 ALIGN=CENTER><A NAME="cissy">CISSY FROM THE ONION MARSHES</A></H2> +<BR> +<P>"Well, I should think you'd be glad to get clear of this," cried +their visitor. "Florida camps ain't all so bad." +<P>"We've no money to move, ma'am," Grandpa said bluntly. "It took +near all we'd earned to get here, and now no job!" +<P>"This Italian next door says they're advertising for, cotton +pickers in Texas," Daddy said, cradling Sally in one arm while he +held her little clawlike hand in his, feeling its fever. +<P>"We haven't got wings, to fly there," Grandma objected. +<P>Mrs. King looked thoughtfully around the wretched shelter. A few +clothes hung from corner posts; a few tin dishes were piled in a +box cupboard. The children were clean as children could be in +such a place. But the visitor's glance lingered longest on the +clock. +<P>"Your clock and mine are like as two peas," she observed. "Forty +years ago I got mine, on my wedding day." +<P>"Mine was a wedding present, too. And my feather beds that I had +to let go at fifty cents apiece. . . ." Grandma quavered. +<P>"These are queer times." Mrs. King shook her head. "I do wish I +had the means to lend a hand like a real neighbor. There's this, +though--my mister took in a big old auto on a debt, and he'll +leave you have it for what the debt was--fifteen dollars, seems +like." +<P>"You reckon he will?" Grandpa demanded. +<P>"He better!" said Mrs. King. +<P>"Even fifteen dollars won't leave us scarcely enough to eat on," +Grandpa muttered. +<P>"But we've got to get to a place where there's work," Daddy +reminded him. +<P>They went to see the car, and found it a big, strong old Reo, +with fairly good tires. So they bought it. +<P>Grandma had one piece of jewelry left, besides her wide gold +wedding ring--a cameo brooch. She traded it for a nanny goat. +On the ever useful dump the men found a wrecked trailer and they +mended it so that it would hold the goat, which the children +named Carrie. Later, Grandma thought, they might get some laying +hens, too. +<P>Two days after the Big Storm, they set out for the Texas +cottonfields. Mrs. King stuck a big box of lunch into the car, +and an old tent which she said she couldn't use. +<P>"I hope I'll be forgiven for never paying heed to fruit +tramps--fruit workers--before," she said soberly. "From now on I +aim to. Though I shan't find none like you-all, with a Seth +Thomas clock and suchlike." + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited15.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited15.png" height="500" +ALT="Illustration: Off to the cotton fields"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> +<P>After the truck ride from Jersey even a fifteen-dollar automobile +was luxury, with its roomy seats and two folding seats that let +down between. +<P>Grandma joked, in her tart way, "I never looked to be touring the +country in my own auto!" +<P>Rose-Ellen jiggled in the back seat. "Peekaneeka, Gramma!" she +said. +<P>When it rained, the children scurried to fasten the side curtains +and then huddled together to keep warm while they played +tick-tack-toe or guessing games. For meals they stopped where +they could milk Carrie and build a small fire. At night they put +up the tent, unless a farmer or a policeman ordered them to move +on. +<P>At first it seemed more of a peekaneeka than any of their +adventures thus far. They met and passed many old cars like +their own, and the children counted the strange things that were +tied on car or trailer tops while Grandma counted license +plates-when Sally was not too fussy. There was always something +new to see, especially when they were passing through Louisiana. +Daddy said Louisiana was the one state in the country that had +parishes instead of counties, and that that was because it had +been French in the early days. Almost everything else about it +seemed as strange to the children--the Spanish moss hanging in +long streamers from the live oak trees; the bayous, or arms of +the river, clogged with water hyacinths; the fields of sugar +cane; and the Negro cabins, with their glassless windows and +their big black kettles boiling in the back yards. +<P>"But the funniest thing I saw," Rose-Ellen said later, "was a cow +lying in the bayou, with purple water hyacinths draped all over +her, as if it was on purpose." +<P>After a few days, though, even this peekaneeka grew wearisome to +the children; while Daddy and Grandpa grew more and more anxious +about an angry spat-spat-spat from the Reo. So they were all +glad to reach the cotton fields they had been steering toward. +<P>But there they did not find what they had hoped for. There were +too many workers ahead of them and too little left to do. +Tractors, it seemed, were taking the place of many men, one +machine driving out two to five families. +<P>Though the camp was a fairly comfortable one, it proved lonesome +for the children for there was no Center, and it did not seem +worth while for them to start to school for so short a time. It +was doubtful, anyway, whether the school had room for them. +<P>Grandma was too lame to work in the cotton. When she bent over, +she could hardly straighten up again; so she stayed home with +Jimmie and the baby, and Dick and Rose-Ellen picked. Rose-Ellen +felt superior, because there were children her age picking into +small sacks, like pillow-slips, and she used one of the regular +long bags, fastened to her belt and trailing on the ground +behind. +<P>At first cotton-picking was interesting, the fluffy bolls looking +like artificial roses and the stray blossoms strangely shaped and +delicately pink. Sometimes a group of Negro pickers would chant +in rich voices as they picked. "Da cotton want a-pickin' so +ba-ad!" But it was astonishing to the Beechams to find how many +aches they had and how few pounds of cotton when the day's +picking was weighed. +<P>Tired and achy as they were at night, though, they were glad to +find children in the next shack. +<P>"Queer ones," Grandma called them. +<P>"It's their talk I can't get the hang of," Grandpa added. "It +may be English, but I have to listen sharp to make it out." +<P>Daddy trotted Sally on his foot and laughed. "It's English all +right--English of Shakespeare's time, likely, that they've used +for generations. They're Kentucky mountaineers, and as the +father says, 'a fur piece from home'." +<P>It was through the eldest girl that the children became +acquainted: the girl and her toothbrush. +<P>Rose-Ellen was brushing her teeth at the door, and Dick was +saying, "I ain't going to. Nobody brushes their teeth down here," +when suddenly the girl appeared, a toothbrush and jelly glass in +her hand, and a younger brother and sister following her. +<P>"This is the way we brush our teeth," sang the girl and while her +toe tapped the time, two brushes popped into two mouths and +scrubbed up and down, up and down--"brush our teeth, brush our +teeth!" +<P>She spied Rose-Ellen. "Did you-uns larn at the Center, too?" she +asked eagerly. "First off, we-uns allowed they was queer little +hair-brushes; but them teachers! Them teachers could make 'em +fly fast as a sewing machine. We reckoned if them teachers was +so smart with such comical contraptions, like enough they knowed +other queer doings. And they sure did." +<P>Thus began the friendship between the Beecham children and Cissy, +Tom and Mary--with toddling Georgie and the baby thrown in. +Cissy was beautiful, like Grandma's old cameo done in color, with +heavy, loose curls of gold-brown hair. Long evening, visits she +and Rose-Ellen had, when they were not too tired from cotton-picking. +Little by little Rose-Ellen learned the story of Cissy's past few +years. Always she would remember it, spiced with the queer words +Cissy used. +<P>They had lived on a branch--a brook--in the Kentucky hills. +Their house was log, said Cissy, with a fireplace where Maw had +her kettles and where the whole lot of them could sit when winter +nights were cold, and Paw could whittle and Maw weave a coverlet. +<P>"Nary one of us could read," Cissy said dreamily, sitting on the +packing-box doorstep with elbows on knees and chin on palms. +"But Paw could tell purty tales and Maw could sing song-ballads +that would make you weep. But they wasn't no good huntin' no +more, and the kittles was empty. So we come down to the coal +mines, and when the mines shut down, we went on into the onions." +<P>These were great marshes, drained like cranberry bogs and planted +in onions. Whole families could work there, planting, weeding, +pulling, packing. +<P>("I've learned a lot!" thought Rose-Ellen. "I used to ask the +grocer for a nickel's worth of dry onions, and I never did guess +how they came to be there.") +<P>The first year was dreary. Maw took the baby (Mary, then) and +laid her on a blanket at the end of the row she was working, with +Tom to watch her. Cissy worked along with the grown folks, or +some days stayed home and did the washing and minded Tom and +Mary. +<P>"I shore didn't know how to wash good as I do now." She patted +her faded dress, pretty clean, though not like the clothes of +Grandma's washing. +<P>There was one thing about it, Cissy said; after a day in onions, +with the sun shining hot on her sunbonnet and not much to eat, +she didn't care if there wasn't any play or fun at night; she was +glad enough to drop down on the floor and go to sleep as soon as +she'd had corn pone and coffee. Sometimes she was sick from the +sun beating down on her head and she had to crawl into the shade +of a crate and lie there. +<P>The second year was different. Next summer, early, when the +cherries had set their green beads and the laylocks had quit +blooming, there came two young ladies. They came of an evening, +and talked to Paw and Maw as they sat on the doorsill with their +shoes kicked off and their bare toes resting themselves. +<P>First Paw and Maw wouldn't talk to them because why would these +pretty young ladies come mixing around with strangers? Paw and +Maw allowed they had something up their sleeves. But the ladies +patted Georgie, the baby then, and held him; and Cissy crept +closer and closer, because they smelled so nice. And then they +asked Maw if they couldn't take Cissy in their car and pay her as +much as she earned picking. She was to help them invite the +children to a place where they could be safe and happy while +their grown folks worked. +<P>Cissy couldn't hardly sense it; but Maw let her go, because she +was puny. The teachers got an old schoolhouse to use; and church +folks came to paint the walls; and P.W.A. workers made chairs and +tables; and the church ladies made curtains. The teachers got +icebox, stove, and piano from a second-hand store. +<P>Yet, at first, it was hard to get people to send their children +even to this beautiful place. They'd rather risk locking them in +at home, or keeping them at the end of the onion row. That first +morning, the teachers gathered up only nine children. Those nine +told what it was like, and next day there were fifteen, and by +the end of the summer "upwards of forty-five." +<P>Cissy told about the Center as she might tell about fairyland. +Across one wall were nails, with kits sent by children from the +different churches. The kits held tooth brushes, washcloths, +combs. Above each nail was a picture by which the child could +know his own toilet equipment. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited05.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited05.png" width="600" +ALT= "Illustration: Cissy and Tommy at the Center"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P>"Mine was the purtiest little gal with shiny hair. But it wasn't +colored," she added, regretfully. "Tommie's was a yaller +automobile." +<P>"Why'd you have pictures?" asked Jimmie. +<P>"I were going on eleven, but I couldn't read," Cissy confessed. +<P>Rose-Ellen patted Jimmie stealthily and didn't tell Cissy that he +was going on ten and couldn't read either. +<P>Cissy went on with her tale of the Center. There was toothbrush +and wash-up drill. There were clean play-suits that churches had +sent from far cities. Every morning there was worship. The +children had helped make an altar--a box with a silk scarf across +and a picture of Jesus above and a Bible and two candles. They +all sang hymns and heard Bible stories and prayed. Oh, yes, +Cissy said, back in the mountains they went to meetin'--when +there was meetin'--but God wasn't the same in Kentucky, some way. +The teachers' God loved them so good that it hurt him to have +them steal or lie or be any way dirty or mean. He had to love +them a heap to send the Center people to help them the way he +did. +<P>After worship came play and study, outdoors and in, with the +clean babies comfortably asleep in the clothesbaskets, their +stomachs full of milk from shiny bottles. The older ones sat down +to the table and prayed, and drank milk through stems, and ate +carrots and greens and "samwidges." And after the table was +cleared, they lay down on the floor and Teacher maybe played soft +music and they went to sleep. +<P>Once they had a real party. They were invited to a near-by +church by some of the children of that church. The tables were +trimmed with flowers and frilled paper and there were cakes and +Jello. The children played games together at the end of the +party. +<P>The big girls, when rain kept them from working, learned to cook +and sew and take care of babies; and even the little girls +learned a heap and made pretties they could keep, besides. From +the bottom of their clothes-box, Cissy brought a paper-wrapped +scrapbook of Bible pictures she had cut and pasted. Tom had made +a table out of a crate, but there wasn't room to fetch it. +<P>"I got so fat and strong," boasted Cissy, punching her thin chest +with a bony fist. "For breakfast, Maw didn't have no time to +give us young-uns nothing but maybe some Koolade to drink, and a +slice of store bread; but at the Center us skinny ones got a hull +bottle of milk to drink through a stem after worship." +<P>"Are you going back there?" Rose-Ellen asked. +<P>Cissy nodded, her hands folded tight between her knees. "And +maybe stay all winter, and me and Tommie go to school. Because +Paw and Maw feel like the teachers was kinfolk, since what +happened to Georgie." +<P>"What happened to Georgie?" +<P>Six children huddled on the doorstep now, shivering in the chilly +dark. "One Sunday night," Cissy said, "Georgie took to yelling, +and went all stiff and purple, and we couldn't make out what +ailed him. Only that his throat hurt too bad to swallow; so Maw +tied up his topknot so tight it near pulled it out: that was to +lift his palate, because dropped palates make sore throats. +<P>"Georgie didn't get any better. When the teachers come Monday +morning to tote us to the Center, they begged to take Georgie to +the doctor. Maw was might' nigh crazy by then, and she got into +the Ford without her head combed, Georgie in her lap. Maw said +she never had ridden so fast. She thought her last-day was come, +with the fences streaking past her lickety-split. And when they +come to the doctor he looked Georgie over and said, 'Could this +child have got hold of any lye?' And Maw said, real scairt, +well, she did have a bottle of lye water, and somebody might have +set it on the floor. +<P>"So every day the rest of the summer them teachers toted Georgie +to the Center and the doctor cured Georgie up till now he can eat +purty good. So that's how come we're shore going back to the +onions next summer." + +<BR><BR><BR> +<H2 ALIGN=CENTER><A NAME= "edge">AT THE EDGE OF A MEXICAN VILLAGE</A></H2> +<BR> +<P>Cotton-picking was over, and the Beechams tided themselves over +with odd jobs till spring came and they could move on to steadier +work. This time they were going up into Colorado to work in the +beets. +<P>"And high time!" said Grandma. "We've lived on mush and milk so +long we're getting the color of mush ourselves; and our clothes +are a caution to snakes." +<P>"But we'll be lucky if the brakebands of the auto last till we +get over the mountains," said Daddy. +<P>The spring drive up through Texas was pleasant, between +blossoming yellow trees and yuccas like wax candles and pink +bouquets of peach trees and mocking birds' songs. +<P>The mountain pass between New Mexico and Colorado was beautiful, +too, and exciting. In places it was a shelf shoved against the +mountain, and Jimmie said it tickled his stomach to look down on +the tops of other automobiles, traveling the loop of road below +them. Even Carrie, riding haughtily in her trailer, let out an +anguished bleat when she hung on the very edge of a curve. And +the Reo groaned and puffed. +<P>Up through Colorado they chugged; past Pike's Peak; through +Denver, flat on the plain with a blue mountain wall to its west; +on through the farmlands north of it to the sugar-beet town which +was their goal. +<P>Beyond the town stood an adobe village for beetworkers on the +Lukes fields, where the Beechams were to work. +<P>"Mud houses," Dick exclaimed, crumbling off a piece of mud +plaster thick with straw. +<P>"Like the bricks the Israelites made in Egypt," said Grandpa; +"only Pharaoh wanted them to do without the straw." +<P>"It's a Mexican village," observed Grandma. "I'd feel like a cat +in a strange garret here. And not a smidgin of shade. That shack +off there under the cottonwood tree looks cooler." +<P>"It's a chicken-coop!" squealed Rose-Ellen as they walked over to +it. "Gramma wants to live in a chicken-coop!" +<P>"It's empty. And it'd be a sight easier to clean than some +places where humans have lived," Grandma replied stoutly. +<P>So the Beechams got permission to live in the farmer's old +chicken-coop. It had two rooms, and the men pitched the tent +beside it for a bedroom. They had time to set up "chicken-housekeeping," +as Rose-Ellen called it, before the last of May, when beet work +began. They made a pretty cheerful place of this new home; +though, of course, it had no floor and no window glass, and sun +and stars shone in through its roof, and the only running water +was in the irrigation ditch. Even under the glistening +cottonwood tree it was a stifling cage on a hot day. +<P>They were all going to work, except Jimmie and Sally. It would +take all of them, new hands that they were, to care for the +twenty acres they were to work. Mr. Lukes said that children +under sixteen were not supposed to be employed, but of course +they could always help their parents. Daddy said that was one +way to get around the Child Labor Law. +<P>So the Beechams were to thin the beets and hoe them and top them, +beginning the last of May and finishing in October, and the pay +would be twenty-six dollars an acre. The government made the +farmers pay that price, no matter how poor the crop was. +<P>"Five hundred and twenty dollars sounds like real money!" Daddy +rejoiced. +<P>"Near five months, though," Grandma reckoned, "and with prices +like they are, we're lucky to feed seven hungry folks on sixty +dollars a month. And we're walking ragbags, with our feet on the +ground. And them brakebands--and new tires." +<P>"Five times sixty is three hundred," Rose-Ellen figured. +<P>"You'll find it won't leave more than enough to get us on to the +next work place," Grandpa muttered. +<P>It was lucky the chicken-coop was in sight of their acres. +Before she left home in the early morning, Grandma saw to it that +there was no fire in the old-new washtub stove, and that Sally's +knitted string harness was on, so that she could not reach the +irrigation ditch, and that Carrie was tethered. +<P>The beets, planted two months ago, had come up in even green +rows. Now they must be thinned. With short-handled hoes the +grown people chopped out foot-long strips of plants. Dick and +Rose-Ellen followed on hands and knees, and pulled the extra +plants from the clumps so that a single strong plant was left +every twelve inches. +<P>The sun rose higher and hotter in the big blue bowl of sky. +Rose-Ellen's ragged dress clung to her, wet with sweat, and her +arms and face prickled with heat. Grandma looked at her from +under the apron she had flung over her head. +<P>"Run and stretch out under the cottonwood awhile," she said. "No +use for to get sunstroke." +<P>Rose-Ellen went silently, thankfully. It was cooler in the shade +of the tree. She looked up through the fluttering green leaves +at the floating clouds shining in the sun. Jimmie hobbled around +her, driving Sally with her knitted reins, but they did not keep +their sister awake. The sun was almost noon-high when she opened +her eyes, and she hurried guiltily back to the beets. +<P>She had never seen such a big field, its green and brown stripes +waving up and down to the skyline. It made her ache to think +that five Beechams must take out these extra thousands of +three-inch plants; and after that, hoe them; and after that. . . . +<P>Her knees were so sore that night that Grandpa bought her +overalls. He got her and Dick big straw hats, too, though it was +too late to keep their faces from blistering. All the Beechams +but Grandma wore overalls. She couldn't bring herself to it. That +night she made herself a sunbonnet out of an old shirt, sitting +close to a candle stuck in a pop bottle. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited16.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited16.png" height="500" +ALT= "Illustration: Rose-Ellen and Dick"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> +<P>"I clean forgot to look over the beans and put them to soak," she +said wearily, from her bed. +<P>Rose-Ellen scooped herself farther into her layer of straw. She +ought to offer to get up and look over those beans, but she +simply couldn't make herself. +<P>"It seems like I can't stay up another ten minutes," Grandma +excused herself, "after the field work and redding up and such. +But we're getting like all the rest of them, buying the groceries +that we can fix easiest, even though they cost twice as much and +ain't half as nourishing. And when you can't trade at but one +place it's always dearer. . . ." +<P>Mr. Lukes had guaranteed their account at the store, because of +the pay due them at the end of the season. So they went on +buying there, even though its prices were high and its goods of +poor quality, because they did not have money to spend anywhere +else. +<P>When the thinning was done, they must begin all over again, +working with the short-handled hoes, cutting out any extra +plants, loosening the ground. By that time they were more used to +the work; and in July came a rest time, when all they needed to +do was to turn the waters of the big ditch into the little +ditches that crinkled between the rows. It was lucky there was +irrigation water, or the growing plants would have died in the +heat, since there had been little rain. +<P>Rose-Ellen loved to watch the water moving through the fields as +if it were alive, catching the rosy gold of sunset in its zigzag +mirrors. She missed the Eastern fireflies at night; otherwise +the evenings were a delight. Colorado sunsets covered the west +with glory, and then came quick coolness. Dry as it was, the +cottonwood leaves made a sound like refreshing rain, and the +cicadas hummed comfortably. All the Beechams stayed outside till +far into the night, for the chicken-house was miserably hot at +the end of every day. +<P>"The Garcias' and Martinezes' houses are better if they are mud +and haven't any shade," Rose-Ellen told Grandma. "The walls are +so thick that inside they're like cool caves." +<P>She and Dick had made friends in the Mexican village with Vicente +Garcia and her brother Joe, and with Nico Martinez, next door to +the Garcias', and her brothers. Even when they all picked beans +in the morning, during the vacation from sugar beets, there were +these long, cool evenings for play. +<P>Grandma complained. "I don't know what else to blame for Dick's +untidy ways. Hair sticking up five ways for Christmas, and +fingernails in mourning and the manners of a heathen. I'm afraid +that sore on his hand may be something catching. Those Garcias +and Martinezes of yours . . . !" +<P>"The Garcias maybe, but not the Martinezes," Rose-Ellen objected. +"Gramma, you go to their houses sometime and see." +<P>One evening Grandma did. Jimmie had come excitedly leading home +the quaintest of all the babies of the Mexican village, Vicente +Garcia's little sister. He had found her balancing on her +stomach on the bank of the ditch. Three years old, she was, and +slim and straight, with enormous eyes and a great tangle of +sunburned brown curls. Her dress made her quainter still, for it +was low-necked and sleeveless, and came to her tiny ankles so +that she looked like a child from an old-fashioned picture. +<P>Grandma and Rose-Ellen and Jimmie walked home with her, and +Grandma's eyes widened at sight of the two-roomed Garcia house. +Ten people lived and slept, ate and cooked there, and it looked +as if it had never met a broom or soapsuds. +<P>The Martinez home was different, perfectly neat, even to the +scrubbed oilcloth on the table. Afterwards Grandma said the +bottoms of the pans weren't scoured, but she couldn't feel to +blame Mrs. Martinez, with five young ones besides the new baby to +look after. When the Beechams went home, Mrs. Martinez gave them +a covered dish of <U>enchiladas</U>. +<P>Even Grandma ate those enchiladas without hesitation, though they +were so peppery that she had to cool her mouth with frequent +swallows of water. They were made of tidily rolled <U>tortillas</U> +(Mexican corn-cakes, paper-thin), stuffed with meat and onion and +invitingly decorated with minced cheese and onion tops. They +looked, smelled and tasted delicious. +<P>In turn, Grandma sent biscuits, baked in the Dutch oven Grandpa +had bought her. Grandma had always been proud of her biscuits. +<P>In July the Mexican children took Dick and Rose-Ellen to the +vacation school held every summer in one of the town churches. +The Beechams were not surprised at Nico's dressed-up daintiness +when she called for them. Grandma said she was perfect, from the +ribbon bows on her shining hair to the socks that matched her +smart print dress. But it was surprising to see Vicente come +from the cluttered, dirty Garcia rooms, almost as clean and sweet +as Nico, though with nails more violently red. +<P>The Beechams found it a problem to dress at all in their +chicken-apartment. Dick tried to get ready in one room and +Rose-Ellen in the other, and everything she wanted was in his +room and everything he wanted in hers. Their small belongings +had to be packed in boxes, and all the boxes emptied out to find +them. Clean clothes--still unironed, of course--had to be hung +up, and they could not be covered well enough so flies and +moth-millers did not speck them. +<P>"I do admire your Mexican friends," Grandma admitted grudgingly, +"keeping so nice in such a hullabaloo." +<P>"They are admire-able in lots of ways," Rose-Ellen answered. "I +never knew anyone I liked much better than Nico. And the +Mexicans are the very best in all the art work at the vacation +school. I think the Japanese learn quickest." +<P>"Do folks treat 'em nice?" asked Grandma. +<P>"In the school," Rose-Ellen told her. "But outside school they +act like even Nico had smallpox. They make me sick!" +<P>Rose-Ellen spoke both indignantly and sorrowfully. That very day +the three girls had come out of the church together, and had +paused to look over the neat picket fence of the yard next the +church. It seemed a sweet little yard, smelling of newly cut +grass and flowers. Trees rose high above the small house, and +inside the fence were tall spires of delphinium, bluer than the +sky. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited17.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited17.png" width="600" +ALT= "Illustration: Looking over the fence"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> +<P>"The flowers iss so pretty," said Nico. +<P>"And on the porch behind of the vines is a chicken in a gold +cage," cried Vicente. +<P>Rose-Ellen folded her lips over a giggle, for the chicken was a +canary. +<P>Just then a head popped up behind a red rosebush. The lady of the +house was gathering flowers, and she held out a bunch to +Rose-Ellen. +<P>"Don't prick yourself," she warned. "Are you the one they call +Rose-Ellen?" +<P>"Yes, ma'am," said Rose-Ellen, burying her nose in the flowers. +<P>"I had a little sister named Rose-Ellen," the woman said gently. +"You come play on the grass sometime, and we'll pick flowers for +your mother." +<P>"And can Nico and Vicente come, too?" Rose-Ellen asked. "They're +my best friends." +<P>The woman looked at Nico and Vicente with cold eyes. "I can't ask +<U>all</U> the children," she answered. +<P>"Thank you, ma'am," Rose-Ellen stammered. When they were out of +sight down the road, she threw the roses into the dust. Nico +snatched them up again. +<P>"I wouldn't go there--I wouldn't go there for ten dollars," +Rose-Ellen declared. Vicente looked at her with wise deep eyes. +"I could 'a' told you," she said, shrugging. "American ladies, +they mostly don't like Mexican kids. I don't know why." +<P>October came. It was the time for the topping of the beets. The +Martinez family went back to Denver for school. The Garcias +stayed; their children would go into the special room when they +returned, to have English lessons and to catch up in other +studies--or rather, to try to catch up. +<P>"But me, always I am two years in back of myself," Vicente +regretted one day, "even with specials room. Early out of school +and late into it, for me that makes too hard." +<P>Now Farmer Lukes went through the Beechams' acres, lifting the +beets loose by machine. Rose-Ellen could not believe they were +beets-great dirt-colored clods, they looked. Not at all like the +beets she knew. +<P>Topping was a new job. With a long hooked knife the beet was +lifted and laid across the arm, and then, with a slash or two, +freed of its top. The children followed, gathering the beets +into great piles for Mr. Lukes's wagon to collect. +<P>Vicente and Joe did not make piles; they topped; and Joe boasted +that he was faster than his father as he slashed away with the +topping knife. +<P>"It looks like you'd cut yourself, holding it on your knee like +you do!" Grandma cried as she watched him one day. +<P>"Not me!" bragged Joe. "Other kids does." The beet tops fell +away under his flashing knife. +<P>From the beet-dump the beets were taken to the sugar factory a +few miles away, where they were made into shining white beet +sugar. ("And that's another thing I never even guessed!" thought +Rose-Ellen. "What hard work it takes to fill our sugar bowls!") +<P>Sometimes at night now a skim of ice formed on the water bucket +in the chicken-house. Goldenrod and asters were puffs of white; +the harvest moon shone big and red at the skyline, across miles +of rolling farmland; crickets fiddled sleepily and long-tailed +magpies chattered. One clear, frosty night Grandpa said, "Hark! +the ducks are flying south. Maybe we best follow." +<BR><BR><BR> +<H2 ALIGN=CENTER><A NAME="boy">THE BOY WHO DIDN'T KNOW GOD</A></H2> +<BR> +<P>Handbills blew around the adobe village, announcing that five +hundred cotton-pickers were wanted at once in Arizona. The Reo, +full of Beechams and trailing Carrie, headed south. +<P>The surprisingly large grocery bill had been paid, a few clothes +bought, Daddy's ulcerated tooth pulled, and the Reo's patched +tires replaced with better used ones. The result was that the +Beecham pocketbooks were as flat as pancakes. +<P>"Yet we've worked like horses," Daddy said heavily. "And, worse +than that, we've let Gramma and the kids work as I never thought +Beechams would." +<P>"But we can't blame Farmer Lukes," said Grandpa. "With all the +planting and digging and hauling he's done, he says he hasn't a +cent to show for it, once he's paid for his seed. It's too deep +for me." +<P>Down across Colorado, where the names were Spanish, Daddy said, +because it used to be part of Mexico. Down across New Mexico, +where the air smelled of cedar; where scattered adobe houses had +bright blue doors and strings of scarlet chili peppers fringing +their roofs; where Indians sat under brush shelters by the +highway and held up pottery for sale. Down into Arizona, where +Grandma had to admit that the colors she'd seen on the picture +postcards of it were not too bright. Here were red rocks, pink, +blue-gray, white, yellow, purple; and the morning and evening sun +set their colors afire and made them flower gardens of flame. +Here the Indian women wore flounced skirts and velvet tunics and +silver jewelry. They herded flocks of sheep and goats and lived +in houses like inverted brown bowls. +<P>"We've had worse homes, this year," Grandma said. "I'd never +hold up my head if they knew back home." Along the road with the +Reo ran an endless parade of old cars and trailers. There were +snub-nosed Model T's, packed till they bulged; monstrous Packards +with doors tied shut; yellow roadsters that had been smart ten +years ago, jolting along with mattresses on their tops and young +families jammed into their luggage compartments. Once in a while +they met another goat, like Carrie, who wasn't giving as much +milk as before. +<P>"All this great country," Grandma marveled some more, "and no +room for these folks. Half a million of us, some say, without a +place to go." +<P>Dick said, "The kid in that Oklahoma car said the drought dried +up their farm and the wind blew it away. Nothing will grow in +the ground that's left." +<P>"He's from the Dust Bowl," Grandpa assented. "Thousands of these +folks are from the Dust Bowl." +<P>The parade of old cars limped along for two weeks, growing +thicker as it drew near the part of Arizona where the pickers had +been called for. The Beechams saw more and more signs on fences +and poles: FIVE HUNDRED PICKERS WANTED! +<P>"They don't say how much they pay," Grandma noticed. +<P>"Ninety cents a hundred pounds is usual this year, and a fellow +can make a bare living at that," said Daddy. +<P>Soon the procession turned off the road, the Beechams with it. +The place was swarming with pickers. +<P>"How much are you paying?" Daddy asked. +<P>"Fifty cents a hundred." +<P>"Why, man alive, we'd starve on that pay," Daddy growled, the +corners of his jaws white with anger. +<P>"You don't need to work if you don't want to," the manager barked +at him. "Here's two thousand folks glad to work at fifty cents." +<P>Leaving Jimmie to mind Sally in the car, the Beechams went to +picking at once. Grandma had saved their old cotton sacks, +fortunately, since they cost a dollar apiece. +<P>Rose-Ellen's heart thumped as if she were running a race. +Everyone was picking at top speed, for there were far too many +pickers and they all tried to get more than their share. The +Beechams started at noon. At night, when they weighed in, Grandpa +and Daddy each got forty cents, Grandma twenty-five, Dick twenty, +and Rose-Ellen fifteen. +<P>When he paid them, the foreman said, "No more work here. All +cleaned up." +<P>"Good land," Grandma protested, her voice shaking, "bring us from +Coloraydo for a half day's work?" +<P>"Sorry," said the foreman. "First come, first served." +<P>In a blank quietness, the Beechams went on to hunt a camp. And +here they were fortunate, for they came upon a neat tent city +with a sign declaring it a Government Camp. Tents set on firm +platforms faced inward toward central buildings, and everything +was clean and orderly. They drove in. Yes, they could pitch +their tent there, the man in the office said; there was one +vacant floor. The rent was a dollar a week, but they could work +it out, if they would rather, cleaning up the camp. Grandpa said +they'd better work it out, since it might be hard to find jobs +near by. +<P>Even Rose-Ellen, even Dick and Jimmie, were excited over the +laundry tubs in the central building, and more interested in the +shower baths. Twice a day they washed themselves, and their +clothes were kept fresher than they had been for a long time. +Neighbors came calling, besides; and there were entertainments +every week, with the whole camp taking part. +<P>"Seems like home," said Grandpa. "If only we could find work." +<P>The nurse on duty found that the sore on Dick's hand was +scabies--the itch--picked up in some other camp, and she treated +and bandaged it carefully. +<P>Every day the men went out hunting jobs, taking others with them +to share the cost of gasoline; and every day they came back +discouraged. Even in the fine camp, money leaked out steadily +for food. At last the Beechams gave up hope of finding work. +They set out for California, the fairyland of plenty, as they +thought. +<P>At first California looked like any other state, but soon the +children began naming their discoveries aloud. "Lookit! Oranges +on trees!" "Roses! And those red Christmas flowers growing high +as the garage!" "Palm trees--like feather dusters stuck on +telegraph poles!" +<P>"Little white houses and gardens!" crooned Grandma. +<P>Soon, too, they saw the familiar posters: PICKERS WANTED; and +the Reo followed the signs to the fields. +<P>They were pea-fields, this time, but Grandma, peering at the +pea-pickers' camp, cried, "My land, if this ain't Floridy all +over again!" +<P>"Maybe the owner ain't got the cash to put up decent +chicken-coops for folks to live in," Grandpa sputtered, "but if I +was him I'd dig ditches for a living before I'd put humans into +pigpens like these." +<P>"Let's go a piece farther," Grandma urged. +<P>Grandpa fingered his old wallet. "Five dollars is the least we +can keep against the car breaking down. We've got six-fifty +now." +<P>So for long months they worked in the peas and lived in the +"jungle" camp, pitching their tent at the very edge of its dirt +and smell. +<P>Shacks of scrap tin, shingled with rusty pail covers, stood next +to shacks made of burlap and pasteboard cartons. Ragged tents +huddled behind the shacks, using the same back wall. Mattresses +that looked as if they came from the dump lay on the ground with +tarpaulins stretched above them as roofs, and these were the only +homes of whole families who lived and slept and ate in swarms of +stinging flies. +<P>One of the few pleasant things was the Christian Center not very +far away. Every morning its car chugged up to the jungle and +carried off a load of children. Jimmie and Sally were always in +the load. The back seat was crowded, and a helper sat in front +with the driver and held Sally, while Jimmie sat between. He +liked to sit there, for the driver looked like Her! Only short +instead of tall, and plump instead of thin, and with curly dark +hair, but with the same kind smile. +<P>Here in California the other children were supposed to pick only +outside school hours; but the school was too far from the camp +and there was no bus. So Dick and Rose-Ellen picked peas all day +with their elders. +<P>"The more we earn," Dick said soberly, "the sooner we can get +away from this place." +<P>"The only trouble is," Rose-Ellen answered, "we get such an +appetite that we eat more than we earn, except when we're sick." +<P>The sun blistered Dick's fair skin until he was ill from the +burn; and Rose-Ellen sometimes grew so sick and dizzy with the +heat that she had to crawl into her pea hamper for shade instead +of picking. There was much sickness in this camp, anyway. There +was only one well, and it was not protected from filth. The +flies were everywhere. Grandma boiled all the water, but she +could not keep out the germ-laden flies. The family took turns +lying miserably sick on an automobile-seat bed and wishing for +the end of the pea-picking. +<P>But after the early peas, they must wait for the February peas; +and before they were picked, Jimmie complained that his throat +felt sore. Next day he and Sally both broke out with measles. +<P>Grandma had her hands full, keeping the toddler from running out +into sunshine and rain; but it was Jimmie who really worried her, +he was so sick. And when he had stopped muttering and tossing +with fever, he woke one night with an earache. +<P>"Mercy to us!" Grandma cried distractedly. "We ain't even got +salt enough for a hot salt bag, or carbolic and oil to drop in +his poor blessed ear!" +<P>Indeed that night seemed to all of them like a dark cage, +shutting them away from any help for Jimmie. +<P>Next morning, Miss Pinkerton, the nurse at the Center, came to +see Jimmie. She looked grave as she examined him. "If you +belonged in the county, I could get him into a county hospital," +she said. "But we'll do our best for him here." + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited18.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited18.png" width="600" +ALT= "Illustration: Nursing Jimmie"></a></center> + +<P>Nursing in a tent was a bad dream for patient and nurses. Grandma +kept boiling water to irrigate his ear and sterilize the +utensils, Rose-Ellen told stories, shouting so he could hear. At +night Daddy held him in strong, tired arms and sang funny songs +he had learned in his one year of college. Grandma tempted +Jimmie's appetite with eggs and sugar and vanilla beaten up with +Carrie's milk, and with little broiled hamburgers and fresh +vegetables--food such as the Beechams hadn't had for months. +<P>The rest of them had no such food even now. Carrie was giving +less milk every day, so that there was hardly enough for Sally +and Jimmie. Grandma said she'd lost her appetite, staying in the +tent so close, and she was glad to reduce, anyway. Grandpa said +there was nothing like soup; so the kettle was kept boiling all +the time, with soupbones so bare they looked as if they'd been +polished, and onions and potatoes and beans. That soup didn't +make any of them fat. +<P>But Jimmie grew better, and one shining morning Miss Pinkerton +stopped and said, "Jimmie's well enough to go with me on my daily +round. He needs a change." +<P>After she had carted two or three loads of children to the +Center, she went to visit the sick ones in the camps for miles +around. First they went to another "jungle," one where trachoma +was bad. Here she left Jimmie in the car; but he could watch, for +the children came outdoors to have the blue-stone or argyrol in +their swollen red eyes. The treatment was painful, but without it +the small sufferers might become blind. +<P>The next camp had an epidemic of measles, and in the next, ten +miles away, Miss Pinkerton vaccinated ten children. +<P>By this time, the sun was high, and Jimmie began to think +anxiously of lunch. Miss Pinkerton steered into the orchard +country, where there was no sign of a store. He was relieved +when she nosed the car in under the shade of a magnolia tree and +said, "My clock says half-past eating time. What does yours +say?" +<P>First Miss Pinkerton scrubbed her hands with water and +carbolic-smelling soap, and then she unwrapped a waxed-paper +package and spread napkins. For Jimmie she laid out a meat +sandwich, a jam sandwich, a big orange-colored persimmon, and a +cookie: not a dull store cookie, but a thick homemade one. The +churches of the neighborhood took turns baking them for the +Center. Jimmie ate every crumb. +<P>In the next camp--asparagus--was a Mexican boy with a badly hurt +leg. He had gashed it when he was topping beets, and his people +had come on into cotton and into peas, without knowing how to +take care of the throbbing wound. When Miss Pinkerton first saw +it, she doubted whether leg or boy could be saved. It was still +bad, and the boy's mother stood and cried while Miss Pinkerton +dressed it, there under the strip-of-canvas house. +<P>Miss Pinkerton saw Jimmie staring at that shelter and at the +helpless mother, and she whispered, "Aren't you lucky to have a +Grandma like yours, Jimmie-boy?" +<P>When the leg was all neatly rebandaged, the boy caught at Miss +Pinkerton with a shy hand. "_Gracias_--thank you," he said, "but +why you take so long trouble for us, Lady, when we don't pay you +nothing?" +<P>"I don't think there's anything so well worth taking trouble for +as just boys and girls," Miss Pinkerton said. +<P>The boy frowned thoughtfully. "Other peoples don't think like +that way," he persisted. "For why should you?" +<P>"Well, it's really because of Jesus," Miss Pinkerton answered +slowly. "You've heard about Jesus, haven't you?" +<P>"Not me," the boy said. "Who is he?" +<P>"He was God's Son, and he taught men to love one another. He +taught them about God, too." +<P>"God? I've heard the name, but I ain't never seen that guy +either." +<P>"Like to hear about him?" Miss Pinkerton +asked. +<P>The boy dropped down on the running board with his bandaged leg +stretched out before him. Other children came running. Sitting on +the running board, too, Miss Pinkerton told them about Jesus, how +he used his life to help other people be kinder to each other. +The camp children listened with mouths open, and brushed the +rough hair from their eyes to see the pictures she took from the +car. The boy's mother stood with her arms wrapped in her dirty +apron and listened, too. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited19.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited19.png" height="500" +ALT= "Illustration: Hearing about Jesus"></a></center> + +<P>But it was the boy who sat breathless till the story was done. +Then he scrubbed a ragged sleeve across eyes and nose and spoke +in a choked, angry voice. "I wish I'd been there. I bet them +guys wouldn't-wouldn't got so fresh with--with him. But listen, +Lady!" His dark eyes were fiercely questioning. "Why ain't +nobody told us? It sure seems like we ought to been told +before." +<P>All the way home Jimmie sat silent. As the car stopped, he got +his voice. "Miss Pink'ton, did he mean, honest, he didn't know +about God and Jesus?" +<P>Miss Pinkerton nodded. "He--he didn't know he had a Heavenly +Father." +<P>"And no Gramma either," Jimmie mumbled. "Gee." + +<BR><BR><BR> +<H2 ALIGN=CENTER><A NAME= "hopyards"> THE HOPYARDS</A></H2> +<BR> +<P>Through February, March, and part of April, the Beecham family +picked peas in the Imperial Valley. +<P>"Peas!" Rose-Ellen exploded the word on their last night in the +"jungle" camp. "I don't believe there are enough folks in the +world to cat all the peas we've picked." +<P>"And they aren't done with when they're picked, even," added +Daddy. "Most of them will be canned; and other folks have to +shell and sort them and put them into cans and then cook them and +seal and label the cans." +<P>"What an awful lot of work everything makes," Dick exclaimed. +<P>"It was different in my Gramma's time." Grandma pursed her lips +as she set a white patch in a blue overall knee. "Then each +family grew and canned and made almost everything it used." +<P>"Now everybody's linked up with everybody else," agreed Grandpa, +cobbling a shoe with his little kit. "We use' to get along in +winter with turnips and cabbage and such, and fruit the +womenfolks canned. Of course it's pretty nice to have garden +vegetables and fruit fresh the year round, but. . . ." +<P>Grandma squinted suddenly over her spectacles. "For the land's +sakes! I never thought of it, but it's turned the country upside +down and made a million people into 'rubber tramps'--this having +to have fresh green stuff in winter." +<P>"The owners couldn't handle their crops without the million +workers coming in just when they're ready to harvest," Daddy +continued the tale. . . . +<P>"But they haven't anything for us to do the rest of the time; and +how they do hate the sight of us 'rubber tramps,' the minute +we've finished doing their work for them," Dick ended. +<P>Next morning they started up the coast to pick lettuce. The +country was beautiful. Rounded hills, soft looking and of the +brightest green, ran down toward the sea, with really white sheep +pastured on them. Grandpa said it put him in mind of heaven. +Grandma said it would be heaven-on-earth to live there, if only +you had a decent little house and a garden. The desert places +were as beautiful, abloom with many-colored wildflowers; and +there were fields of artichokes and other vegetables, with +Chinese and Japanese tending them. Those clean green rows +stretched on endlessly. +<P>"They make me feel funny," Rose-Ellen complained, "like seeing +too many folks and too many stars." +<P>"They've got so many vegetables they dump them into the sea, +because if they put them all on the market, the price would go +down. But there's not enough so that those that pick them get +what they need to eat," said Grandpa. "Sometimes too much is not +enough." +<P>The lettuce camp housed part of its workers in a huge old barn. +The Beechams had three stalls and used their tent for curtains. +They cooked out in the barnyard, so it was fortunate that it was +the dry season. From May to August the men and Dick picked, +trimmed, packed lettuce; but during most of that time the +barn-apartment was in quarantine. All the children who had not +had scarlet fever came down with it. +<P>It was even hotter than midsummer Philadelphia, and the air was +sticky, and black with flies besides, and sickening with odor. +Grandma's cushiony pinkness entirely disappeared; she was more +the color of a paper-bag, Rose-Ellen thought. +<P>"But land knows," Grandma said, "what I'd have done if the Lord +hadn't tempered the wind to the shorn lamb. What with no Center +near here and only the public health nurse looking in once in a +while, it was lucky the young-ones didn't have the fever bad." +<P>In August they were all well and peeled. Grandma heated tub after +tub of water and scrubbed them, hair and all, with yellow laundry +soap, and washed their clothes and put the automobile-seat beds +into the hot sun. Then they went on up the coast, steering for +the hopyards northeast of San Francisco. +<P>It seemed too bad to hurry through San Francisco without really +seeing it--that beautiful city crowded steeply by the sea. But +the Reo had had to have a new gas-line and a battery, and little +money was left to show for the long, sizzling months of work. It +was best to stay clear of cities. +<P>The Sacramento Delta region was the strangest the Beechams had +ever seen. The broad river, refreshing after months without real +rivers, was higher than the fields. Beside the river ran the +highway. The Beechams looked down at pear orchards, tule marshes +and ranch houses. Everything was so lushly wet that moss grew +green even on tree trunks and roofs. Like Holland, Daddy said, +it had dikes to keep the water out. +<P>One day they stopped at a fish cannery between highway and river +and asked for work. The Reo was having to have her tires patched +twice a day, and slow leaks were blown up every time the car +stopped for gasoline. The family needed money. +<P>Peering into the cannery, they saw men and women working in a +strong-smelling steam, cleaning and cutting up the fish that +passed them on an endless belt, making it ready for others to +pack in cans. At the feet of some of the women stood boxes with +babies in them; and other babies were slung in cloths on their +mothers' backs. +<P>There was no work for the Beechams, and they climbed into the Reo +once more and stared down on the other side of the road, where +the foreman had told them his packers lived. Even from that +distance it was plain that this was a Chinese village, not +American at all. +<P>"The little babies were so sweet, with their shiny black eyes. +But, my gracious, they don't get any sun or air at all!" +Rose-Ellen squeezed Sally thankfully. Even though the baby was +underweight and had violet shadows under her blue eyes, she +looked healthier than most babies they saw. +<P>The hops were queer and interesting, unlike any other crops +Rose-Ellen had met with. The leaves were deep-lobed, shaped a +little like woodbine, but rough to touch. The fruits resembled +small spruce cones of pale yellow-green tissue paper. The vines +were trained on wires strung along ten-foot poles; they formed +aisles that were heavy with drowsy fragrance. +<P>The picking baskets stood almost as high as Rose-Ellen's +shoulder, and she and Dick were proud of filling one apiece, the +first day they worked. These baskets held sixty pounds +each--more when the weather was not so dry--and sixty pounds +meant ninety cents. School had not started yet, so the children +worked all day. Sometimes Rose-Ellen could not keep from crying, +she was so tired. And when she cried, Grandma's mouth worked +over her store teeth in the way that meant she felt bad. +<P>"But we've got to get in under it, all of us," she scolded, to +keep from crying herself. "We've got to earn what we can. I +never see the beat of it. If we scrabble as hard as we can, we +just only keep from sliding backwards." +<P>Here in the hopyards the Beechams did not get their pay in money. +They were given tickets marked with the amount due them. These +they could use for money at the company store. +<P>"And the prices there are sky-high!" Grandma wrathfully told +Grandpa, waving a pound of coffee before his eyes. "Thirty-five +cents, and not the best grade, mind you! Pink salmon higher than +red ought to be. Bread fifteen cents a loaf! Milk sky-high and +Carrie plumb dry!" +<P>The living quarters were bad, too: shacks, with free straw on the +floor for beds, and mud deep in the dooryards where the campers +emptied water. Over it all hung a sick smell of garbage and a +cloud of flies. +<P>It was no wonder that scores of children and some older people +were sick. The public health nurses, when they came to visit the +sick ones, warned the women to cover food and garbage, but most +of the women laughed at the advice. +<P>"Those doctor always tell us things," the Beechams' Italian +neighbor, Mrs. Serafini, said lightly. She was dandling a sad +baby while the sad baby sucked a disk of salami, heavy with +spices. "And those nurse also are crazy. Back in asparagus I +send-it my kids to the Center, and what you think? They take off +Pepe's clothes! They say it is not healthy that she wear the +swaddlings. I tell Angelina to say to them that my <U>madre</U> before +me was dressed so; but again they strip the poor angel." +<P>"And what did you do then?" Rose-Ellen inquired. +<P>"No more did I send-it my kids to the Center!" Mrs. Serafini +cried dramatically. +<P>"I'd think myself," Grandma observed dryly, "your baby might feel +better in such hot weather if she was dressed more like Sally." +<P>Mrs. Serafini eyed Sally's short crepe dress, worn over a single +flour-sack undergarment. "We have-it our ways, you have-it +yours," was all she would say. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited20.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited20.png" height="500" +ALT= "Illustration: Mrs. Serafini"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P>While the elders talked, Jimmie had been staring at Pepe's next +brother, Pedro. Seven years old, Pedro might have been, but he +could move about only by sitting on the ground and hitching +himself along. He was crippled much worse than Jimmie. +<P>"I wonder, couldn't I show Pedro my scrapbook?" he whispered, +nudging Grandma. +<P>"To be sure; and I always said if you'd think more about others, +you wouldn't be so sorry for yourself," Grandma replied. +<P>Jimmie scowled at the sermon, but he went in and got his books, +and the two boys sat up against the shack wall till dark, Jimmie +telling stories to match the pictures. It was a week before they +could repeat that pleasant hour. Next day both were ill with the +fever that was sweeping the hop camp. +<P>Next time the nurses came they had medicines and suggestions for +Grandma. They liked her, and looked smilingly at the clock and +approvingly at Carrie and at the covered garbage can and at the +food draped with mosquito netting. +<P>"We're going to have to enforce those rules," they told Grandma. +"There wouldn't be half the sickness if everyone minded as you +do." +<P>That evening people from all parts of the camp gathered to +discuss the renewed orders: Italians, Mexicans, Americans, +Indians. +<P>"They says to my mother," a little Indian girl confided to +Rose-Ellen, "'You no cover up your grub, we throw him out!'" She +laughed into her hands as if it were a great joke. +<P>"They do nothing but talk," said Angelina. +<P>Next day the camp had a surprise. Along came the nurses and men +with badges to help them. Into shack after shack they went, +inspecting the food supplies. Rose-Ellen, staying home with sick +Jimmie, watched a nurse trot out of the Serafini shack, carrying +long loaves of bread and loops of sausage, alive with flies, +while Mrs. Serafini shouted wrathfully after her. Into the +garbage pail popped the bread and sausage and back to the shack +trotted the nurse for more. +<P>That night the camp buzzed like a swarm of angry bees, with +threats of what the pickers would do to "them fresh nurses." +<P>Grandpa, resting on his doorsill, said, "You just keep cool. +They got the law on their side; we couldn't do a thing. Besides, +if you'll hold your horses long enough to see this out, you may +find they're doing you a big kindness." +<P>The people went on grumbling, but they covered their food, since +they must do so or lose it. And they had to admit that there was +much less sickness from that time on. +<P>"Foolishness!" Mrs. Serafini persisted, unwilling to give in. +<P>Yet Rose-Ellen, playing with Baby Pepe, discovered that her hot +old swaddlings had been taken off at last. Perhaps Mrs. Serafini +was learning something from the nurses after all. +<P>"If you could show me the rest of my aflabet, Rose-Ellen," Jimmie +begged, "I could teach Pedro." +<P>"But, goodness!" Rose-Ellen exclaimed. "You never would let us +teach you anything, Jimmie. What's happened to you?" +<P>"Well, it's different. I got to keep ahead of Pedro," he +explained, and every night he learned a new lesson. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited21.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited21.png" height="500" +ALT= "Illustration: Rose-Ellen teaching Jimmie"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> +<P>Of all the family, though, Jimmie was the only contented one. +Most of the trouble centered round Dick. He was fourteen now, +and not only his voice, but his way, was changing. Through the +day he picked hops, but when evening came, he was off and away. +<P>"He's like the Irishman's flea," Grandma scolded, "and that gang +he's running with are young scalawags." +<P>"Dick hasn't a lick of sense," Daddy agreed worriedly. "I'll have +to tan him, if he keeps on lighting out every night. That gang +set fire to a hop rack last week. They'll be getting into real +trouble." +<P>"Dick thinks he's a man, now he's earning his share of the +living," Grandpa reminded them. "When I was his age I had chores +to keep me busy, and when you were his age you had gym, and the Y +swimming pool. Here there's nothing for the kids in the evening +except mischief." +<P>"Well, then," Grandma suggested, "why don't we pull up stakes and +leave?" +<P>"They don't like you to leave till harvest's over," Daddy said. +"But it would be great to get into apples in Washington, for +instance. We'll have to get the boss to cash our pay tickets +first." +<P>There came the trouble. The tickets would be cashed when harvest +was done, not before. Grandma sagged when she heard. "I ain't +sick," she said, "but I'm played out. If we could get where it +was cooler and cleaner. . . ." +<P>"Well, we haven't such a lot of pay checks left." Grandpa looked +at her anxiously. "Looks like, with prices at the company store +so high, if we stayed another month we'd owe them instead of +them owing us. We might cash our tickets in groceries and hop +along." +<P>"Hop along is right," agreed Daddy. "Those tires were a poor buy. +We haven't money for tires and gas both." +<P>"We'll go as fast as we can, and maybe we can get there before +the tires bust," said Grandpa, trying to be gay. +<P>Jimmie didn't try. "I liked it here," he mumbled. "I bet Pedro'll +cry if we go away. He can print his first name now, but how's he +ever going to learn 'Serafini'?" + +<BR><BR><BR> +<H2><A NAME= "seth"> SETH THOMAS STRIKES TWELVE</A></H2> +<BR> +<P>At once Daddy and Grandpa set to work on the Reo. It was an +"orphan" car, no longer made, and its parts were hard to replace; +so the men were always watching the junkyards for other old Reos. +They had learned a great deal about the car in these months, and +they soon had it on the road again. +<P>"Give you long enough," said Grandma, "and you'll cobble new +soles on its tires and patch its innards. Looks like it's held +together with hairpins now." +<P>Daddy drove with one ear cocked for trouble, and when anyone +spoke to him he said, "Shh! Sounds like her pistons--or maybe +it's her vacuum. Anyway, as soon as there's a good stopping +place, we'll. . . ." +<P>But it was the tires that gave out first. Bang! Daddy's muscles +bulged as he held the lurching car steady. One of the back tires +was blown to bits. "Now can we eat?" Dick demanded. Daddy shook +his head as he jumped out to jack up the car. "Got to keep +moving. This is our last spare, and there isn't a single tire we +can count on." +<P>Sure enough, they hadn't gone far before the familiar bumping +stopped them. That last spare was flat. +<P>"Now," Daddy said grimly, "you may as well get lunch while I see +whether I can patch this again." +<P>Grandma had been sitting silent, her hand twisted in Sally's +little skirt to keep her from climbing over the edge. "Well," +she said, "you better eat before your hands get any blacker. +Dick, you haul that shoe-box from under the seat. Rose-Ellen, +fetch the crackers from the trailer. Sally, do sit still one +minute." +<P>"Crackers?" asked Rose-Ellen, when she had scrambled back. "I +don't see a one, Gramma." +<P>"Land's sakes, child, use your eyes for once!" Rose-Ellen +rummaged in the part that was partitioned off from Carrie. "I +don't see any groceries, Gramma." +<P>Grandpa came back to help her, and stood staring. "Dick!" he +called. "Did you tie that box on like I said?" +<P>Dick dropped a startled lip. "Gee whiz, Grampa! It was wedged +in so tight I never thought." +<P>"No," said Grandpa, "I reckon you never did think." Silently they +ate the scanty lunch in the shoe-box, and as silently the men cut +"boots" from worn-out tires and cemented them under the holes in +the almost worn-out ones. Silently they jogged on again, the +engine stuttering and Daddy driving as if on egg-shells. +<P>"Talk, won't you?" he asked suddenly. "My goodness, everyone is +so still--it gets on my nerves." +<P>Sally said, "Goin' by-by!" and leaned forward from Grandma's +knees to give her father a strangling hug around the neck. Sally +was two and a half now, and lively enough to keep one person +busy. The pale curls all over her head were enchanting, and so +was her talk. She had learned <U>Buenos dias</U>, good day, from a +Mexican neighbor; <U>bambina bella</U>, pretty baby girl, from the +Serafinis, and <U>Sayonara</U>, good-by, from a Japanese boss in the +peas. +<P>Rose-Ellen pulled the baby back and gave her a kiss in the hollow +at the back of her neck. Then she tried to think of something to +say herself. "Maybe they'll have school and church school at +this next place for a change." +<P>"Aw, you're sissy," Dick grumbled in his new, thick-thin voice. +"If church was so much, why wouldn't it keep folks from being +treated like us? Huh?" +<P>Grandma roused herself from her limp stillness. "Maybe you +didn't take notice," she said sharply, "that usually when folks +was kind, and tried to make those dreadful camps a little +decenter, why, it was Christian folks. There wouldn't hardly +anything else make 'em treat that horrid itch and trachoma and +all the catching diseases--hardly anything but being Christians." +<P>"Aw," Dick jeered. "If the church folks got together and put +their foot down they could clear up the whole business in a +jiffy." +<P>"We always been church folks ourselves," Grandma snapped. "It +isn't so easy to get a hold." +<P>"Hush up, Dick," Grandpa ordered with unusual sharpness. "Can't +you see Gramma's clean done out?" +<P>Grandma looked "done out," but Rose-Ellen, glancing soberly from +one to the other, was sorry for Dick, too-his blue eyes frowned +so unhappily. +<P>Rose-Ellen tried to change the subject. "Apples!" she said. "I +love oranges and ripe figs, and those big persimmons that you +sort of drown in-but apples are homiest. I'd like to get my +teeth into a hard red one and work right around." +<P>That wasn't a good subject, either. "I'm hungry!" Jimmie +bellowed. +<P>And just then another tire blew out. +<P>The old Reo had bumped along on its rim for an hour when Grandma +said in a thin voice, "Next time we come to any likely shade, I +guess we best stop. I'm . . . I'm just beat out." +<P>With an anxious backward glance at her, Daddy stopped the car +under a tree. +<P>"I reckon some of you better go on to that town and get some +bread and maybe weenies and potatoes," Grandma said faintly. +<P>Grandpa and Daddy pulled out the tent and set it up under the +tree, so that Grandma could lie down in its shelter. Then they +bumped away, leaving the children to mind Sally and lead Carrie +along the edge of the highway to graze, while Grandma slept. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited22.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited22.png" height="500" +ALT= "Illustration: Waiting at the roadside"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> +<P>"I never was so hungry in all my days," Jimmie kept saying. +<P>All the children watched that strip of pavement with the hot air +quivering above it, but still the car did not come. +<P>Suddenly Rose-Ellen clutched Dick's arm. "Those two men look +like . . . look like. . . . They <U>are</U> Grampa and Daddy. But what +have they done with the car?" +<P>"Where's the car?" Dick shouted, as the men came up. +<P>"W'ere tar?" Sally echoed, patting her hands against the bulging +gunnysack her father carried. +<P>"Here's the car," Daddy answered, pointing to the sack. +<P>"You . . . sold it, Dad?" Dick demanded. "How much?" +<P>"Five dollars." Daddy's jaw tightened. "They called it junk. +Well, the grub will last a little while. . . ." +<P>"And when Gramma's rested, we can pull the trailer and kind of +hike along toward them apples," Grandpa said stoutly. +<P>But Grandma looked as if she'd never be rested. She lay quite +still except for the breath that blew out her gray lips and drew +them in again, and her closed eyes were hollow. The other six +stood around and gazed at her in terror. Anyone else could be +sick and the earth went on turning, but . . . Grandma! +<P>They were too intent to notice the car stopping beside them until +a man's voice said, "Sorry, folks, but you'll have to move on. +Against regulations, this is." +<P>"We're Americans, ain't we?" Grandpa blustered, shaken with +anxiety and anger. "You can't shove us off the earth." +<P>"Be on your way in twenty-four hours," the man said, pushing back +his coat to show the star on his vest. "I'm sorry, but that's the +way it is." +<P>"Americans?" Daddy said harshly, watching the sheriff go. "We're +folks without a country." +<P>"May as well give the young-ones some of the grub we bought," +Grandpa said patiently. +<P>It was while they were hungrily munching the dry bread and cheese +that another car came upon them and with it another swift change +in their changing life. +<P>Two young women stepped out of the chirpy Ford sedan. Neither of +them looked like Her, nor even Her No. II--yet Jimmie whispered +excitedly to Rose-Ellen, "I bet you a nickel they're Christian +Centerers!" +<P>And they were. Sent by the churches, like the Center workers in +the cranberries, in the peas and in Cissy's onions, they went out +through the country to help the people who needed them. The +sheriff, it seemed, had told them about the Beechams when he met +them a few minutes ago. +<P>First they looked in at Grandma, still asleep with the Seth +Thomas ticking beside her. "Why, I've heard of you from Miss +Pinkerton," said one young woman. "She said you were the kind of +people who deserved a better chance. Maybe I can help you get +one." Then they talked long and earnestly with Grandpa and +Daddy. +<P>Grandpa had flapped his hands at the children and said, +"Skedaddle, young-ones!" So the children could hear nothing of +the talk except that it was all questions and answers that grew +more and more brisk and eager. It ended in hooking the trailer, +which carried the tent and Carrie, to the sedan, into which was +helped a dazed Grandma. The rest of the family was packed in and +off they all rattled to town. +<P>There the "Centerers" left the Beechams in a restaurant, but only +to come back in a few minutes, beaming. +<P>"We got them on long distance, and it's all right!" they told +Grandpa and Daddy. +<P>"What's all right?" asked Grandma, beginning to be more like her +old self once more. +<P>"A real nice place to stay in the grape country," Grandpa said +quickly. "And Miss Joyce here, she's going to take us down there +tomorrow. Down in the San Joaquin Valley." +<P>Next morning Miss Joyce came to the tourist camp where they had +slept and breakfasted. She looked long at Carrie. Was Carrie +worth taking? Did she give much milk? +<P>Jimmie burst into tears. "Well, even if she doesn't, she does +the best she can," he sobbed. "Isn't she one of the family?" +<P>Miss Joyce patted his frail little shoulder and said "Oh, + well . . . !" +<P>So Carrie was fastened into her trailer again, and the sedan +rattled southward all day, through peach orchards and vineyards +where the grapevines were fastened to short stakes so that they +looked like bushes instead of vines. +<P>"It's . . . real sightly country," said Grandma, who felt much +better after her rest. "If only a body could settle down, I +can't figure any place much nicer. Them trees now, with the sun +slanting through.--We ain't stopping here?" +<P>Yes, the sedan, with the trailer swaying after it, was banging +into a tiny village of brown and white cottages, with green +gardens between them and stately eucalyptus trees shading them, +while behind them stretched evenly spaced young fruit trees. +Before the one empty cottage the sedan stopped. The Beechams and +Miss Joyce went in. +<P>There was little furniture in the clean house, but Grandma, +dropping down on a wooden chair, looked around her with bright +eyes. "A sitting room!" she said. "A sitting room! Seems like +we were real folks again, just for a little while. Grampa, you +fetch in the clock and set it on that shelf, will you?" +<P>Grandpa brought in the old Seth Thomas, its hands pointing to +half-past three. "Tick-tock! Tick-tock!" it said, as contentedly +as if it had always lived there. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited23.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited23.png" height="500" +ALT= "Illustration: Bringing in the clock"></a></center> +<BR><BR><BR> +<P>The children went tiptoeing, hobbling, rushing through the clean, +bare rooms, their voices echoing as they called back their news. +"Gramma, there's a real bathroom!" "Gramma, soon's you feel +better you can bake a pie in this gas stove!" "Gramma, here's an +e-_lec_-tric refrigerator! And a washing machine! And a +screened porch with a table to eat at!" +<P>Good California smells of eucalyptus trees and, herbs and flowers +drifted through open doors and windows, together with the +chuckling, scolding, joyous clamor of mocking birds. +<P>"I . . . I wish we didn't have to move on again!" Grandma said. +<P>"It's a pretty good set-up," Grandpa agreed. "Good school over +yonder; and a church--and big enough garden for all our garden +sass and to can some." He was ticking off the points on his +fingers. "And a chicken-house, and then this here cooperative +farm where the folks all work together and share the profits." +<P>Jimmie flung himself down on the floor, sobbing. "I don't want +to go on anywhere," he hiccupped. "I want to stay here." +<P>But Dick was looking from Grandpa to Miss Joyce and then to Daddy +who had come, smiling, in at the back door. "You mean. . . ." +The words choked Dick. "You mean we might settle here? But how? +Who fixed it?" +<P>"The government!" Grandpa said triumphantly. "Mind you, this +place is the government's fixing, to give migrants a chance to +take root again. It's an experiment they are trying, and we are +having the chance to work with them. We can buy this place and +pay for it over a long term of years. We've got the Christian +Center and the government to thank." +<P>"Why, maybe after a while we could even send for the goods we +stored at Mrs. Albi's!" Grandma cried dazedly. +<P>"You mean this is home? Home?" shrieked Rose-Ellen. +<P>"Carrie thinks so," Daddy, said with a smile. "Run along and see +if she doesn't. Run along!" +<P>The children rushed past him into the backyard. There stood +Carrie, still a moth-eaten-looking white goat. But now she had a +new gleam in her amber eyes, and at her feet a tiny, curly kid, +as black as coal. +<P>"Maaaaaaa!" Carrie said proudly. From within the brown and white +cottage Seth Thomas pealed out twelve chimes--eight extra--as if +he, too, were shouting for joy. + +<br><br><br><center><a href="images/fruited24.png"> +<IMG SRC="images/fruited24.png" width="600" +ALT= "Illustration: Carrie and her kid"></a></center> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<hr noshade> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACROSS THE FRUITED PLAIN***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 18681-h.txt or 18681-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/6/8/18681">http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/6/8/18681</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Gutenberg eBook, Across the Fruited Plain, by Florence +Crannell Means, Illustrated by Janet Smalley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Across the Fruited Plain + + +Author: Florence Crannell Means + + + +Release Date: June 25, 2006 [eBook #18681] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACROSS THE FRUITED PLAIN*** + + +E-text prepared by Meredith Minter Dixon <dixonm@pobox.com> + + + +ACROSS THE FRUITED PLAIN + +by + +FLORENCE CRANNELL MEANS + +With Illustrations by Janet Smalley + + + + + + + +[Cover Illustration: Cars] +[Cover Illustration: Hoeing] +[Cover Illustration: Picking] +[Cover Illustration: Weeding] + + + + +New York : Friendship Press, c1940 + + + + +Plans and procedures for using _Across The Fruited Plain_ will be +found in "A Junior Teacher's Guide on the Migrants," by E. Mae +Young. Photographs of migrant homes and migrant Centers will be +found in the picture story book _Jack Of The Bean Fields_, by Nina +Millen. + +This book is dedicated to a whole troop of children "across the +fruited plain": Tomoko, Willie May, Fei-Kin, Nawamana, Candelaria +and Isabell, and to the newest child of all--our little Mary +Margaret. + + +[Illustration: Cissy and Tommy at the Center] + + +CONTENTS + +Foreword +1: The House Of Beecham +2: The Cranberry Bog +3: Shucking Oysters +4: Peekaneeka? +5: Cissy From The Onion Marshes +6: At The Edge Of A Mexican Village +7: The Boy Who Didn't Know God +8: The Hopyards +9: Seth Thomas Strikes Twelve + + + +FOREWORD + +Dear Mary and Bonnie and Jack and the rest of my readers: + +Maybe you've heard about the migrants lately, or have seen +pictures of them in the magazines. But have you thought that many +of them are families much like yours and mine, traveling +uncomfortably in rattly old jalopies while they go from one crop +to another, and living crowded in rickety shacks when they stop +for work? + +There have always been wandering farm laborers because so many +crops need but a few workers part of the year and a great many at +harvest. A two-thousand-acre peach orchard needs only thirty +workers most of the year, and one thousand seven hundred at +picking time. Lately, though, there have been more migrants than +ever. One reason is that while in the past we used to eat fresh +peas, beans, strawberries, and the like only in summer, now we +want fresh fruits and vegetables all year round. To supply our +wants, great quantities of fresh fruit and vegetables must be +raised in the warm climates where they will grow. + +Another reason is that more farm machinery is used now, and one +tractor will do as much work as several families of farm +laborers. So the extra families have taken to migrating or +wandering about the country wherever they hope to find work. + +A further cause of the wandering is the long drought which turned +part of our Southwestern country where there had been good +farming into a dry desert that wouldn't grow crops any more. The +people from the Dust Bowl, as the district is called, had to +migrate, or starve. A great many of them went to the near-by +state Of California, which grows much fruit and vegetables. There +are perhaps two hundred thousand people migrating to California +alone each year. + +Of course there isn't nearly enough work for them all, and there +aren't good living places for those who have work. That means +that the children--like you--don't have the rights of young +American citizens--like you. A great many of them can't go to +school, and are growing up ignorant; and they don't have church, +with all it means to us. They don't have proper homes or food, so +they haven't good health; and because they are not in their home +state or county, they cannot get medical and hospital care. + +You may think we have nothing to do with them when you sometimes +pass a jalopy packed inside with a whole family, from grandma to +baby, and outside with bedding and what-not. + +But we have something to do with them many times a day. Every +time we sit down at our table we have something to do with them. +Our sugar may come from these children's work; our oranges, too, +and our peas, lettuce, melons, berries, cranberries, walnuts . . . ! +Every time we put on a cotton dress, we accept something from +them. + +For years no one thought much of trying to help these wanderers. +No one seemed to notice the unfairness of letting some children +have all the blessings of our country and others have none. By +and by, the counties and states and Federal government tried to +help the migrant families. In a few places the government has set +up comfortable camps and part-time farms such as this story +describes. The church has tried to do something, also. + +About twenty years ago, the Council of Women for Home Missions, +made up of groups of women from the different churches, began to +make plans for helping. They opened some friendly rooms where +they took care of the children who were left alone while their +parents worked. The rooms were often no more than a made-over +barn, but in these "Christian Centers," as they were called, the +children were given cleanliness, food, happiness and the care of +a nurse, and were taught something about a loving Father God. The +children who worked in the fields and the older people were also +helped. From the seven with which a beginning was made, the +number of Centers has grown to nearly sixty. + +There is a great deal more to do in starting more Centers, and in +equipping those we have, and we can do part of it. With our +church school classes, we can give CleanUp and Kindergarten Kits +like Cissy's and Jimmie's and our leaders will tell us other +things we can do, such as collecting bedding and clothing and +toys and money. Best of all, we can give our friendship to these +homeless people. + +For they're just children like you. When you grow up, perhaps you +may help our country become a place where no single child need be +homeless. + +Florence Crannell Means +Denver, Colorado + + + +ACROSS THE FRUITED PLAIN + + +[Illustration: Beechams in Reo] + + +1: THE HOUSE OF BEECHAM + +"Oh, Rose-Ellen!" Grandma called. + +Rose-Ellen slowly put down her library book and skipped into the +kitchen. Grandma peppered the fried potatoes, sliced some +wrinkled tomatoes into nests of wilting lettuce, and wiped her +dripping face with the hem of her clean gingham apron. The +kitchen was even hotter than the half-darkened sitting room where +crippled Jimmie sprawled on the floor listlessly wheeling a toy +automobile, the pale little baby on a quilt beside him. + +Grandma squinted through the door at the old Seth Thomas dock in +the sitting room. "Half after six! Rose-Ellen, you run down to +the shop and tell Grandpa supper's spoiling. Why he's got to hang +round that shop till supper's spoilt when he could fix up all the +shoes he's got in two-three hours, I don't understand. 'Twould be +different if he had anything to do. . . ." + +Rose-Ellen said, "O.K., Gramma!" and ran through the hall. She'd +rather get away before Grandma talked any more about the shop. +Day after day she had heard about it. Grandma talked to her, +though she was only ten, because she and Grandma were the only +women in the family, since last winter when Mother died. + +As Rose-Ellen let the front door slam behind her, she saw Daddy +coming slowly up the street. The way his broad shoulders drooped +and the way he took off his hat and pushed back his thick, dark +hair told her as plainly as words that he hadn't found work that +day. Even though you were a child, you got so tired--so tired--of +the grown folks' worrying about where the next quart of milk +would come from. So Rose-Ellen patted him on the arm as they +passed, saying, "Hi, Daddy, I'm after Grampa!" and hop-skipped on +toward the old cobbler shop. Before Rose-Ellen was born, when +Daddy was a boy, even, Grandpa had had his shop at that corner of +the city street. + +There he was, standing behind the counter in the shadowy shop, +his shoulders drooping like Daddy's. He was a big, kind-looking +old man, his gray hair waving round a bald dome, his eyes bright +blue. He was looking at a newspaper. It was a crumpled old +paper that had been wrapped around someone's shoes; the Beechams +didn't spend pennies for newspapers nowadays. + +The long brushes were quiet from their whirling. On the rack of +finished shoes two pairs awaited their owners; on the other rack +were a few that had evidently just come in. Yet Grandpa looked +as tired as if he had mended a hundred pairs. + +He looked up when the bell tinkled. "Oh, Ellen-girl! Anything +wrong?" + +"Only Gramma says please come to supper. Everything's getting +spoiled." + +Grandpa glanced at his old clock. It said half-past five. "I keep +tinkering with it, but it's seen its best days. Like me." + +He took off his denim apron, rolled down his sleeves, put on his +hat and coat, and locked the door behind them. But not before he +had looked wistfully around the little place, with its smell of +beeswax, leather and dye, where he had worked so long. Its walls +were papered with his favorite calendars: country scenes that +reminded him of his farm boyhood; roly-poly babies in bathtubs; a +pretty girl who looked, he said, like Grandma--a funny idea to +Rose-Ellen. Patched linoleum, doorstep hollowed by thousands of +feet--Grandpa looked at everything as if it were new and bright, +and as if he loved it. + +Starting home, he took Rose-Ellen's small damp hand in his big +damp one. The sun blinded them as they walked westward, and the +heat struck at them fiercely from pavement and wall, as if it +were fighting them. Rose-Ellen was strong and didn't mind. She +held her head straight to make her thick brown curls hit against +her backbone. She knew she was pretty, with her round face and +dark-lashed hazel eyes; and that nobody would think her starchy +short pink dress was old, because Grandma had mended it so +nicely. Grandma had darned the short socks that turned down to +her stout slippers, too; and Grandpa had mended the slippers till +the tops would hardly hold another pair of soles. + +"Hi, Rosie!" called Julie Albi, who lived next door. "C'm'out and +play after supper?" + +"Next door" was the right way to say it. This Philadelphia street +was like two block-long houses, facing each other across a strip +of pavement, each with many pairs of twin front doors, each pair +with two scrubbed stone steps down to the sidewalk, and two bay +windows bulging out upstairs, so that they seemed nearly to touch +the ones across the narrow street. Rose-Ellen and Julie shared +twin doors and steps; and inside only a thin wall separated them. + +At the door Dick overtook Grandpa and Rose-Ellen. Dick was +twelve. Sometimes Rose-Ellen considered him nothing but a +nuisance, and sometimes she was proud of his tallness, his curly +fair hair and bright blue eyes. He dashed in ahead when Grandpa +turned the key, but Grandpa lingered. + +Rose-Ellen said, "Hurry, Grampa, everything's getting cold." But +she understood. He was thinking that their dear old house was no +longer theirs. Something strange had happened to it, called "sold +for taxes," and they were allowed to live in it only this summer. + +Grandma blamed the shop. It had brought in the money to buy the +house in the first place and had kept it up until a few years +ago. It had put Daddy through a year in college. Now it was +failing. Once, it seemed, people bought good shoes and had them +mended many times. Then came days when many people were poor. +They had to buy shoes too cheap to be mended; so when the soles +wore out, the people threw the shoes away and bought more cheap +ones. No longer were Grandpa's shoe racks crowded. No longer was +there money even for taxes. All Grandpa took in was barely enough +for food and shop rent. But what else besides mending shoes and +farming did he know how to do? And who would hire an old man when +jobs were so few? + +Even young Daddy had lost his job as a photograph finisher, and +had brought his wife and three children home to live with Grandpa +and Grandma. There Baby Sally was born; and there, before the +baby was a month old, Mother had died. Soon after, the old house +had been sold for taxes. + +Grandma went about her work with the strong lines of her square +face fixed in sadness. She was forever begging Grandpa to give up +the shop, but Grandpa smashed his fist down on the table and said +it was like giving up his life. . . . And day after day Daddy hunted +work and was cross because he could find none. + +For Dick and Rose-Ellen the summer had not been very different +from usual. Dick blacked boots on Saturdays to earn a few dimes; +Rose-Ellen helped Grandma with the "chores." They had long hours +of play besides. + +But the hot summer had been hard for nine-year-old Jimmie and the +baby. They drooped like flowers in baked ground. Since Jimmie's +infantile paralysis, three years before, he had been able to walk +very little, and school had seemed out of the question. Unable to +read or to run and play, he had a dull time. + +Grandpa and Rose-Ellen went through the clean, shabby hall to the +kitchen, where Grandma was rocking in the old rocker, Sally +whimpering on her lap. + +"Well, for the land's sakes," said Grandma, "did you make up your +mind to come home at last? Mind Baby, Rose-Ellen, while I dish +up." + +After supper, Daddy sat hopelessly studying the "Help Wanted" +column in last Sunday's paper, borrowed from the Albis. Jimmie +looked at the funnies, and Grandma and Rose-Ellen did the dishes. +Julie Albi, who had come to play, sat waiting with heels hooked +over a chair-rung. + +The shabby kitchen was pleasant, with rag rugs on the painted +floor and crisp, worn curtains. The table and chairs were +cream-color, and the table wore an embroidered flour-sack cover. +Grandpa pottered with a loose door-latch until Grandma wrung +the suds from her hands and cried fiercely, "What's the use +doing such things, Grampa? You know good and well we can't +stay on here. Everything's being taken away from us, even our +children. . . ." + + +[Illustration: Grandpa pottering] + + +"Miss Piper come to see you, too?" Grandpa groaned. + +"Taken away? Us?" gasped Rose-Ellen. + +"What's all this?" Daddy demanded. He stood in the doorway +staring at Grandpa and Grandma, and his bright dark eyes looked +almost as unbelieving as they had when Mother slipped away from +him. "You can't mean they want to take away our children?" + +Dick came to the door with half of Jimmie's funnies, his mouth +open; and Jimmie hobbled in, bent almost double, thin hand on +crippled knee. Julie slipped politely away. + +Then the news came out. The woman from the "Family Society" had +called that day and had advised Grandma to put the children into +a Home. When Grandma would not listen, the woman went on to the +shop and talked with Grandpa. + +"Her telling us they wasn't getting enough milk and vegetables!" +Grandma scolded, wiping her eyes with one hand and smoothing back +Rose-Ellen's curls with the other. "Saying Jimmie'd ought to be +where he'd get sunshine without roasting. Good as telling me we +don't know how to raise children, and her without a young-one to +her name." + +Grandpa blew his nose. "Well, it takes money to give the kids the +vittles they ought to have." + +"I won't go away from my own house!" howled Jimmie. + +Rose-Ellen and Dick blinked at each other. It was one thing to +scrap a little and quite another to be entirely apart. And the +baby. . . . + +"Would Miss Piper take . . . Sally?" Rose-Ellen quavered. + +Grandma nodded, lips tight. + +"They shan't!" Rose-Ellen whispered. + +"Nonsense!" Daddy said hoarsely, his hands tightening on Jimmie's +shoulder and Rose-Ellen's. "It's better for families to stick +together, even if they don't get everything they need. Ma, you +think it's better, don't you?" + +He looked anxiously at his parents and they looked pityingly at +him, as if he were a boy again, and before they knew it the whole +family were crying together, Grandpa and Daddy pretending they +had colds. + +Then came a knock at the door, and Grandma mopped her eyes with +her apron and answered. Julie's mother stood there, a comfortable +brown woman with shining black hair and gold earrings, the +youngest Albi enthroned on her arm. Mrs. Albi's eyebrows had +risen to the middle of her forehead, and she patted Grandma's +shoulder plumply. + + +[Illustration: Mrs. Albi] + + +"Now, now, now, now!" she comforted in a big voice. "All will be +well, praise God. Julie, she tell me. All will be well." + +"How on earth can all be well?" Grandma protested. "I don't see +no prospects." + +"This summer as you know," said Mrs. Albi, "we went into Jersey. +For two months we all pick the berries. Enough we earn to put-it +food into our mouth. And the keeds! They go white and skinny, and +they come home, like you see it, brown and fat." Her voice rose +and she waved the baby dramatically. "Not so good the houses, I +would not lie to you. But we make like we have the peekaneeka. By +night the cool fresh air blow on us and by day the warm fresh +air. And vegetables and fruit so cheap, so cheap." + +"But what good will that do us, Mis' Albi?" Grandma asked flatly. +"It's close onto September and berries is out." + +"The cranberry bog!" Mrs. Albi shouted triumphantly. "Only today +the _padrone_, he come to my people asking who will pick the +cranberry. And that Jersey air, it will bring the fat and the red +to these Jimmie's cheeks and to the _bambina_'s!" Mrs. Albi wheezed +as she ran out of breath. + +The Beechams stared at her. Many Italians and Americans went to +the farms to pick berries and beans. The Beechams had never +thought of doing so, since Grandpa had his cobbling and Daddy his +photograph finishing. + +"Well, why shouldn't we?" Daddy fired the question into the +stillness. + +"But school?" asked Rose-Ellen, who liked school. + +Mrs. Albi waved a work-worn palm. "You smart, Rosie. You ketch up +all right." + +"That's okeydoke with me!" Dick exclaimed, yanking his sister's +curls. "You can have your old school." + +Sally woke with a cry like a kitten's mew and Rose-Ellen lugged +her out, balanced on her hip. Mrs. Albi's Michael was the same +age, but he would have made two of Sally. Above Sally's small +white face her pale hair stood up thinly; her big gray eyes and +little pale mouth were solemn. + +"Why," Grandma said doubtfully, "we . . . why, if Grandpa would give +up his shop--just for the cranberry season. We got no place else +to go." + +Grandpa sighed. "Looks like the shop's give me up already. We +could think about it." + +"All together!" whooped Dick. "And not any school!" + +"Now, hold your horses," Grandma cautioned. "Beechams don't run +off nobody knows where, without anyway sleeping over it." + +But though they "slept over" the problem and talked it over as +hard as they could, going to the cranberry bogs was the best +answer they could find for the difficulty. It seemed the only way +for them to stay together. + +"Something will surely turn up in a month or two," Daddy said. +"And without my kids"--he spread his big hands--"I haven't a +thing to show for my thirty-two years." + +"The thing is," Grandpa summed it up, "when we get out of this +house we've got to pay rent, and I'm not making enough for rent +and food, too. No place to live, or else nothing to eat." + +Finally it was decided that they should go. + +Now there was much to do. They set aside a few of their most +precious belongings to be stored, like Grandma's grandma's +painted dower chest, full of treasures, and Grandpa's tall desk +and Rose-Ellen's dearest doll. Next they chose the things they +must use during their stay in Jersey. Finally they called in the +second-hand man around the corner to buy the things that were +left. + +Poor Grandma! She clenched her hands under her patched apron when +the man shoved her beloved furniture around and glanced +contemptuously at the clean old sewing machine that had made them +so many nice clothes. "One dollar for the machine, lady." + +Rose-Ellen tucked her hand into Grandma's as they looked at the +few boxes and pieces of furniture they were leaving behind, +standing on stilts in Mrs. Albi's basement to keep dry. + +"It's so funny," Rose-Ellen stammered; "almost as if that was all +that was left of our home." + +"Funny as a tombstone," said Grandma. Then she went and grabbed +the old Seth Thomas clock and hugged it to her. "This seems the +livingest thing. It goes where I go." + +At last, everything was disposed of, and the padrone's agent's +big truck pulled up to their curb. Two feather beds, a trunk, +pots, pans, dishes and the Beechams were piled into the space +left by some twenty-five other people. The truck roared away, +with the neighbors shouting good-by from steps and windows. + +Grandma kept her eyes straight ahead so as not to see her house +again. Grandpa shifted Jimmie around to make his lame leg more +comfortable, just as they passed the cobbler's shop with "TO LET" +in the window. Grandpa did not lift his eyes. + +"I hope Mrs. Albi will sprinkle them Bronze Beauty chrysanthemums +so they won't all die off," Grandma said in a choked voice. + + + +2: THE CRANBERRY BOG + +The truck rumbled through clustering cities, green country and +white villages. All the children stared in fascination until +Jimmie grew too tired and huddled down against Grandma's knees, +whining because he ached and the sun was hot and the truck was +crowded. + +Grandpa kept pointing out new things-holly trees; muskrat houses +rising in small stick-stacks from the ponds; farms that made +their own rain, with rows and rows of pipes running along six +feet in air, to shower water on the vegetables below. + +It was late afternoon, and dark because of the clouds, when the +truck reached the bogs. These bogs weren't at all what Rose-Ellen +and Dick had expected, but only wet-looking fields of low bushes. +There was no chance to look at them now, for everyone was +hurrying to get settled. + +The _padrone_ led them to a one-room shed built of rough boards +and helped dump their belongings inside. Grandma stood at the +door, hands on hips, and said, "Well, good land of love! If +anybody'd told me I'd live in a shack!" + + +Rose-Ellen danced around her, shrieking joyously, "Peekaneeka, +Gramma! Peekaneeka!" + +Grandma's face creased in an unwilling smile and she said, +"You'll get enough peekaneeka before you're done, or I miss my +guess." + +"Got here just in time, just in time!" chanted Dick and +Rose-Ellen, as a sudden storm pounded the roof with rain and +split the air with thunder and lightning. + +"My land!" cried Grandma. "S'pose this roof will leak on the +baby and Seth Thomas?" + +For an hour the Beechams dashed around setting up campkeeping. +For supper they finished the enormous lunch Grandma had brought. +After that came bedtime. + +Rose-Ellen lay across the foot of Grandpa and Grandma's +goosefeather bed, spread on the floor. After the rain stopped, +fresh air flowed through the light walls. + +Cranberry-picking did not start next morning till ground and +bushes had dried a little. Grandpa and Daddy had time first to +knock together stools and a table, and to find on a dumpheap a +little old stove, which they propped up and mended so Grandma +could cook on it. + +"The land's sakes," Grandma grumbled, "a hobo contraption like +that!" + +While they washed the breakfast dishes and straightened the one +room, the grown-ups discussed whether the children should work in +the bog. + +Their Italian neighbor in the next shack had said, "No can maka +da living unless da keeds dey work, too. Dey can work. My +youngest, he four year and he work good." + +"Likely we could take Baby along, and Jimmie could watch her +while we pick," Grandma said dubiously. "But my fingers are all +thumbs when I've got them children on my mind.--Somebody's at the +door." + +A tall young girl with short yellow curls stood tapping at the +open door. Grandma looked at her approvingly, her blouse was so +crisply white. + +"Good morning," said the girl. "I've come from the Center, where +we have a day nursery for the little folks." She smiled down at +Jimmie and Sally. "Wouldn't you like us to take care of yours +while the grown-ups are working?" She made the older children +feel grown-up by the polite way she looked at them. + +"I've heard of the Centers," Grandma said, leaning on her broom. +"But I never did get much notion what you did with the young-ones +there." + +"Well, all sorts of things," said the girl. "They sing and make +things and learn Bible verses. And in the afternoon they have a +nap-time. It's loads of fun for them." + +"They take their lunch along?" Grandma inquired. + +"Oh, no! A good hot lunch is part of the program." + +"But, then, how much does it cost?" + +"A nickel apiece a day." + +"Come, come, young lady, that don't make sense," Grandpa +objected. "You'd lose money lickety-split." + +The girl laughed. "We aren't doing it for money. We get money +and supplies from groups of women in all the different churches. +The owner of the bog helps, too. But we'll have to hurry, or +your row boss will be tooting his whistle." Her eyes were +admiring children and shack as she talked. Though not like +Grandma's lost house, this camp was already clean and orderly. + + +[Illustration: On the way to the Center] + + +So the three went to the Center, the girl carrying Sally, and +Jimmie hobbling along in sulky silence. + +Jimmie had stayed so much at home that he didn't know how to +behave with strangers. Because he didn't want anyone to guess +that he was bashful, he frowned fiercely. Because he didn't want +anyone to think him "sissy," he had his wavy hair clipped till his +head looked like a golf ball. He was a queer, unhappy boy. + +He was unhappier when they reached the big, bright, shabby house +that was the Center. Could it be safe to let Sally mingle with +the ragged, dirty children who were flocking in, he wondered? + +His anxiety soon vanished. The babies were bathed and the bigger +children sent to rows of wash-basins. In a jiffy, clean babies +lay taking their bottles in clean baskets and clean children were +dressed in clean play-suits. + +Besides the yellow-haired girl (her name was Miss Abbott, but +Jimmie never called her anything but "Her" and "She"), there were +two girls and an older woman, all busy. When clean-up time was +past and the babies asleep, the older ones had a worship service +with songs and stories. + +After worship came play. Outdoors were sandpiles and swings. +Indoors were books and games. Jimmie longed for storybooks and +reading class; but how could he tell Her that he was nine years +old and couldn't read? He huddled in a corner, scowling, and +turned pages as if he were reading. + +Meanwhile the rest of the family had answered the whistle of the +row boss, and were being introduced to the cranberries. Dick and +Rose-Ellen were excited and happy, for it was the first fruit +they had ever picked. Though the wet bushes gave them shower +baths, the sun soon dried them. Since the ground was deep in +mud, they had gone barefoot, on the advice of Pauline Isabel, the +colored girl in a neighboring shack. The cool mud squshed up +between their toes and plastered their legs pleasantly. + +The grown folks had been given wooden hands for picking--scoops +with finger-like cleats! At first they were awkward at stripping +the branches, but soon the berries began to drop briskly into the +scoops. The children, who could get at the lower branches more +easily, picked by hand; and before noon all the Beecham fingers +were sore from the prickly stems and leaves. In the afternoon +they had less trouble, for an Italian family near by showed them +how to wrap their fingers with adhesive tape. + +But picking wasn't play. The Beechams trudged back to their +shack that night, sunburned and dirty and too stiff to straighten +their backs, longing for nothing but to drop down on their beds. + +"Good land of love!" Grandma scolded. "Lie down all dirty on my +clean beds? I hope I ain't raised me up a mess of pigs. You +young-ones, you fetch a pail of water from the pump, and we'll +see how clean we can get. My land, what wouldn't I give for a +bathtub and a sink! And a gas stove!" + +"Peekaneeka, Gramma!" Dick reminded her, squeezing her. + +"Picnic my foot! I'm too old for such goings-on." + + +[Illustration: Lying down on the beds] + + +Though Grandma's rheumatism had doubled her up like a jack-knife, +she scrubbed herself with energy and soon had potatoes boiling, +pork sizzling, and tea brewing on the rickety stove. Daddy +brought Jimmie and Sally from the Center. After supper they felt +a little better. + +Jimmie wouldn't tell about the Center, but from inside his blouse +he hauled a red oilcloth bag, and emptied it out on the table. +There were scissors, crayons, paste, pencil, and squares of +colored paper. And there was a note which Jimmie smoothed out +and handed to Daddy. + +"From Jimmie Brown," he read, "Bethel Church, Cleveland." + +"We-we were s'posed to write thank-you letters!" Jimmie burst out +miserably. "She sat us all down to a table and gave us pens and +paper." + +"And what did you do, Son?" Daddy asked, smoothing the bristly +little head. "I said could I take mine home," Jimmie mumbled, +fishing a tight-folded sheet of paper from his pocket. + +"I'll write it for you," Rose-Ellen offered. She sat down and +began the letter, with Jimmie telling her what he wanted to say. + +"But the real honest thing to do will be to tell her you didn't +write it yourself," Grandma said pityingly. + +"They have stories and games at night," Jimmie said, changing the +subject. "She said to bring Dick and Rose-Ellen." + +Dick and Rose-Ellen were too tired for stories and games that +night. They tumbled into bed as soon as supper was done, and had +to be dragged awake for breakfast. Not till a week's picking had +hardened their muscles did they go to the Center. + +When they did go--Jimmie limping along with his clipped head +tucked sulkily between his shoulders as if he were not really +proud to take them-they found the place alive with fun. Besides +the three girls and the woman, there was a young man from a +near-by university. He was organizing ping-pong games and indoor +baseball for the boys and girls and even volleyball for some +grown men who had come. Everyone was busy and everyone happy. + +"It's slick here, some ways," Dick said that night. + +"For a few weeks," Daddy agreed. + +"If it wasn't for the misery in my back, it wouldn't be bad," +Grandma murmured. "But an old body'd rather settle down in her +own place. Who'd ever've thought I'd leave my solid oak dining +set after I was sixty! But I'd like the country fine if we had a +real house to live in." + +"I'm learning to do spatter prints--for Christmas," said +Rose-Ellen, brushing her hair before going to bed. + +"Jimmie, why on earth don't you take this chance to learn +reading?" Daddy coaxed. + +"Daddy, you won't tell Her I can't read?" Jimmie begged. + +Yet, as October passed, something happened to change Jimmie's +mind. + +As October passed, too, the Beechams grew skillful at picking. +They couldn't earn much, for it took a lot of cranberries to fill +a peck measure-two gallons-especially this year, when the berries +were small; and the pickers got only fifteen cents a peck. The +bogs had to be flooded every night to keep the fruit from +freezing; so every morning the mud was icy and so were the +shower-baths from the wet bushes. But except for Grandma, they +didn't find it hard work now. + +"It's sure bad on the rheumatiz," said Grandma one morning, as +she bent stiffly to wash clothes in the tub that had been filled +and heated with such effort. "If we was home, we'd be lighting +little kindling fires in the furnace night and morning. And hot +water just by lighting the gas! Land, I never knew my own luck." + +"But I like it here!" Jimmie burst out eagerly. "Do you know +something? I'm going to learn to read! I colored my pictures +the neatest of anyone in the class, and She put them all on the +wall. So then I didn't mind telling her how I never learned to +read and write and how Rose-Ellen wrote my letter to Jimmie Brown +in Cleveland." + +He beamed so proudly that Grandpa, wringing a sheet for Grandma, +looked sorrowfully at him over his glasses. "It's a pity you +didn't tell her sooner, young-one," he said. "The cranberries +will be over in a few more days, and we'll be going back." + +"Back to Philadelphia?" Rose-Ellen demanded. "Where? Not to a +Home? I won't! I'd rather go on and shuck oysters like Pauline +Isabel and her folks. I'd rather go on where they're cutting +marsh hay. I'd rather--" + +"Well, now," Grandpa's words were slow, "what about it, kids? +What about it, Grandma? Do we go back to the city and-and part +company till times are better? Or go on into oysters together?" + +The tears stole down Jimmie's cheeks, but he didn't say anything. +Daddy didn't say anything, either. He picked Sally up and hugged +her so hard that she grunted and then put her tiny hands on his +cheeks and peered into his eyes, chirping at him like a little +bird. + +"I calculate we'll go on into oysters," said Grandpa. + + + + +3: SHUCKING OYSTERS + +This picnic way of living had one advantage; it made moving easy. +One day the Beechams were picking; the next day they had joined +with two other families and hired a truck to take them and their +belongings to Oystershell, on the inlet of the bay near by. + +Pauline Isabel's family were going to a Negro oystershucking +village almost in sight of Oystershell. "It's sure nice there!" +Pauline assured them happily. "I belong to a girls' club that +meets every day after school; in the Meth'dis' church. We got a +sure good school, too, good as any white school, up the road a +piece." + +The Beechams said good-by to Pauline's family, who had become +their friends. Then they said good-by to Miss Abbott. That was +hard for Jimmie. He butted his shaven little head against Her +and then limped away as fast as he could. + +The ride to Oystershell was exciting. Autumn had changed the +look of the land. "God has taken all the red and yellow he's +got, and just splashed it on in gobs," said Rose-Ellen as they +traveled toward the seashore. + +"What I like," Dick broke in, "is to see the men getting in the +salt hay with their horses on sleds." + +The marshes were too soft to hold up anything so small as a hoof, +so when farmers used horses there, they fastened broad wooden +shoes on the horses' feet. Nowadays, though, horses were giving +place to tractors. + +The air had an increasingly queer smell, like iodized salt in +boiling potatoes. The Beechams were nearing the salt-water +inlets of the bay, where the tides rose and fell like the +ocean-of which the inlets were part. + +The tide was high when they drove down from Phillipsville to the +settlement of Oystershell. The rows of wooden houses, the +oyster-sheds and the company store seemed to be wading on stilts, +and most people wore rubber boots. + +Grandma said, "If the bog was bad for my rheumatiz, what's this +going to be?" + +A man showed the Beechams a vacant house in the long rows. "Not +much to look at," he acknowledged, "but the rent ain't much, +either. The roofs are tight and a few have running water, case +you want it bad enough to pay extra." + +"To think a rusty pipe and one faucet in my kitchen would ever be +a luxury!" Grandma muttered. "But, my land, even the humpy +wall-paper looks good now." + +It was gay, clean paper, though pasted directly on the boards. +The house had a kitchen-dining-sitting room and one bedroom, with +walls so thin they let through every word of the next-door radio. + +"That's going to be a peekaneeka, sure," Grandma said grimly. + +Children were not allowed to work in the oysters, but Grandma was +going to try. The children could tell she was nervous about it, +by the way her foot jerked up and down when she gave Sally her +bottle that night; but she said she expected she wasn't too dumb +to do what other folks could. + +The children were still asleep when the grown-ups went to work in +the six o'clock darkness of that November Saturday. When they +woke, mush simmered on the cookstove and a bottle of milk stood +on the table. It took time to feed Sally and wash dishes and +make beds; and then Dick and Rose-Ellen ran over to the nearest +long oyster-house and peeked through a hole in the wall. + +Down each side, raised above the fishy wet floor, ran a row of +booths, each with a desk and step, made of rough boards. On each +step stood a man or woman, in boots and heavy clothes, facing the +desk. Only instead of pen and paper, these people had buckets, +oysters, knives. As fast as they could, they were opening the +big, horny oyster shells and emptying the oysters into the +buckets. + +Next time, Dick stayed with Sally, and Rose-Ellen and Jimmie +peeked. They were startled when a big hand dropped on each of +their heads. + +"You kids skedaddle," ordered a big man. "If you want to see +things, come back at four." + +By four o'clock the grown folks were home, tired and smelling of +fish; Dick and Rose-Ellen were prancing on tiptoe to go, and +even Jimmie was ready. + +"This is what he is like," said Rose-Ellen, "the man who said +we could." She stuck in her chin and threw out her chest and +tried to stride. + +"That's the Big Boss, all right," Daddy said, laughing. "Guess +it's O.K. But mind your _p_'s and _q_'s." + +"And stick together. Specially in a strange place." Grandma +wearily picked up the baby. + +The Big Boss saw them as soon as they tiptoed into the +oyster-house. "Ez," he called, "here's some nice kids. Show 'em +around, will you?" + +Ez was opening clams with a penknife, and spilling them into his +mouth. "Want some?" he asked. + +The children shook their heads vigorously. + +He closed his knife and dropped it into his pocket. + +"Well, now first you want to see the dredges come in from the +bay." He took them through the open front of the shed to the +docks outside. The boats had gone out at three o'clock in the +morning, he said, in the deep dark. They were coming in now +heavily, loaded high with horny oysters, and Ez pointed out the +rake-set iron nets with which the shellfish were dragged from +their beds. "Got 'em out of bed good and early!" + +"I'd hate to have to eat 'em all," Jimmie said suddenly in his +husky little voice. + +Everyone laughed, for the big rough shells were traveling into +the oyster-house by thousands, on moving belts. Some shells +looked as if they were carrying sponges in their mouths, but Ez +said it was a kind of moss that grew there. Already the pile of +unopened oysters in the shed was higher than a man. The shuckers +needed a million to work on next day, Ez said. + + +[Illustration: Watching the dredges] + + +When the children had watched awhile, and the boatmen had asked +their names, and how old they were and where they came from, Ez +took them inside the shed to show them the handling of the newly +shucked oysters. First the oysters were dumped into something +that looked like Mrs. Albi's electric washer, and washed and +washed. Then they were emptied into a flume, a narrow trough +along which they were swept into bright cans that held almost a +gallon each. The cans were stored in ice-packed barrels, and +early next morning would go out in trains and trucks to all parts +of the country. + +"How many pearls have they found in all these oysters?" Dick +demanded in a businesslike voice. "Not any!" Ez said. + +"Why can't you eat oysters in months that don't have R in them?" +asked Rose-Ellen. + +"You could, if there wasn't a law against selling them. It's +only a notion, like not turning your dress if you put it on wrong +side out. Summer's when oysters lay eggs. You don't stop eating +hens because they lay eggs, do you? But now scram, kids. I got +work to do." + +They left, skipping past the mountains of empty shells outside. + +Next day the children went to church school alone. The grown +folks were too tired. And on Monday Dick and Rose-Ellen went up +the road to the school in the little village. + +It was strange to be in school again, and with new schoolmates +and teachers and even new books, since this was a different +state. Rose-Ellen's grade, the fifth, had got farther in long +division than her class at home, and she couldn't understand what +they were doing. Dick had trouble, too, for the seventh grade +was well started on United States history, and he couldn't catch +up. But that was not the worst of it. The two children could +not seem to fit in with their schoolmates. The village girls +gathered in groups by themselves and acted as if the oyster-shuckers' +children were not there at all; and the boys did not give Dick even +a chance to show what a good pitcher he was. Both Rose-Ellen +and Dick had been leaders in the city school, and now they felt +so lonesome that Rose-Ellen often cried when she got home. + +It was too long a walk for Jimmie, who begged not to go anyway. +Besides, he was needed at home to mind Sally. + +Of course the grown folks wanted to earn all they could. The pay +was thirty cents a gallon; and just as it took a lot of +cranberries to make a peck, it took a lot of these middle-sized +oysters to make a gallon. To keep the oysters fresh, the sheds +were left so cold that the workers must often dip their numb +hands into pails of hot water. All this was hard on Grandma's +rheumatism; but painful as the work was, she did not give it up +until something happened that forced her to. + +It was late November, and the fire in the shack must be kept +going all day to make the rooms warm enough for Sally. She was +creeping now, and during the long hours when the grown folks were +working and the older children at school, she had to stay in a +chair with a gate across the front which her father had fixed out +of an old kitchen armchair. Grandma cushioned it with rags, but +it grew hard and tiresome, and sometimes Jimmie could not keep +her contented there. + +One day Sally cried until he wriggled her out of her nest and +spread a quilt for her in a corner of the room as Grandma did. +There he sat, fencing her in with his legs while he drew pictures +of oyster-houses. He was so busy drawing roofs that he had +forgot all about Sally until he was startled by her scream. He +jerked around in terror. Sally had clambered over the fence of +his legs and crept under the stove after her ball. Perhaps a +spark had snapped through the half-open slide in the stove door; +however it had happened, the flames were running up her little +cotton dress. + +Poor Baby Sally! Jimmie had never felt so helpless. Hardly +knowing why he did it, he dragged the wool quilt off Grandma's +bed and scooted across the floor in a flash. While Sally +screamed with fright, he wrapped the thick folds tightly around +her and hugged her close. + + +[Illustration: Jimmie saving Sally] + + +When the grown folks came from work, just ahead of the school +children, they found Jimmie and Sally white and shaky but safe. +The woolen quilt had smothered out the flames before Sally was +hurt at all; and Jimmie had only a pair of blistered hands. + +"If I hadn't put a wool petticoat on her, and wool stockings," +Grandma kept saying, while she sat and rocked the whimpering +baby. "And if our Jimmie hadn't been so smart as to think of the +bedclothes. . . . + +"Not all children have been so lucky," Daddy said in a +shaky voice, crouching beside Grandma and touching Sally's downy +head. + +"But I hadn't ought to have left her with poor Jimmie," +Grandma mourned. "If only they had a Center, like at the bogs. I +don't believe I can bear it to stay here any longer after this. +Maybe we best go back to the city and put them in a Home." + +Daddy objected. "We'll not leave the kids alone again, of +course; but we're making a fair living and the Boss says there'll +be work through April, and then Pa and I can go out and plant +seed oysters if we want." + +"Where's the good of a fair living if it's the death of you?" +Grandma's tone was tart. "No, sir, I ain't going to stay, tied +in bowknots with rheumatiz, and these poor young-ones. . . ." + +Grandpa made a last effort, though he knew it was of little use +when Grandma was set. "I bet we could go to work on one of these +truck farms, come summer." + +Grandma only rocked her straight chair, jerking one foot up and +down. + +"One of these _padrones_," Daddy said slowly, "is trying to get +families to work in Florida. In winter fruits." + +Grandma brightened. "Floridy might do us a sight of good, and I +always did hanker after palm trees. But how could we get there?" + +"They send you down in a truck," said Daddy. "Charge you so much +a head and feed and lodge you into the bargain. I figure we've +got just about enough to make it." + +South into summer! + +"That really would be a peekaneeka!" crowed Rose-Ellen. + + + +4: PEEKANEEKA? + +That trip to Florida surprised the Beechams, but not happily. + +First, the driver shook his head at featherbeds, dishes, trunk. +"I take three grown folks, three kids, one baby, twenty-eight +dollars," he growled. "No furniture." + +Argument did no good. Hastily the family sorted out their most +needed clothing and made it into small bundles. The driver +scowled at even those. + +"My featherbeds!" cried Grandma, weeping for once. + +Hurriedly she sold the beds for a dollar to her next-door +neighbor. The clock she would not leave and it took turns with +the baby sitting on grown-up laps. + +At each stop the springless truck seats were crowded tighter with +people, till there was hardly room for the passengers' feet. The +crowding did help warm the unheated truck; but Grandma's face +grew gray with pain as cold and cramp made her "rheumatiz tune +up." + +And there was no place at all to take care of a baby. + +When they had traveled two hours they wondered how they could +bear thirteen hundred miles, cold, aching, wedged motionless. +All they could look forward to was lunchtime, when they could +stretch themselves and ease their gnawing stomachs; but the sun +climbed high and the truck still banged along without stopping. + +The children could hear a man in front angrily asking the driver, +"When we get-it--the dinner?" + +The driver faced ahead as if he were deaf. + +"When we get-it--the grub?" roared the man, pounding the driver's +shoulder. + +"If we stop once an hour, we don't get there in time for your +jobs," the driver growled, and drove on. + +Not till dark did they stop to eat. Grandpa, clambering down +stiffly, had to lift Grandma and Sally out. Daddy took Jimmie, +sobbing with weariness. Dick and Rose-Ellen tumbled out, feet +asleep and bodies aching. When they stumbled into the roadside +hamburger stand, the lights blurred before their eyes, and the +hot steamy air with its cooking smells made Rose-Ellen so dizzy +that she could hardly eat the hamburger and potato chips and +coffee slammed down before her on the sloppy counter. Jimmie +went to sleep with his head in his plate and had to be wakened to +finish. + +Still, the food did help them, and when they were wedged into +their seats again, they could begin to look forward to the +night's rest. Grandpa said likely they wouldn't drive much after +ten, and Grandma said, "Land of love, ten? Does he think a +body's made of leather?" + +On and on they went, toppling sleepily against each other, aching +so hard that the ache wakened them, hearing dimly the same angry +man arguing with the driver. "When we stop to sleep, hah? I ask +you, when we stop to sleep?" + +They didn't stop at all. + +Rose-Ellen was forever wishing she could wake up enough to pull +up the extra quilt which always used to be neatly rolled at the +foot of her bed. Once, through uneasy dreams, she felt Daddy +shaking her gently, and while she tried to pull away and back +into sleep, Grandpa's determinedly cheerful voice said, "Always +did want to see Washington, D. C., and here we are. Look quick +and you'll see the United States Capitol." + +From the rumbling truck, Rose-Ellen and Dick focused +sleep-blurred eyes with a mighty effort and saw the great dome +and spreading wings, flooded with light. + +"Puts me in mind of a mother eagle brooding her young," Grandpa +muttered. + +"Land of love, enough sight of them eaglets is out from under her +wings, finding slim pickin's," Grandma snapped. + +"Looks like white wax candles." Rose-Ellen yawned widely and went +to sleep again. + +When gray morning dawned, she did not know which was worse-the +sleepiness or the hunger. The angry man demanded over and over, +"When we stop for breakfast?" + +They didn't stop. + +Grandma had canned milk and boiled water along, and with all the +Beechams working together, they got the baby's bottles filled. +Poor Sally couldn't understand the cold milk, but she was so +hungry she finally drank it, staring reproachfully at her bottle. + +Not till he had engine trouble did the driver halt. Fortunately +the garage where he stopped had candy and pop for sale. Grandpa +had his family choose each a chocolate bar and a bottle. He +wanted to get more, for fear they would not stop for the noon +meal, but in five minutes all the supplies were sold. + +Rose-Ellen tried to make her chocolate almond bar last; she +chewed every bite till it slid down her throat; and then, alas, +she was so sick that it didn't stay down. + +Grandpa and Daddy talked with others about making the driver give +them rest and food; but there was nothing they could do: the +padrone, back in Philadelphia, already had their money for the +trip. + +The children walked about while they waited. It was not cold, +but the dampness chilled them. It was queer country, the highway +running between swamps of black water, where gray trees stood +veiled in gray moss. Gray cabins sat every-which-way in the +clearing, heavy shutters swinging at their glassless windows. + +A pale, thin girl talked to Rose-Ellen. She was Polish, and her +name was Rose, too. When Rose-Ellen asked her if she had ever +heard of such a dreadful trip, she shrugged and said she was used +to going without sleep. + +Last year, in asparagus, she and her parents and two brothers +cared for twenty-two acres, and when it grew hot "dat grass, +oooop she go and we work all night for git ahead of her." +Asparagus, even Rose-Ellen knew could grow past using in a day. + +The Polish Rose said that they got up at four in the morning and +were in the fields at half-past; and sometimes worked till near +midnight. + +"Mornings," she said, "I think I die, so bad I want the sleep. +And then the boss, he no give us half our wages. Now most a year +it has been." + +Curiously Rose-Ellen asked her about school. + +"No money, no time, no clo'es," said Polish Rose. + +The truck-driver shouted to his people to pile in and the truck +went on. By noon the Beechams were seeing their first palm trees +and winter flowers. Grandpa and Daddy tried to tell the children +about the things they were passing, but the children were too +sleepy and sickish to care. Grandma's mouth was a thin line of +pain and the baby wailed until people looked around crossly, +though there were other crying babies. + +The truck reached its destination late on the second evening and +piled out its passengers at a grapefruit camp. Rose-Ellen had +been picturing a village of huts like those at the bogs, or +bright-papered shacks like the oystershuckers'. Though the +featherbeds were gone, it would be delicious to lie on the floor, +uncrowded, and sheltered from the night. + +But no such shelter awaited them. Instead, they were pointed to +a sort of hobo camp with lights glimmering through torn canvas. +A heavy odor scented the darkness. + +Grandpa said, "They can't expect decent folks . . . !" + +Grandma said, "We've got to stretch out somewheres. Even under a +tree. This baby. . . ." + +Sally was crying a miserable little cry, and an Italian woman who +reminded Rose-Ellen of Mrs. Albi peered out of a patched tent and +said, "Iss a _bambina_! Oooh, the little so-white _bambina_! Look +you here, quick! The people next door have leave these tent. You +move in before some other bodies." + +"These tent" was a top and three walls of dirty canvas. "If +you'd told me a Beecham would lay down in a filthy place like +this. . . ." Grandma declared. Rose-Ellen did not hear the end of +the sentence. She was asleep on the earth floor. + +Next day when the men and Dick were hired to pick grapefruit, +Grandpa asked the boss about better living quarters. + +"He said there wasn't any," Grandpa reported later. + +"My land of love, you mean we've got to stay here?" Grandma +groaned. + +Grimly she set to work. The Italian neighbor had brought her a +pot of stew and some coffee, but now Grandma and Rose-Ellen must +go to the store for provisions. They brushed their clothes, all +wrinkles from the long trip, and demanding the iron Grandma did +not have. They combed their hair and washed. They set out, +leaving the baby with Jimmie. + +"Shall I send these?" the grocer asked respectfully, when they +had given their order. "You're new here, aren't you?" Mussed as +they were, the Beechams still looked respectable. + +Grandma flushed. She hated to have anyone see that flapping +canvas room, but the heap of supplies was heavy. "Please. We're +working in the grapefruit," she said. + +The grocer's face lost its smile. "Oh, we don't deliver to the +camps," he snapped. "And it's strictly cash." + +Grandma handed him the coins, and she and Rose-Ellen silently +piled their purchases into the tub they had bought. They had to +set it down many times on their way back. + + +[Illustration: Bringing back the groceries] + + +Next Grandma made a twig broom and they swept the dirty ground. +Mrs. Rugieri, next door, showed Grandma her beds, made of +automobile seats put together on the ground. That night the +Beecham men went to the nearest dumps and found enough seats to +make a bed for Grandpa and Grandma and the baby. Fortunately it +was not cold; coats were covering enough. + +On the dump Daddy found also an old tub, from which he made a +stove, cutting holes in it, turning it upside down, and fastening +in a stovepipe. + +"I don't feel to blame folks so much as I used to for being +dirty," Grandma admitted, when they had done their best to make +the shelter a home. "But all the same, I want for you young-ones +to keep away from them. I saw a baby that looked as if it had +measles." + +"If only there was a Center," Rose-Ellen complained, "or if they +even had room for us in school. I feel as if I'd scream, staying +in this horrid tent so much." + +"I didn't know," said Daddy, "that there was a place in our whole +country where you couldn't live decent and send your kids to +school if you wanted to." + +It was pleasant in the grapefruit grove, where the rich green +trees made good-smelling aisles of clean earth, and the men +picked the pale round fruit ever so carefully, clipping it gently +so as not to bruise the skin and cause decay. It hardly seemed +to belong to the same world as the ill-smelling pickers' camp of +rags, boards, and tin. + +Dick lost his job after the first few days. He had been hired +because he was so tall and strong; but the foreman said he was +bruising too much fruit. At first Grandma said she was glad he +was fired, for he had been making himself sick eating fruit. But +she was soon sorry that he had nothing to do. + +"And them young rapscallions you run with teach you words and +ways I never thought to see in a Beecham," Grandma scolded. + +But if camp was hard for them all, it was hardest for Grandma and +Jimmie and Sally, who seemed always ailing. + +"We've got to grit our teeth and hang on," said Grandma. + +Then came the Big Storm. + +All day the air had been heavy, still; weatherwise pickers +watched the white sky anxiously. In the middle of the night, +Rose-Ellen woke to the shriek of wind and the crack of canvas. +Then, with a splintering crash, the tent-poles collapsed and she +was buried under a mass of wet canvas. + +At first she could hear no voice through the howling wind and +battering rain. Then Sally's wail sounded, and Grandma's call: +"Rose-Ellen! Jimmie! Dick! You all right?" + +Until dawn the Beechams could only huddle together in the small +refuge Daddy contrived against the dripping, pricking blackness. +When day came, the rain still fell and the wind still blew; but +fitfully, as if they, too, were tired out. The family scurried +around putting up the tent and building a fire and drying things +out before the men must go to the grove. Rose-Ellen and Dick and +even Jimmie felt less dismal when they steamed before the washtub +stove and ate something hot. + + +[Illustration: Putting up the tent] + + +Grandma and Sally felt less relief. Sally's cheeks were hot and +red, and she turned her head from side to side, crying and +coughing. Grandma was saying, "My land, my land, I'd give five +years of my life to be in my own house with this sick little +mite!" when a smooth gray head thrust aside the tent flap and a +neighborly voice said, "Oh, mercy me!" + +Then without waiting for invitation, a crisp gingham dress +followed the gray head in. "Is she bad sick? Have you-all had +the doctor? I'm Mrs. King, from town." + +"And you really think we're humans?" Grandma demanded, her cheeks +as red as Sally's. "If you do, you're the first since we struck +this place. You'll have to excuse me," she apologized, as the +children stared at her with astonished eyes. "Seems like we've +lost our manners along with everything else." + +"I don't wonder. I don't wonder a bit. Our preacher telephoned +this morning that there was a heap of suffering here in the camp, +or like enough we'd not have ought of it, and us church folks, +too. Now I got my Ford out on the road; you tote the baby and +we'll take her to my doctor." + +Mrs. King's doctor gave Sally medicine and told Grandma about +feeding her orange juice and chopped vegetables and eggs as well +as milk. Grandma sighed as she wondered how she would get these +good things for the sick baby. However, Sally did seem to be +somewhat better when they returned. Mrs. King and Grandma were +talking over how to get supplies when the men came back to the +tent. + +"Laid off," said Grandpa wearily, not seeing the caller. "Storm's +wrecked the crop so bad he's laying off the newest hired. Says +it's like to ruin him." + +Grandma sat still with the baby whining on her lap. "My land of +love," she said, "what will we do now?" + + + + + +5 CISSY FROM THE ONION MARSHES + +"Well, I should think you'd be glad to get clear of this," cried +their visitor. "Florida camps ain't all so bad." + +"We've no money to move, ma'am," Grandpa said bluntly. "It took +near all we'd earned to get here, and now no job!" + +"This Italian next door says they're advertising for, cotton +pickers in Texas," Daddy said, cradling Sally in one arm while he +held her little clawlike hand in his, feeling its fever. + +"We haven't got wings, to fly there," Grandma objected. + +Mrs. King looked thoughtfully around the wretched shelter. A few +clothes hung from corner posts; a few tin dishes were piled in a +box cupboard. The children were clean as children could be in +such a place. But the visitor's glance lingered longest on the +clock. + +"Your clock and mine are like as two peas," she observed. "Forty +years ago I got mine, on my wedding day." + +"Mine was a wedding present, too. And my feather beds that I had +to let go at fifty cents apiece. . . ." Grandma quavered. + +"These are queer times." Mrs. King shook her head. "I do wish I +had the means to lend a hand like a real neighbor. There's this, +though--my mister took in a big old auto on a debt, and he'll +leave you have it for what the debt was--fifteen dollars, seems +like." + +"You reckon he will?" Grandpa demanded. + +"He better!" said Mrs. King. + +"Even fifteen dollars won't leave us scarcely enough to eat on," +Grandpa muttered. + +"But we've got to get to a place where there's work," Daddy +reminded him. + +They went to see the car, and found it a big, strong old Reo, +with fairly good tires. So they bought it. + +Grandma had one piece of jewelry left, besides her wide gold +wedding ring--a cameo brooch. She traded it for a nanny goat. +On the ever useful dump the men found a wrecked trailer and they +mended it so that it would hold the goat, which the children +named Carrie. Later, Grandma thought, they might get some laying +hens, too. + +Two days after the Big Storm, they set out for the Texas +cottonfields. Mrs. King stuck a big box of lunch into the car, +and an old tent which she said she couldn't use. + +"I hope I'll be forgiven for never paying heed to fruit +tramps--fruit workers--before," she said soberly. "From now on I +aim to. Though I shan't find none like you-all, with a Seth +Thomas clock and suchlike." + + +[Illustration: Off to the cotton fields] + + +After the truck ride from Jersey even a fifteen-dollar automobile +was luxury, with its roomy seats and two folding seats that let +down between. + +Grandma joked, in her tart way, "I never looked to be touring the +country in my own auto!" + +Rose-Ellen jiggled in the back seat. "Peekaneeka, Gramma!" she +said. + +When it rained, the children scurried to fasten the side curtains +and then huddled together to keep warm while they played +tick-tack-toe or guessing games. For meals they stopped where +they could milk Carrie and build a small fire. At night they put +up the tent, unless a farmer or a policeman ordered them to move +on. + +At first it seemed more of a peekaneeka than any of their +adventures thus far. They met and passed many old cars like +their own, and the children counted the strange things that were +tied on car or trailer tops while Grandma counted license +plates-when Sally was not too fussy. There was always something +new to see, especially when they were passing through Louisiana. +Daddy said Louisiana was the one state in the country that had +parishes instead of counties, and that that was because it had +been French in the early days. Almost everything else about it +seemed as strange to the children--the Spanish moss hanging in +long streamers from the live oak trees; the bayous, or arms of +the river, clogged with water hyacinths; the fields of sugar +cane; and the Negro cabins, with their glassless windows and +their big black kettles boiling in the back yards. + +"But the funniest thing I saw," Rose-Ellen said later, "was a cow +lying in the bayou, with purple water hyacinths draped all over +her, as if it was on purpose." + +After a few days, though, even this peekaneeka grew wearisome to +the children; while Daddy and Grandpa grew more and more anxious +about an angry spat-spat-spat from the Reo. So they were all +glad to reach the cotton fields they had been steering toward. + +But there they did not find what they had hoped for. There were +too many workers ahead of them and too little left to do. +Tractors, it seemed, were taking the place of many men, one +machine driving out two to five families. + +Though the camp was a fairly comfortable one, it proved lonesome +for the children for there was no Center, and it did not seem +worth while for them to start to school for so short a time. It +was doubtful, anyway, whether the school had room for them. + +Grandma was too lame to work in the cotton. When she bent over, +she could hardly straighten up again; so she stayed home with +Jimmie and the baby, and Dick and Rose-Ellen picked. Rose-Ellen +felt superior, because there were children her age picking into +small sacks, like pillow-slips, and she used one of the regular +long bags, fastened to her belt and trailing on the ground +behind. + +At first cotton-picking was interesting, the fluffy bolls looking +like artificial roses and the stray blossoms strangely shaped and +delicately pink. Sometimes a group of Negro pickers would chant +in rich voices as they picked. "Da cotton want a-pickin' so +ba-ad!" But it was astonishing to the Beechams to find how many +aches they had and how few pounds of cotton when the day's +picking was weighed. + +Tired and achy as they were at night, though, they were glad to +find children in the next shack. + +"Queer ones," Grandma called them. + +"It's their talk I can't get the hang of," Grandpa added. "It +may be English, but I have to listen sharp to make it out." + +Daddy trotted Sally on his foot and laughed. "It's English all +right--English of Shakespeare's time, likely, that they've used +for generations. They're Kentucky mountaineers, and as the +father says, 'a fur piece from home'." + +It was through the eldest girl that the children became +acquainted: the girl and her toothbrush. + +Rose-Ellen was brushing her teeth at the door, and Dick was +saying, "I ain't going to. Nobody brushes their teeth down here," +when suddenly the girl appeared, a toothbrush and jelly glass in +her hand, and a younger brother and sister following her. + +"This is the way we brush our teeth," sang the girl and while her +toe tapped the time, two brushes popped into two mouths and +scrubbed up and down, up and down--"brush our teeth, brush our +teeth!" + +She spied Rose-Ellen. "Did you-uns larn at the Center, too?" she +asked eagerly. "First off, we-uns allowed they was queer little +hair-brushes; but them teachers! Them teachers could make 'em +fly fast as a sewing machine. We reckoned if them teachers was +so smart with such comical contraptions, like enough they knowed +other queer doings. And they sure did." + +Thus began the friendship between the Beecham children and Cissy, +Tom and Mary--with toddling Georgie and the baby thrown in. +Cissy was beautiful, like Grandma's old cameo done in color, with +heavy, loose curls of gold-brown hair. Long evening, visits she +and Rose-Ellen had, when they were not too tired from cotton-picking. +Little by little Rose-Ellen learned the story of Cissy's past few +years. Always she would remember it, spiced with the queer words +Cissy used. + +They had lived on a branch--a brook--in the Kentucky hills. +Their house was log, said Cissy, with a fireplace where Maw had +her kettles and where the whole lot of them could sit when winter +nights were cold, and Paw could whittle and Maw weave a coverlet. + +"Nary one of us could read," Cissy said dreamily, sitting on the +packing-box doorstep with elbows on knees and chin on palms. +"But Paw could tell purty tales and Maw could sing song-ballads +that would make you weep. But they wasn't no good huntin' no +more, and the kittles was empty. So we come down to the coal +mines, and when the mines shut down, we went on into the onions." + +These were great marshes, drained like cranberry bogs and planted +in onions. Whole families could work there, planting, weeding, +pulling, packing. + +("I've learned a lot!" thought Rose-Ellen. "I used to ask the +grocer for a nickel's worth of dry onions, and I never did guess +how they came to be there.") + +The first year was dreary. Maw took the baby (Mary, then) and +laid her on a blanket at the end of the row she was working, with +Tom to watch her. Cissy worked along with the grown folks, or +some days stayed home and did the washing and minded Tom and +Mary. + +"I shore didn't know how to wash good as I do now." She patted +her faded dress, pretty clean, though not like the clothes of +Grandma's washing. + +There was one thing about it, Cissy said; after a day in onions, +with the sun shining hot on her sunbonnet and not much to eat, +she didn't care if there wasn't any play or fun at night; she was +glad enough to drop down on the floor and go to sleep as soon as +she'd had corn pone and coffee. Sometimes she was sick from the +sun beating down on her head and she had to crawl into the shade +of a crate and lie there. + +The second year was different. Next summer, early, when the +cherries had set their green beads and the laylocks had quit +blooming, there came two young ladies. They came of an evening, +and talked to Paw and Maw as they sat on the doorsill with their +shoes kicked off and their bare toes resting themselves. + +First Paw and Maw wouldn't talk to them because why would these +pretty young ladies come mixing around with strangers? Paw and +Maw allowed they had something up their sleeves. But the ladies +patted Georgie, the baby then, and held him; and Cissy crept +closer and closer, because they smelled so nice. And then they +asked Maw if they couldn't take Cissy in their car and pay her as +much as she earned picking. She was to help them invite the +children to a place where they could be safe and happy while +their grown folks worked. + +Cissy couldn't hardly sense it; but Maw let her go, because she +was puny. The teachers got an old schoolhouse to use; and church +folks came to paint the walls; and P.W.A. workers made chairs and +tables; and the church ladies made curtains. The teachers got +icebox, stove, and piano from a second-hand store. + +Yet, at first, it was hard to get people to send their children +even to this beautiful place. They'd rather risk locking them in +at home, or keeping them at the end of the onion row. That first +morning, the teachers gathered up only nine children. Those nine +told what it was like, and next day there were fifteen, and by +the end of the summer "upwards of forty-five." + +Cissy told about the Center as she might tell about fairyland. +Across one wall were nails, with kits sent by children from the +different churches. The kits held tooth brushes, washcloths, +combs. Above each nail was a picture by which the child could +know his own toilet equipment. + + +[Illustration: Cissy and Tommy at the Center] + + +"Mine was the purtiest little gal with shiny hair. But it wasn't +colored," she added, regretfully. "Tommie's was a yaller +automobile." + +"Why'd you have pictures?" asked Jimmie. + +"I were going on eleven, but I couldn't read," Cissy confessed. + +Rose-Ellen patted Jimmie stealthily and didn't tell Cissy that he +was going on ten and couldn't read either. + +Cissy went on with her tale of the Center. There was toothbrush +and wash-up drill. There were clean play-suits that churches had +sent from far cities. Every morning there was worship. The +children had helped make an altar--a box with a silk scarf across +and a picture of Jesus above and a Bible and two candles. They +all sang hymns and heard Bible stories and prayed. Oh, yes, +Cissy said, back in the mountains they went to meetin'--when +there was meetin'--but God wasn't the same in Kentucky, some way. +The teachers' God loved them so good that it hurt him to have +them steal or lie or be any way dirty or mean. He had to love +them a heap to send the Center people to help them the way he +did. + +After worship came play and study, outdoors and in, with the +clean babies comfortably asleep in the clothesbaskets, their +stomachs full of milk from shiny bottles. The older ones sat down +to the table and prayed, and drank milk through stems, and ate +carrots and greens and "samwidges." And after the table was +cleared, they lay down on the floor and Teacher maybe played soft +music and they went to sleep. + +Once they had a real party. They were invited to a near-by +church by some of the children of that church. The tables were +trimmed with flowers and frilled paper and there were cakes and +Jello. The children played games together at the end of the +party. + +The big girls, when rain kept them from working, learned to cook +and sew and take care of babies; and even the little girls +learned a heap and made pretties they could keep, besides. From +the bottom of their clothes-box, Cissy brought a paper-wrapped +scrapbook of Bible pictures she had cut and pasted. Tom had made +a table out of a crate, but there wasn't room to fetch it. + +"I got so fat and strong," boasted Cissy, punching her thin chest +with a bony fist. "For breakfast, Maw didn't have no time to +give us young-uns nothing but maybe some Koolade to drink, and a +slice of store bread; but at the Center us skinny ones got a hull +bottle of milk to drink through a stem after worship." + +"Are you going back there?" Rose-Ellen asked. + +Cissy nodded, her hands folded tight between her knees. "And +maybe stay all winter, and me and Tommie go to school. Because +Paw and Maw feel like the teachers was kinfolk, since what +happened to Georgie." + +"What happened to Georgie?" + +Six children huddled on the doorstep now, shivering in the chilly +dark. "One Sunday night," Cissy said, "Georgie took to yelling, +and went all stiff and purple, and we couldn't make out what +ailed him. Only that his throat hurt too bad to swallow; so Maw +tied up his topknot so tight it near pulled it out: that was to +lift his palate, because dropped palates make sore throats. + +"Georgie didn't get any better. When the teachers come Monday +morning to tote us to the Center, they begged to take Georgie to +the doctor. Maw was might' nigh crazy by then, and she got into +the Ford without her head combed, Georgie in her lap. Maw said +she never had ridden so fast. She thought her last-day was come, +with the fences streaking past her lickety-split. And when they +come to the doctor he looked Georgie over and said, 'Could this +child have got hold of any lye?' And Maw said, real scairt, +well, she did have a bottle of lye water, and somebody might have +set it on the floor. + +"So every day the rest of the summer them teachers toted Georgie +to the Center and the doctor cured Georgie up till now he can eat +purty good. So that's how come we're shore going back to the +onions next summer." + + + +6: AT THE EDGE OF A MEXICAN VILLAGE + +Cotton-picking was over, and the Beechams tided themselves over +with odd jobs till spring came and they could move on to steadier +work. This time they were going up into Colorado to work in the +beets. + +"And high time!" said Grandma. "We've lived on mush and milk so +long we're getting the color of mush ourselves; and our clothes +are a caution to snakes." + +"But we'll be lucky if the brakebands of the auto last till we +get over the mountains," said Daddy. + +The spring drive up through Texas was pleasant, between +blossoming yellow trees and yuccas like wax candles and pink +bouquets of peach trees and mocking birds' songs. + +The mountain pass between New Mexico and Colorado was beautiful, +too, and exciting. In places it was a shelf shoved against the +mountain, and Jimmie said it tickled his stomach to look down on +the tops of other automobiles, traveling the loop of road below +them. Even Carrie, riding haughtily in her trailer, let out an +anguished bleat when she hung on the very edge of a curve. And +the Reo groaned and puffed. + +Up through Colorado they chugged; past Pike's Peak; through +Denver, flat on the plain with a blue mountain wall to its west; +on through the farmlands north of it to the sugar-beet town which +was their goal. + +Beyond the town stood an adobe village for beetworkers on the +Lukes fields, where the Beechams were to work. + +"Mud houses," Dick exclaimed, crumbling off a piece of mud +plaster thick with straw. + +"Like the bricks the Israelites made in Egypt," said Grandpa; +"only Pharaoh wanted them to do without the straw." + +"It's a Mexican village," observed Grandma. "I'd feel like a cat +in a strange garret here. And not a smidgin of shade. That shack +off there under the cottonwood tree looks cooler." + +"It's a chicken-coop!" squealed Rose-Ellen as they walked over to +it. "Gramma wants to live in a chicken-coop!" + +"It's empty. And it'd be a sight easier to clean than some +places where humans have lived," Grandma replied stoutly. + +So the Beechams got permission to live in the farmer's old +chicken-coop. It had two rooms, and the men pitched the tent +beside it for a bedroom. They had time to set up "chicken-housekeeping," +as Rose-Ellen called it, before the last of May, when beet work +began. They made a pretty cheerful place of this new home; +though, of course, it had no floor and no window glass, and sun +and stars shone in through its roof, and the only running water +was in the irrigation ditch. Even under the glistening +cottonwood tree it was a stifling cage on a hot day. + +They were all going to work, except Jimmie and Sally. It would +take all of them, new hands that they were, to care for the +twenty acres they were to work. Mr. Lukes said that children +under sixteen were not supposed to be employed, but of course +they could always help their parents. Daddy said that was one +way to get around the Child Labor Law. + +So the Beechams were to thin the beets and hoe them and top them, +beginning the last of May and finishing in October, and the pay +would be twenty-six dollars an acre. The government made the +farmers pay that price, no matter how poor the crop was. + +"Five hundred and twenty dollars sounds like real money!" Daddy +rejoiced. + +"Near five months, though," Grandma reckoned, "and with prices +like they are, we're lucky to feed seven hungry folks on sixty +dollars a month. And we're walking ragbags, with our feet on the +ground. And them brakebands--and new tires." + +"Five times sixty is three hundred," Rose-Ellen figured. + +"You'll find it won't leave more than enough to get us on to the +next work place," Grandpa muttered. + +It was lucky the chicken-coop was in sight of their acres. +Before she left home in the early morning, Grandma saw to it that +there was no fire in the old-new washtub stove, and that Sally's +knitted string harness was on, so that she could not reach the +irrigation ditch, and that Carrie was tethered. + +The beets, planted two months ago, had come up in even green +rows. Now they must be thinned. With short-handled hoes the +grown people chopped out foot-long strips of plants. Dick and +Rose-Ellen followed on hands and knees, and pulled the extra +plants from the clumps so that a single strong plant was left +every twelve inches. + +The sun rose higher and hotter in the big blue bowl of sky. +Rose-Ellen's ragged dress clung to her, wet with sweat, and her +arms and face prickled with heat. Grandma looked at her from +under the apron she had flung over her head. + +"Run and stretch out under the cottonwood awhile," she said. "No +use for to get sunstroke." + + +Rose-Ellen went silently, thankfully. It was cooler in the shade +of the tree. She looked up through the fluttering green leaves +at the floating clouds shining in the sun. Jimmie hobbled around +her, driving Sally with her knitted reins, but they did not keep +their sister awake. The sun was almost noon-high when she opened +her eyes, and she hurried guiltily back to the beets. + +She had never seen such a big field, its green and brown stripes +waving up and down to the skyline. It made her ache to think +that five Beechams must take out these extra thousands of +three-inch plants; and after that, hoe them; and after that. . . . + +Her knees were so sore that night that Grandpa bought her +overalls. He got her and Dick big straw hats, too, though it was +too late to keep their faces from blistering. All the Beechams +but Grandma wore overalls. She couldn't bring herself to it. That +night she made herself a sunbonnet out of an old shirt, sitting +close to a candle stuck in a pop bottle. + + +[Illustration: Rose-Ellen and Dick] + + +"I clean forgot to look over the beans and put them to soak," she +said wearily, from her bed. + +Rose-Ellen scooped herself farther into her layer of straw. She +ought to offer to get up and look over those beans, but she +simply couldn't make herself. + +"It seems like I can't stay up another ten minutes," Grandma +excused herself, "after the field work and redding up and such. +But we're getting like all the rest of them, buying the groceries +that we can fix easiest, even though they cost twice as much and +ain't half as nourishing. And when you can't trade at but one +place it's always dearer. . . ." + +Mr. Lukes had guaranteed their account at the store, because of +the pay due them at the end of the season. So they went on +buying there, even though its prices were high and its goods of +poor quality, because they did not have money to spend anywhere +else. + +When the thinning was done, they must begin all over again, +working with the short-handled hoes, cutting out any extra +plants, loosening the ground. By that time they were more used to +the work; and in July came a rest time, when all they needed to +do was to turn the waters of the big ditch into the little +ditches that crinkled between the rows. It was lucky there was +irrigation water, or the growing plants would have died in the +heat, since there had been little rain. + + +Rose-Ellen loved to watch the water moving through the fields as +if it were alive, catching the rosy gold of sunset in its zigzag +mirrors. She missed the Eastern fireflies at night; otherwise +the evenings were a delight. Colorado sunsets covered the west +with glory, and then came quick coolness. Dry as it was, the +cottonwood leaves made a sound like refreshing rain, and the +cicadas hummed comfortably. All the Beechams stayed outside till +far into the night, for the chicken-house was miserably hot at +the end of every day. + +"The Garcias' and Martinezes' houses are better if they are mud +and haven't any shade," Rose-Ellen told Grandma. "The walls are +so thick that inside they're like cool caves." + +She and Dick had made friends in the Mexican village with Vicente +Garcia and her brother Joe, and with Nico Martinez, next door to +the Garcias', and her brothers. Even when they all picked beans +in the morning, during the vacation from sugar beets, there were +these long, cool evenings for play. + +Grandma complained. "I don't know what else to blame for Dick's +untidy ways. Hair sticking up five ways for Christmas, and +fingernails in mourning and the manners of a heathen. I'm afraid +that sore on his hand may be something catching. Those Garcias +and Martinezes of yours . . . !" + +"The Garcias maybe, but not the Martinezes," Rose-Ellen objected. +"Gramma, you go to their houses sometime and see." + +One evening Grandma did. Jimmie had come excitedly leading home +the quaintest of all the babies of the Mexican village, Vicente +Garcia's little sister. He had found her balancing on her +stomach on the bank of the ditch. Three years old, she was, and +slim and straight, with enormous eyes and a great tangle of +sunburned brown curls. Her dress made her quainter still, for it +was low-necked and sleeveless, and came to her tiny ankles so +that she looked like a child from an old-fashioned picture. + +Grandma and Rose-Ellen and Jimmie walked home with her, and +Grandma's eyes widened at sight of the two-roomed Garcia house. +Ten people lived and slept, ate and cooked there, and it looked +as if it had never met a broom or soapsuds. + +The Martinez home was different, perfectly neat, even to the +scrubbed oilcloth on the table. Afterwards Grandma said the +bottoms of the pans weren't scoured, but she couldn't feel to +blame Mrs. Martinez, with five young ones besides the new baby to +look after. When the Beechams went home, Mrs. Martinez gave them +a covered dish of _enchiladas_. + +Even Grandma ate those enchiladas without hesitation, though they +were so peppery that she had to cool her mouth with frequent +swallows of water. They were made of tidily rolled _tortillas_ +(Mexican corn-cakes, paper-thin), stuffed with meat and onion and +invitingly decorated with minced cheese and onion tops. They +looked, smelled and tasted delicious. + +In turn, Grandma sent biscuits, baked in the Dutch oven Grandpa +had bought her. Grandma had always been proud of her biscuits. + +In July the Mexican children took Dick and Rose-Ellen to the +vacation school held every summer in one of the town churches. +The Beechams were not surprised at Nico's dressed-up daintiness +when she called for them. Grandma said she was perfect, from the +ribbon bows on her shining hair to the socks that matched her +smart print dress. But it was surprising to see Vicente come +from the cluttered, dirty Garcia rooms, almost as clean and sweet +as Nico, though with nails more violently red. + +The Beechams found it a problem to dress at all in their +chicken-apartment. Dick tried to get ready in one room and +Rose-Ellen in the other, and everything she wanted was in his +room and everything he wanted in hers. Their small belongings +had to be packed in boxes, and all the boxes emptied out to find +them. Clean clothes--still unironed, of course--had to be hung +up, and they could not be covered well enough so flies and +moth-millers did not speck them. + +"I do admire your Mexican friends," Grandma admitted grudgingly, +"keeping so nice in such a hullabaloo." + +"They are admire-able in lots of ways," Rose-Ellen answered. "I +never knew anyone I liked much better than Nico. And the +Mexicans are the very best in all the art work at the vacation +school. I think the Japanese learn quickest." + +"Do folks treat 'em nice?" asked Grandma. + +"In the school," Rose-Ellen told her. "But outside school they +act like even Nico had smallpox. They make me sick!" + +Rose-Ellen spoke both indignantly and sorrowfully. That very day +the three girls had come out of the church together, and had +paused to look over the neat picket fence of the yard next the +church. It seemed a sweet little yard, smelling of newly cut +grass and flowers. Trees rose high above the small house, and +inside the fence were tall spires of delphinium, bluer than the +sky. + + +[Illustration: Looking over the fence] + + +"The flowers iss so pretty," said Nico. + +"And on the porch behind of the vines is a chicken in a gold +cage," cried Vicente. + +Rose-Ellen folded her lips over a giggle, for the chicken was a +canary. + +Just then a head popped up behind a red rosebush. The lady of the +house was gathering flowers, and she held out a bunch to +Rose-Ellen. + +"Don't prick yourself," she warned. "Are you the one they call +Rose-Ellen?" + +"Yes, ma'am," said Rose-Ellen, burying her nose in the flowers. + +"I had a little sister named Rose-Ellen," the woman said gently. +"You come play on the grass sometime, and we'll pick flowers for +your mother." + +"And can Nico and Vicente come, too?" Rose-Ellen asked. "They're +my best friends." + +The woman looked at Nico and Vicente with cold eyes. "I can't ask +_all_ the children," she answered. + +"Thank you, ma'am," Rose-Ellen stammered. When they were out of +sight down the road, she threw the roses into the dust. Nico +snatched them up again. + +"I wouldn't go there--I wouldn't go there for ten dollars," +Rose-Ellen declared. Vicente looked at her with wise deep eyes. +"I could 'a' told you," she said, shrugging. "American ladies, +they mostly don't like Mexican kids. I don't know why." + +October came. It was the time for the topping of the beets. The +Martinez family went back to Denver for school. The Garcias +stayed; their children would go into the special room when they +returned, to have English lessons and to catch up in other +studies--or rather, to try to catch up. + +"But me, always I am two years in back of myself," Vicente +regretted one day, "even with specials room. Early out of school +and late into it, for me that makes too hard." + +Now Farmer Lukes went through the Beechams' acres, lifting the +beets loose by machine. Rose-Ellen could not believe they were +beets-great dirt-colored clods, they looked. Not at all like the +beets she knew. + +Topping was a new job. With a long hooked knife the beet was +lifted and laid across the arm, and then, with a slash or two, +freed of its top. The children followed, gathering the beets +into great piles for Mr. Lukes's wagon to collect. + +Vicente and Joe did not make piles; they topped; and Joe boasted +that he was faster than his father as he slashed away with the +topping knife. + +"It looks like you'd cut yourself, holding it on your knee like +you do!" Grandma cried as she watched him one day. + +"Not me!" bragged Joe. "Other kids does." The beet tops fell +away under his flashing knife. + +From the beet-dump the beets were taken to the sugar factory a +few miles away, where they were made into shining white beet +sugar. ("And that's another thing I never even guessed!" thought +Rose-Ellen. "What hard work it takes to fill our sugar bowls!") + +Sometimes at night now a skim of ice formed on the water bucket +in the chicken-house. Goldenrod and asters were puffs of white; +the harvest moon shone big and red at the skyline, across miles +of rolling farmland; crickets fiddled sleepily and long-tailed +magpies chattered. One clear, frosty night Grandpa said, "Hark! +the ducks are flying south. Maybe we best follow." + + + + +7: THE BOY WHO DIDN'T KNOW GOD + +Handbills blew around the adobe village, announcing that five +hundred cotton-pickers were wanted at once in Arizona. The Reo, +full of Beechams and trailing Carrie, headed south. + +The surprisingly large grocery bill had been paid, a few clothes +bought, Daddy's ulcerated tooth pulled, and the Reo's patched +tires replaced with better used ones. The result was that the +Beecham pocketbooks were as flat as pancakes. + +"Yet we've worked like horses," Daddy said heavily. "And, worse +than that, we've let Gramma and the kids work as I never thought +Beechams would." + +"But we can't blame Farmer Lukes," said Grandpa. "With all the +planting and digging and hauling he's done, he says he hasn't a +cent to show for it, once he's paid for his seed. It's too deep +for me." + +Down across Colorado, where the names were Spanish, Daddy said, +because it used to be part of Mexico. Down across New Mexico, +where the air smelled of cedar; where scattered adobe houses had +bright blue doors and strings of scarlet chili peppers fringing +their roofs; where Indians sat under brush shelters by the +highway and held up pottery for sale. Down into Arizona, where +Grandma had to admit that the colors she'd seen on the picture +postcards of it were not too bright. Here were red rocks, pink, +blue-gray, white, yellow, purple; and the morning and evening sun +set their colors afire and made them flower gardens of flame. +Here the Indian women wore flounced skirts and velvet tunics and +silver jewelry. They herded flocks of sheep and goats and lived +in houses like inverted brown bowls. + +"We've had worse homes, this year," Grandma said. "I'd never +hold up my head if they knew back home." Along the road with the +Reo ran an endless parade of old cars and trailers. There were +snub-nosed Model T's, packed till they bulged; monstrous Packards +with doors tied shut; yellow roadsters that had been smart ten +years ago, jolting along with mattresses on their tops and young +families jammed into their luggage compartments. Once in a while +they met another goat, like Carrie, who wasn't giving as much +milk as before. + +"All this great country," Grandma marveled some more, "and no +room for these folks. Half a million of us, some say, without a +place to go." + +Dick said, "The kid in that Oklahoma car said the drought dried +up their farm and the wind blew it away. Nothing will grow in +the ground that's left." + +"He's from the Dust Bowl," Grandpa assented. "Thousands of these +folks are from the Dust Bowl." + +The parade of old cars limped along for two weeks, growing +thicker as it drew near the part of Arizona where the pickers had +been called for. The Beechams saw more and more signs on fences +and poles: FIVE HUNDRED PICKERS WANTED! + +"They don't say how much they pay," Grandma noticed. + +"Ninety cents a hundred pounds is usual this year, and a fellow +can make a bare living at that," said Daddy. + +Soon the procession turned off the road, the Beechams with it. +The place was swarming with pickers. + +"How much are you paying?" Daddy asked. + +"Fifty cents a hundred." + +"Why, man alive, we'd starve on that pay," Daddy growled, the +corners of his jaws white with anger. + +"You don't need to work if you don't want to," the manager barked +at him. "Here's two thousand folks glad to work at fifty cents." + +Leaving Jimmie to mind Sally in the car, the Beechams went to +picking at once. Grandma had saved their old cotton sacks, +fortunately, since they cost a dollar apiece. + +Rose-Ellen's heart thumped as if she were running a race. +Everyone was picking at top speed, for there were far too many +pickers and they all tried to get more than their share. The +Beechams started at noon. At night, when they weighed in, Grandpa +and Daddy each got forty cents, Grandma twenty-five, Dick twenty, +and Rose-Ellen fifteen. + +When he paid them, the foreman said, "No more work here. All +cleaned up." + +"Good land," Grandma protested, her voice shaking, "bring us from +Coloraydo for a half day's work?" + +"Sorry," said the foreman. "First come, first served." + +In a blank quietness, the Beechams went on to hunt a camp. And +here they were fortunate, for they came upon a neat tent city +with a sign declaring it a Government Camp. Tents set on firm +platforms faced inward toward central buildings, and everything +was clean and orderly. They drove in. Yes, they could pitch +their tent there, the man in the office said; there was one +vacant floor. The rent was a dollar a week, but they could work +it out, if they would rather, cleaning up the camp. Grandpa said +they'd better work it out, since it might be hard to find jobs +near by. + +Even Rose-Ellen, even Dick and Jimmie, were excited over the +laundry tubs in the central building, and more interested in the +shower baths. Twice a day they washed themselves, and their +clothes were kept fresher than they had been for a long time. +Neighbors came calling, besides; and there were entertainments +every week, with the whole camp taking part. + +"Seems like home," said Grandpa. "If only we could find work." + +The nurse on duty found that the sore on Dick's hand was +scabies--the itch--picked up in some other camp, and she treated +and bandaged it carefully. + +Every day the men went out hunting jobs, taking others with them +to share the cost of gasoline; and every day they came back +discouraged. Even in the fine camp, money leaked out steadily +for food. At last the Beechams gave up hope of finding work. +They set out for California, the fairyland of plenty, as they +thought. + +At first California looked like any other state, but soon the +children began naming their discoveries aloud. "Lookit! Oranges +on trees!" "Roses! And those red Christmas flowers growing high +as the garage!" "Palm trees--like feather dusters stuck on +telegraph poles!" + +"Little white houses and gardens!" crooned Grandma. + +Soon, too, they saw the familiar posters: PICKERS WANTED; and +the Reo followed the signs to the fields. + +They were pea-fields, this time, but Grandma, peering at the +pea-pickers' camp, cried, "My land, if this ain't Floridy all +over again!" + +"Maybe the owner ain't got the cash to put up decent +chicken-coops for folks to live in," Grandpa sputtered, "but if I +was him I'd dig ditches for a living before I'd put humans into +pigpens like these." + +"Let's go a piece farther," Grandma urged. + +Grandpa fingered his old wallet. "Five dollars is the least we +can keep against the car breaking down. We've got six-fifty +now." + +So for long months they worked in the peas and lived in the +"jungle" camp, pitching their tent at the very edge of its dirt +and smell. + +Shacks of scrap tin, shingled with rusty pail covers, stood next +to shacks made of burlap and pasteboard cartons. Ragged tents +huddled behind the shacks, using the same back wall. Mattresses +that looked as if they came from the dump lay on the ground with +tarpaulins stretched above them as roofs, and these were the only +homes of whole families who lived and slept and ate in swarms of +stinging flies. + +One of the few pleasant things was the Christian Center not very +far away. Every morning its car chugged up to the jungle and +carried off a load of children. Jimmie and Sally were always in +the load. The back seat was crowded, and a helper sat in front +with the driver and held Sally, while Jimmie sat between. He +liked to sit there, for the driver looked like Her! Only short +instead of tall, and plump instead of thin, and with curly dark +hair, but with the same kind smile. + +Here in California the other children were supposed to pick only +outside school hours; but the school was too far from the camp +and there was no bus. So Dick and Rose-Ellen picked peas all day +with their elders. + + +"The more we earn," Dick said soberly, "the sooner we can get +away from this place." + +"The only trouble is," Rose-Ellen answered, "we get such an +appetite that we eat more than we earn, except when we're sick." + +The sun blistered Dick's fair skin until he was ill from the +burn; and Rose-Ellen sometimes grew so sick and dizzy with the +heat that she had to crawl into her pea hamper for shade instead +of picking. There was much sickness in this camp, anyway. There +was only one well, and it was not protected from filth. The +flies were everywhere. Grandma boiled all the water, but she +could not keep out the germ-laden flies. The family took turns +lying miserably sick on an automobile-seat bed and wishing for +the end of the pea-picking. + +But after the early peas, they must wait for the February peas; +and before they were picked, Jimmie complained that his throat +felt sore. Next day he and Sally both broke out with measles. + +Grandma had her hands full, keeping the toddler from running out +into sunshine and rain; but it was Jimmie who really worried her, +he was so sick. And when he had stopped muttering and tossing +with fever, he woke one night with an earache. + +"Mercy to us!" Grandma cried distractedly. "We ain't even got +salt enough for a hot salt bag, or carbolic and oil to drop in +his poor blessed ear!" + +Indeed that night seemed to all of them like a dark cage, +shutting them away from any help for Jimmie. + +Next morning, Miss Pinkerton, the nurse at the Center, came to +see Jimmie. She looked grave as she examined him. "If you +belonged in the county, I could get him into a county hospital," +she said. "But we'll do our best for him here." + + +[Illustration: Nursing Jimmie] + + +Nursing in a tent was a bad dream for patient and nurses. Grandma +kept boiling water to irrigate his ear and sterilize the +utensils, Rose-Ellen told stories, shouting so he could hear. At +night Daddy held him in strong, tired arms and sang funny songs +he had learned in his one year of college. Grandma tempted +Jimmie's appetite with eggs and sugar and vanilla beaten up with +Carrie's milk, and with little broiled hamburgers and fresh +vegetables--food such as the Beechams hadn't had for months. + +The rest of them had no such food even now. Carrie was giving +less milk every day, so that there was hardly enough for Sally +and Jimmie. Grandma said she'd lost her appetite, staying in the +tent so close, and she was glad to reduce, anyway. Grandpa said +there was nothing like soup; so the kettle was kept boiling all +the time, with soupbones so bare they looked as if they'd been +polished, and onions and potatoes and beans. That soup didn't +make any of them fat. + +But Jimmie grew better, and one shining morning Miss Pinkerton +stopped and said, "Jimmie's well enough to go with me on my daily +round. He needs a change." + +After she had carted two or three loads of children to the +Center, she went to visit the sick ones in the camps for miles +around. First they went to another "jungle," one where trachoma +was bad. Here she left Jimmie in the car; but he could watch, for +the children came outdoors to have the blue-stone or argyrol in +their swollen red eyes. The treatment was painful, but without it +the small sufferers might become blind. + +The next camp had an epidemic of measles, and in the next, ten +miles away, Miss Pinkerton vaccinated ten children. + +By this time, the sun was high, and Jimmie began to think +anxiously of lunch. Miss Pinkerton steered into the orchard +country, where there was no sign of a store. He was relieved +when she nosed the car in under the shade of a magnolia tree and +said, "My clock says half-past eating time. What does yours +say?" + +First Miss Pinkerton scrubbed her hands with water and +carbolic-smelling soap, and then she unwrapped a waxed-paper +package and spread napkins. For Jimmie she laid out a meat +sandwich, a jam sandwich, a big orange-colored persimmon, and a +cookie: not a dull store cookie, but a thick homemade one. The +churches of the neighborhood took turns baking them for the +Center. Jimmie ate every crumb. + +In the next camp--asparagus--was a Mexican boy with a badly hurt +leg. He had gashed it when he was topping beets, and his people +had come on into cotton and into peas, without knowing how to +take care of the throbbing wound. When Miss Pinkerton first saw +it, she doubted whether leg or boy could be saved. It was still +bad, and the boy's mother stood and cried while Miss Pinkerton +dressed it, there under the strip-of-canvas house. + +Miss Pinkerton saw Jimmie staring at that shelter and at the +helpless mother, and she whispered, "Aren't you lucky to have a +Grandma like yours, Jimmie-boy?" + +When the leg was all neatly rebandaged, the boy caught at Miss +Pinkerton with a shy hand. "_Gracias_--thank you," he said, "but +why you take so long trouble for us, Lady, when we don't pay you +nothing?" + +"I don't think there's anything so well worth taking trouble for +as just boys and girls," Miss Pinkerton said. + +The boy frowned thoughtfully. "Other peoples don't think like +that way," he persisted. "For why should you?" + +"Well, it's really because of Jesus," Miss Pinkerton answered +slowly. "You've heard about Jesus, haven't you?" + +"Not me," the boy said. "Who is he?" + +"He was God's Son, and he taught men to love one another. He +taught them about God, too." + +"God? I've heard the name, but I ain't never seen that guy +either." + +"Like to hear about him?" Miss Pinkerton +asked. + +The boy dropped down on the running board with his bandaged leg +stretched out before him. Other children came running. Sitting on +the running board, too, Miss Pinkerton told them about Jesus, how +he used his life to help other people be kinder to each other. +The camp children listened with mouths open, and brushed the +rough hair from their eyes to see the pictures she took from the +car. The boy's mother stood with her arms wrapped in her dirty +apron and listened, too. + + +[Illustration: Hearing about Jesus] + + +But it was the boy who sat breathless till the story was done. +Then he scrubbed a ragged sleeve across eyes and nose and spoke +in a choked, angry voice. "I wish I'd been there. I bet them +guys wouldn't-wouldn't got so fresh with--with him. But listen, +Lady!" His dark eyes were fiercely questioning. "Why ain't +nobody told us? It sure seems like we ought to been told +before." + +All the way home Jimmie sat silent. As the car stopped, he got +his voice. "Miss Pink'ton, did he mean, honest, he didn't know +about God and Jesus?" + +Miss Pinkerton nodded. "He--he didn't know he had a Heavenly +Father." + +"And no Gramma either," Jimmie mumbled. "Gee." + + + +8: THE HOPYARDS + +Through February, March, and part of April, the Beecham family +picked peas in the Imperial Valley. + +"Peas!" Rose-Ellen exploded the word on their last night in the +"jungle" camp. "I don't believe there are enough folks in the +world to cat all the peas we've picked." + +"And they aren't done with when they're picked, even," added +Daddy. "Most of them will be canned; and other folks have to +shell and sort them and put them into cans and then cook them and +seal and label the cans." + +"What an awful lot of work everything makes," Dick exclaimed. + +"It was different in my Gramma's time." Grandma pursed her lips +as she set a white patch in a blue overall knee. "Then each +family grew and canned and made almost everything it used." + +"Now everybody's linked up with everybody else," agreed Grandpa, +cobbling a shoe with his little kit. "We use' to get along in +winter with turnips and cabbage and such, and fruit the +womenfolks canned. Of course it's pretty nice to have garden +vegetables and fruit fresh the year round, but. . . ." + +Grandma squinted suddenly over her spectacles. "For the land's +sakes! I never thought of it, but it's turned the country upside +down and made a million people into 'rubber tramps'--this having +to have fresh green stuff in winter." + +"The owners couldn't handle their crops without the million +workers coming in just when they're ready to harvest," Daddy +continued the tale. . . . + +"But they haven't anything for us to do the rest of the time; and +how they do hate the sight of us 'rubber tramps,' the minute +we've finished doing their work for them," Dick ended. + +Next morning they started up the coast to pick lettuce. The +country was beautiful. Rounded hills, soft looking and of the +brightest green, ran down toward the sea, with really white sheep +pastured on them. Grandpa said it put him in mind of heaven. +Grandma said it would be heaven-on-earth to live there, if only +you had a decent little house and a garden. The desert places +were as beautiful, abloom with many-colored wildflowers; and +there were fields of artichokes and other vegetables, with +Chinese and Japanese tending them. Those clean green rows +stretched on endlessly. + +"They make me feel funny," Rose-Ellen complained, "like seeing +too many folks and too many stars." + +"They've got so many vegetables they dump them into the sea, +because if they put them all on the market, the price would go +down. But there's not enough so that those that pick them get +what they need to eat," said Grandpa. "Sometimes too much is not +enough." + +The lettuce camp housed part of its workers in a huge old barn. +The Beechams had three stalls and used their tent for curtains. +They cooked out in the barnyard, so it was fortunate that it was +the dry season. From May to August the men and Dick picked, +trimmed, packed lettuce; but during most of that time the +barn-apartment was in quarantine. All the children who had not +had scarlet fever came down with it. + +It was even hotter than midsummer Philadelphia, and the air was +sticky, and black with flies besides, and sickening with odor. +Grandma's cushiony pinkness entirely disappeared; she was more +the color of a paper-bag, Rose-Ellen thought. + +"But land knows," Grandma said, "what I'd have done if the Lord +hadn't tempered the wind to the shorn lamb. What with no Center +near here and only the public health nurse looking in once in a +while, it was lucky the young-ones didn't have the fever bad." + +In August they were all well and peeled. Grandma heated tub after +tub of water and scrubbed them, hair and all, with yellow laundry +soap, and washed their clothes and put the automobile-seat beds +into the hot sun. Then they went on up the coast, steering for +the hopyards northeast of San Francisco. + +It seemed too bad to hurry through San Francisco without really +seeing it--that beautiful city crowded steeply by the sea. But +the Reo had had to have a new gas-line and a battery, and little +money was left to show for the long, sizzling months of work. It +was best to stay clear of cities. + +The Sacramento Delta region was the strangest the Beechams had +ever seen. The broad river, refreshing after months without real +rivers, was higher than the fields. Beside the river ran the +highway. The Beechams looked down at pear orchards, tule marshes +and ranch houses. Everything was so lushly wet that moss grew +green even on tree trunks and roofs. Like Holland, Daddy said, +it had dikes to keep the water out. + +One day they stopped at a fish cannery between highway and river +and asked for work. The Reo was having to have her tires patched +twice a day, and slow leaks were blown up every time the car +stopped for gasoline. The family needed money. + +Peering into the cannery, they saw men and women working in a +strong-smelling steam, cleaning and cutting up the fish that +passed them on an endless belt, making it ready for others to +pack in cans. At the feet of some of the women stood boxes with +babies in them; and other babies were slung in cloths on their +mothers' backs. + +There was no work for the Beechams, and they climbed into the Reo +once more and stared down on the other side of the road, where +the foreman had told them his packers lived. Even from that +distance it was plain that this was a Chinese village, not +American at all. + +"The little babies were so sweet, with their shiny black eyes. +But, my gracious, they don't get any sun or air at all!" +Rose-Ellen squeezed Sally thankfully. Even though the baby was +underweight and had violet shadows under her blue eyes, she +looked healthier than most babies they saw. + +The hops were queer and interesting, unlike any other crops +Rose-Ellen had met with. The leaves were deep-lobed, shaped a +little like woodbine, but rough to touch. The fruits resembled +small spruce cones of pale yellow-green tissue paper. The vines +were trained on wires strung along ten-foot poles; they formed +aisles that were heavy with drowsy fragrance. + +The picking baskets stood almost as high as Rose-Ellen's +shoulder, and she and Dick were proud of filling one apiece, the +first day they worked. These baskets held sixty pounds +each--more when the weather was not so dry--and sixty pounds +meant ninety cents. School had not started yet, so the children +worked all day. Sometimes Rose-Ellen could not keep from crying, +she was so tired. And when she cried, Grandma's mouth worked +over her store teeth in the way that meant she felt bad. + +"But we've got to get in under it, all of us," she scolded, to +keep from crying herself. "We've got to earn what we can. I +never see the beat of it. If we scrabble as hard as we can, we +just only keep from sliding backwards." + +Here in the hopyards the Beechams did not get their pay in money. +They were given tickets marked with the amount due them. These +they could use for money at the company store. + +"And the prices there are sky-high!" Grandma wrathfully told +Grandpa, waving a pound of coffee before his eyes. "Thirty-five +cents, and not the best grade, mind you! Pink salmon higher than +red ought to be. Bread fifteen cents a loaf! Milk sky-high and +Carrie plumb dry!" + +The living quarters were bad, too: shacks, with free straw on the +floor for beds, and mud deep in the dooryards where the campers +emptied water. Over it all hung a sick smell of garbage and a +cloud of flies. + +It was no wonder that scores of children and some older people +were sick. The public health nurses, when they came to visit the +sick ones, warned the women to cover food and garbage, but most +of the women laughed at the advice. + +"Those doctor always tell us things," the Beechams' Italian +neighbor, Mrs. Serafini, said lightly. She was dandling a sad +baby while the sad baby sucked a disk of salami, heavy with +spices. "And those nurse also are crazy. Back in asparagus I +send-it my kids to the Center, and what you think? They take off +Pepe's clothes! They say it is not healthy that she wear the +swaddlings. I tell Angelina to say to them that my _madre_ before +me was dressed so; but again they strip the poor angel." + +"And what did you do then?" Rose-Ellen inquired. + +"No more did I send-it my kids to the Center!" Mrs. Serafini +cried dramatically. + +"I'd think myself," Grandma observed dryly, "your baby might feel +better in such hot weather if she was dressed more like Sally." + +Mrs. Serafini eyed Sally's short crepe dress, worn over a single +flour-sack undergarment. "We have-it our ways, you have-it +yours," was all she would say. + + +[Illustration: Mrs. Serafini] + + +While the elders talked, Jimmie had been staring at Pepe's next +brother, Pedro. Seven years old, Pedro might have been, but he +could move about only by sitting on the ground and hitching +himself along. He was crippled much worse than Jimmie. + +"I wonder, couldn't I show Pedro my scrapbook?" he whispered, +nudging Grandma. + +"To be sure; and I always said if you'd think more about others, +you wouldn't be so sorry for yourself," Grandma replied. + +Jimmie scowled at the sermon, but he went in and got his books, +and the two boys sat up against the shack wall till dark, Jimmie +telling stories to match the pictures. It was a week before they +could repeat that pleasant hour. Next day both were ill with the +fever that was sweeping the hop camp. + +Next time the nurses came they had medicines and suggestions for +Grandma. They liked her, and looked smilingly at the clock and +approvingly at Carrie and at the covered garbage can and at the +food draped with mosquito netting. + +"We're going to have to enforce those rules," they told Grandma. +"There wouldn't be half the sickness if everyone minded as you +do." + +That evening people from all parts of the camp gathered to +discuss the renewed orders: Italians, Mexicans, Americans, +Indians. + +"They says to my mother," a little Indian girl confided to +Rose-Ellen, "'You no cover up your grub, we throw him out!'" She +laughed into her hands as if it were a great joke. + +"They do nothing but talk," said Angelina. + +Next day the camp had a surprise. Along came the nurses and men +with badges to help them. Into shack after shack they went, +inspecting the food supplies. Rose-Ellen, staying home with sick +Jimmie, watched a nurse trot out of the Serafini shack, carrying +long loaves of bread and loops of sausage, alive with flies, +while Mrs. Serafini shouted wrathfully after her. Into the +garbage pail popped the bread and sausage and back to the shack +trotted the nurse for more. + +That night the camp buzzed like a swarm of angry bees, with +threats of what the pickers would do to "them fresh nurses." + +Grandpa, resting on his doorsill, said, "You just keep cool. +They got the law on their side; we couldn't do a thing. Besides, +if you'll hold your horses long enough to see this out, you may +find they're doing you a big kindness." + +The people went on grumbling, but they covered their food, since +they must do so or lose it. And they had to admit that there was +much less sickness from that time on. + + +"Foolishness!" Mrs. Serafini persisted, unwilling to give in. + +Yet Rose-Ellen, playing with Baby Pepe, discovered that her hot +old swaddlings had been taken off at last. Perhaps Mrs. Serafini +was learning something from the nurses after all. + +"If you could show me the rest of my aflabet, Rose-Ellen," Jimmie +begged, "I could teach Pedro." + +"But, goodness!" Rose-Ellen exclaimed. "You never would let us +teach you anything, Jimmie. What's happened to you?" + +"Well, it's different. I got to keep ahead of Pedro," he +explained, and every night he learned a new lesson. + + +[Illustration: Rose-Ellen teaching Jimmie] + + +Of all the family, though, Jimmie was the only contented one. +Most of the trouble centered round Dick. He was fourteen now, +and not only his voice, but his way, was changing. Through the +day he picked hops, but when evening came, he was off and away. + +"He's like the Irishman's flea," Grandma scolded, "and that gang +he's running with are young scalawags." + +"Dick hasn't a lick of sense," Daddy agreed worriedly. "I'll have +to tan him, if he keeps on lighting out every night. That gang +set fire to a hop rack last week. They'll be getting into real +trouble." + +"Dick thinks he's a man, now he's earning his share of the +living," Grandpa reminded them. "When I was his age I had chores +to keep me busy, and when you were his age you had gym, and the Y +swimming pool. Here there's nothing for the kids in the evening +except mischief." + +"Well, then," Grandma suggested, "why don't we pull up stakes and +leave?" + +"They don't like you to leave till harvest's over," Daddy said. +"But it would be great to get into apples in Washington, for +instance. We'll have to get the boss to cash our pay tickets +first." + +There came the trouble. The tickets would be cashed when harvest +was done, not before. Grandma sagged when she heard. "I ain't +sick," she said, "but I'm played out. If we could get where it +was cooler and cleaner. . . ." + +"Well, we haven't such a lot of pay checks left." Grandpa looked +at her anxiously. "Looks like, with prices at the company store +so high, if we stayed another month we'd owe them instead of +them owing us. We might cash our tickets in groceries and hop +along." + +"Hop along is right," agreed Daddy. "Those tires were a poor buy. +We haven't money for tires and gas both." + +"We'll go as fast as we can, and maybe we can get there before +the tires bust," said Grandpa, trying to be gay. + +Jimmie didn't try. "I liked it here," he mumbled. "I bet Pedro'll +cry if we go away. He can print his first name now, but how's he +ever going to learn 'Serafini'?" + + + + + +9: SETH THOMAS STRIKES TWELVE + +At once Daddy and Grandpa set to work on the Reo. It was an +"orphan" car, no longer made, and its parts were hard to replace; +so the men were always watching the junkyards for other old Reos. +They had learned a great deal about the car in these months, and +they soon had it on the road again. + +"Give you long enough," said Grandma, "and you'll cobble new +soles on its tires and patch its innards. Looks like it's held +together with hairpins now." + +Daddy drove with one ear cocked for trouble, and when anyone +spoke to him he said, "Shh! Sounds like her pistons--or maybe +it's her vacuum. Anyway, as soon as there's a good stopping +place, we'll. . . ." + +But it was the tires that gave out first. Bang! Daddy's muscles +bulged as he held the lurching car steady. One of the back tires +was blown to bits. "Now can we eat?" Dick demanded. Daddy shook +his head as he jumped out to jack up the car. "Got to keep +moving. This is our last spare, and there isn't a single tire we +can count on." + +Sure enough, they hadn't gone far before the familiar bumping +stopped them. That last spare was flat. + +"Now," Daddy said grimly, "you may as well get lunch while I see +whether I can patch this again." + +Grandma had been sitting silent, her hand twisted in Sally's +little skirt to keep her from climbing over the edge. "Well," +she said, "you better eat before your hands get any blacker. +Dick, you haul that shoe-box from under the seat. Rose-Ellen, +fetch the crackers from the trailer. Sally, do sit still one +minute." + +"Crackers?" asked Rose-Ellen, when she had scrambled back. "I +don't see a one, Gramma." + +"Land's sakes, child, use your eyes for once!" Rose-Ellen +rummaged in the part that was partitioned off from Carrie. "I +don't see any groceries, Gramma." + +Grandpa came back to help her, and stood staring. "Dick!" he +called. "Did you tie that box on like I said?" + +Dick dropped a startled lip. "Gee whiz, Grampa! It was wedged +in so tight I never thought." + +"No," said Grandpa, "I reckon you never did think." Silently they +ate the scanty lunch in the shoe-box, and as silently the men cut +"boots" from worn-out tires and cemented them under the holes in +the almost worn-out ones. Silently they jogged on again, the +engine stuttering and Daddy driving as if on egg-shells. + +"Talk, won't you?" he asked suddenly. "My goodness, everyone is +so still--it gets on my nerves." + +Sally said, "Goin' by-by!" and leaned forward from Grandma's +knees to give her father a strangling hug around the neck. Sally +was two and a half now, and lively enough to keep one person +busy. The pale curls all over her head were enchanting, and so +was her talk. She had learned _Buenos dias_, good day, from a +Mexican neighbor; _bambina bella_, pretty baby girl, from the +Serafinis, and _Sayonara_, good-by, from a Japanese boss in the +peas. + +Rose-Ellen pulled the baby back and gave her a kiss in the hollow +at the back of her neck. Then she tried to think of something to +say herself. "Maybe they'll have school and church school at +this next place for a change." + +"Aw, you're sissy," Dick grumbled in his new, thick-thin voice. +"If church was so much, why wouldn't it keep folks from being +treated like us? Huh?" + +Grandma roused herself from her limp stillness. "Maybe you +didn't take notice," she said sharply, "that usually when folks +was kind, and tried to make those dreadful camps a little +decenter, why, it was Christian folks. There wouldn't hardly +anything else make 'em treat that horrid itch and trachoma and +all the catching diseases--hardly anything but being Christians." + +"Aw," Dick jeered. "If the church folks got together and put +their foot down they could clear up the whole business in a +jiffy." + +"We always been church folks ourselves," Grandma snapped. "It +isn't so easy to get a hold." + +"Hush up, Dick," Grandpa ordered with unusual sharpness. "Can't +you see Gramma's clean done out?" + +Grandma looked "done out," but Rose-Ellen, glancing soberly from +one to the other, was sorry for Dick, too-his blue eyes frowned +so unhappily. + +Rose-Ellen tried to change the subject. "Apples!" she said. "I +love oranges and ripe figs, and those big persimmons that you +sort of drown in-but apples are homiest. I'd like to get my +teeth into a hard red one and work right around." + +That wasn't a good subject, either. "I'm hungry!" Jimmie +bellowed. + +And just then another tire blew out. + +The old Reo had bumped along on its rim for an hour when Grandma +said in a thin voice, "Next time we come to any likely shade, I +guess we best stop. I'm . . . I'm just beat out." + +With an anxious backward glance at her, Daddy stopped the car +under a tree. + +"I reckon some of you better go on to that town and get some +bread and maybe weenies and potatoes," Grandma said faintly. + +Grandpa and Daddy pulled out the tent and set it up under the +tree, so that Grandma could lie down in its shelter. Then they +bumped away, leaving the children to mind Sally and lead Carrie +along the edge of the highway to graze, while Grandma slept. + + +[Illustration: Waiting at the roadside] + + +"I never was so hungry in all my days," Jimmie kept saying. + +All the children watched that strip of pavement with the hot air +quivering above it, but still the car did not come. + +Suddenly Rose-Ellen clutched Dick's arm. "Those two men look +like . . . look like. . . . They _are_ Grampa and Daddy. But what +have they done with the car?" + +"Where's the car?" Dick shouted, as the men came up. + +"W'ere tar?" Sally echoed, patting her hands against the bulging +gunnysack her father carried. + +"Here's the car," Daddy answered, pointing to the sack. + +"You . . . sold it, Dad?" Dick demanded. "How much?" + +"Five dollars." Daddy's jaw tightened. "They called it junk. +Well, the grub will last a little while. . . ." + +"And when Gramma's rested, we can pull the trailer and kind of +hike along toward them apples," Grandpa said stoutly. + +But Grandma looked as if she'd never be rested. She lay quite +still except for the breath that blew out her gray lips and drew +them in again, and her closed eyes were hollow. The other six +stood around and gazed at her in terror. Anyone else could be +sick and the earth went on turning, but . . . Grandma! + +They were too intent to notice the car stopping beside them until +a man's voice said, "Sorry, folks, but you'll have to move on. +Against regulations, this is." + +"We're Americans, ain't we?" Grandpa blustered, shaken with +anxiety and anger. "You can't shove us off the earth." + +"Be on your way in twenty-four hours," the man said, pushing back +his coat to show the star on his vest. "I'm sorry, but that's the +way it is." + +"Americans?" Daddy said harshly, watching the sheriff go. "We're +folks without a country." + +"May as well give the young-ones some of the grub we bought," +Grandpa said patiently. + +It was while they were hungrily munching the dry bread and cheese +that another car came upon them and with it another swift change +in their changing life. + +Two young women stepped out of the chirpy Ford sedan. Neither of +them looked like Her, nor even Her No. II--yet Jimmie whispered +excitedly to Rose-Ellen, "I bet you a nickel they're Christian +Centerers!" + +And they were. Sent by the churches, like the Center workers in +the cranberries, in the peas and in Cissy's onions, they went out +through the country to help the people who needed them. The +sheriff, it seemed, had told them about the Beechams when he met +them a few minutes ago. + +First they looked in at Grandma, still asleep with the Seth +Thomas ticking beside her. "Why, I've heard of you from Miss +Pinkerton," said one young woman. "She said you were the kind of +people who deserved a better chance. Maybe I can help you get +one." Then they talked long and earnestly with Grandpa and +Daddy. + +Grandpa had flapped his hands at the children and said, +"Skedaddle, young-ones!" So the children could hear nothing of +the talk except that it was all questions and answers that grew +more and more brisk and eager. It ended in hooking the trailer, +which carried the tent and Carrie, to the sedan, into which was +helped a dazed Grandma. The rest of the family was packed in and +off they all rattled to town. + +There the "Centerers" left the Beechams in a restaurant, but only +to come back in a few minutes, beaming. + +"We got them on long distance, and it's all right!" they told +Grandpa and Daddy. + +"What's all right?" asked Grandma, beginning to be more like her +old self once more. + +"A real nice place to stay in the grape country," Grandpa said +quickly. "And Miss Joyce here, she's going to take us down there +tomorrow. Down in the San Joaquin Valley." + +Next morning Miss Joyce came to the tourist camp where they had +slept and breakfasted. She looked long at Carrie. Was Carrie +worth taking? Did she give much milk? + +Jimmie burst into tears. "Well, even if she doesn't, she does +the best she can," he sobbed. "Isn't she one of the family?" + +Miss Joyce patted his frail little shoulder and said "Oh, + well . . . !" + +So Carrie was fastened into her trailer again, and the sedan +rattled southward all day, through peach orchards and vineyards +where the grapevines were fastened to short stakes so that they +looked like bushes instead of vines. + +"It's . . . real sightly country," said Grandma, who felt much +better after her rest. "If only a body could settle down, I +can't figure any place much nicer. Them trees now, with the sun +slanting through.--We ain't stopping here?" + +Yes, the sedan, with the trailer swaying after it, was banging +into a tiny village of brown and white cottages, with green +gardens between them and stately eucalyptus trees shading them, +while behind them stretched evenly spaced young fruit trees. +Before the one empty cottage the sedan stopped. The Beechams and +Miss Joyce went in. + +There was little furniture in the clean house, but Grandma, +dropping down on a wooden chair, looked around her with bright +eyes. "A sitting room!" she said. "A sitting room! Seems like +we were real folks again, just for a little while. Grampa, you +fetch in the clock and set it on that shelf, will you?" + +Grandpa brought in the old Seth Thomas, its hands pointing to +half-past three. "Tick-tock! Tick-tock!" it said, as contentedly +as if it had always lived there. + + +[Illustration: Bringing in the clock] + + +The children went tiptoeing, hobbling, rushing through the clean, +bare rooms, their voices echoing as they called back their news. +"Gramma, there's a real bathroom!" "Gramma, soon's you feel +better you can bake a pie in this gas stove!" "Gramma, here's an +e-_lec_-tric refrigerator! And a washing machine! And a +screened porch with a table to eat at!" + +Good California smells of eucalyptus trees and, herbs and flowers +drifted through open doors and windows, together with the +chuckling, scolding, joyous clamor of mocking birds. + +"I . . . I wish we didn't have to move on again!" Grandma said. + +"It's a pretty good set-up," Grandpa agreed. "Good school over +yonder; and a church--and big enough garden for all our garden +sass and to can some." He was ticking off the points on his +fingers. "And a chicken-house, and then this here cooperative +farm where the folks all work together and share the profits." + +Jimmie flung himself down on the floor, sobbing. "I don't want +to go on anywhere," he hiccupped. "I want to stay here." + +But Dick was looking from Grandpa to Miss Joyce and then to Daddy +who had come, smiling, in at the back door. "You mean. . . ." +The words choked Dick. "You mean we might settle here? But how? +Who fixed it?" + +"The government!" Grandpa said triumphantly. "Mind you, this +place is the government's fixing, to give migrants a chance to +take root again. It's an experiment they are trying, and we are +having the chance to work with them. We can buy this place and +pay for it over a long term of years. We've got the Christian +Center and the government to thank." + +"Why, maybe after a while we could even send for the goods we +stored at Mrs. Albi's!" Grandma cried dazedly. + +"You mean this is home? Home?" shrieked Rose-Ellen. + +"Carrie thinks so," Daddy, said with a smile. "Run along and see +if she doesn't. Run along!" + +The children rushed past him into the backyard. There stood +Carrie, still a moth-eaten-looking white goat. But now she had a +new gleam in her amber eyes, and at her feet a tiny, curly kid, +as black as coal. + +"Maaaaaaa!" Carrie said proudly. From within the brown and white +cottage Seth Thomas pealed out twelve chimes--eight extra--as if +he, too, were shouting for joy. + + +[Illustration: Carrie and her kid] + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACROSS THE FRUITED PLAIN*** + + +******* This file should be named 18681.txt or 18681.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/8/6/8/18681 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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