The Grapes of Wrath (27 page)

The motor droned along steadily and the sun receded down the sky in front of them. Granma slept steadily, and even Ma dropped her head forward and dozed. Tom pulled his cap over his eyes to shut out the blinding sun.

Paden to Meeker is thirteen miles; Meeker to Harrah is fourteen miles; and then Oklahoma City—the big city. Tom drove straight on. Ma waked up and looked at the streets as they went through the city. And the family, on top of the truck, stared about at the stores, at the
big houses, at the office buildings. And then the buildings grew smaller and the stores smaller. The wrecking yards and hot-dog stands, the out-city dance halls.

Ruthie and Winfield saw it all, and it embarrassed them with its bigness and its strangeness, and it frightened them with the fine-clothed people they saw. They did not speak of it to each other. Later—they would, but not now. They saw the oil derricks in the town, on the edge of the town; oil derricks black, and the smell of oil and gas in the air. But they didn’t exclaim. It was so big and so strange it frightened them.

In the street Rose of Sharon saw a man in a light suit. He wore white shoes and a flat straw hat. She touched Connie and indicated the man with her eyes, and then Connie and Rose of Sharon giggled softly to themselves, and the giggles got the best of them. They covered their mouths. And it felt so good that they looked for other people to giggle at. Ruthie and Winfield saw them giggling and it looked such fun that they tried to do it too—but they couldn’t. The giggles wouldn’t come. But Connie and Rose of Sharon were breathless and red with stifling laughter before they could stop. It got so bad that they had only to look at each other to start over again.

The outskirts were wide spread. Tom drove slowly and carefully in the traffic, and then they were on 66—the great western road, and the sun was sinking on the line of the road. The windshield was bright with dust. Tom pulled his cap lower over his eyes, so low that he had to tilt his head back to see out at all. Granma slept on, the sun on her closed eyelids, and the veins on her temples were blue, and the little bright veins on her cheeks were wine-colored, and the old brown marks on her face turned darker.

Tom said, “We stay on this road right straight through.”

Ma had been silent for a long time. “Maybe we better fin’ a place to stop ’fore sunset,” she said. “I got to get some pork a-boilin’ an’ some bread made. That takes time.”

“Sure,” Tom agreed. “We ain’t gonna make this trip in one jump. Might’s well stretch ourselves.”

Oklahoma City to Bethany is fourteen miles.

Tom said, “I think we better stop ’fore the sun goes down. Al got to build that thing on the top. Sun’ll kill the folks up there.”

Ma had been dozing again. Her head jerked upright. “Got to get some supper a-cookin’,” she said. And she said, “Tom, your pa tol’ me about you crossin’ the State line——”

He was a long time answering. “Yeah? What about it, Ma?”

“Well, I’m scairt about it. It’ll make you kinda runnin’ away. Maybe they’ll catch ya.”

Tom held his hand over his eyes to protect himself from the lowering sun. “Don’t you worry,” he said. “I figgered her out. They’s lots a fellas out on parole an’ they’s more goin’ in all the time. If I get caught for anything else out west, well, then they got my pitcher an’ my prints in Washington. They’ll sen’ me back. But if I don’t do no crimes, they won’t give a damn.”

“Well, I’m a-scairt about it. Sometimes you do a crime, an’ you don’t even know it’s bad. Maybe they got crimes in California we don’t even know about. Maybe you gonna do somepin an’ it’s all right, an’ in California it ain’t all right.”

“Be jus’ the same if I wasn’t on parole,” he said. “On’y if I get caught I get a bigger jolt’n other folks. Now you quit a-worryin’,” he said. “We got plenty to worry about ’thout you figgerin’ out things to worry about.”

“I can’t he’p it,” she said. “Minute you cross the line you done a crime.”

“Well, tha’s better’n stickin’ aroun’ Sallisaw an’ starvin’ to death,” he said. “We better look out for a place to stop.”

They went through Bethany and out on the other side. In a ditch, where a culvert went under the road, an old touring car was pulled off the highway and a little tent was pitched beside it, and smoke came out of a stove pipe through the tent. Tom pointed ahead. “There’s some folks campin’. Looks like as good a place as we seen.” He slowed his motor and pulled to a stop beside the road. The hood of the old touring car was up, and a middle-aged man stood looking down at the motor. He wore a cheap straw sombrero, a blue shirt, and a black, spotted vest, and his jeans were stiff and shiny with dirt. His face was lean, the deep cheek-lines great furrows down his face so that his cheek bones and chin stood out sharply. He looked up at the Joad truck and his eyes were puzzled and angry.

Tom leaned out of the window. “Any law ’gainst folks stoppin’ here for the night?”

The man had seen only the truck. His eyes focused down on Tom. “I dunno,” he said. “We on’y stopped here ’cause we couldn’ git no further.”

“Any water here?”

The man pointed to a service-station shack about a quarter of a mile ahead. “They’s water there they’ll let ya take a bucket of.”

Tom hesitated. “Well, ya ’spose we could camp down ’longside?”

The lean man looked puzzled. “We don’t own it,” he said. “We on’y stopped here ’cause this goddamn ol’ trap wouldn’ go no further.”

Tom insisted. “Anyways you’re here an’ we ain’t. You got a right to say if you wan’ neighbors or not.”

The appeal to hospitality had an instant effect. The lean face broke into a smile. “Why, sure, come on off the road. Proud to have ya.” And he called, “Sairy, there’s some folks goin’ ta stay with us. Come on out an’ say how d’ya do. Sairy ain’t well,” he added. The tent flaps opened and a wizened woman came out—a face wrinkled as a dried leaf and eyes that seemed to flame in her face, black eyes that seemed to look out of a well of horror. She was small and shuddering. She held herself upright by a tent flap, and the hand holding onto the canvas was a skeleton covered with wrinkled skin.

When she spoke her voice had a beautiful low timbre, soft and modulated, and yet with ringing overtones. “Tell ’em welcome,” she said. “Tell ’em good an’ welcome.”

Tom drove off the road and brought his truck into the field and lined it up with the touring car. And people boiled down from the truck; Ruthie and Winfield too quickly, so that their legs gave way and they shrieked at the pins and needles that ran through their limbs. Ma went quickly to work. She untied the three-gallon bucket from the back of the truck and approached the squealing children. “Now you go git water—right down there. Ask nice. Say, ‘Please, kin we git a bucket a water?’ and say, ‘Thank you.’ An’ carry it back together helpin’, an’ don’t spill none. An’ if you see stick wood to burn, bring it on.” The children stamped away toward the shack.

By the tent a little embarrassment had set in, and social intercourse
had paused before it started. Pa said, “You ain’t Oklahomy folks?”

And Al, who stood near the car, looked at the license plates. “Kansas,” he said.

The lean man said, “Galena, or right about there. Wilson, Ivy Wilson.”

“We’re Joads,” said Pa. “We come from right near Sallisaw.”

“Well, we’re proud to meet you folks,” said Ivy Wilson. “Sairy, these is Joads.”

“I knowed you wasn’t Oklahomy folks. You talk queer, kinda—that ain’t no blame, you understan’.”

“Ever’body says words different,” said Ivy. “Arkansas folks says ’em different, and Oklahomy folks says ’em different. And we seen a lady from Massachusetts, an’ she said ’em differentest of all. Couldn’ hardly make out what she was sayin’.”

Noah and Uncle John and the preacher began to unload the truck. They helped Grampa down and sat him on the ground and he sat limply, staring ahead of him. “You sick, Grampa?” Noah asked.

“You goddamn right,” said Grampa weakly. “Sicker’n hell.”

Sairy Wilson walked slowly and carefully toward him. “How’d you like ta come in our tent?” she asked. “You kin lay down on our mattress an’ rest.”

He looked up at her, drawn by her soft voice. “Come on now,” she said. “You’ll git some rest. We’ll he’p you over.”

Without warning Grampa began to cry. His chin wavered and his old lips tightened over his mouth and he sobbed hoarsely. Ma rushed over to him and put her arms around him. She lifted him to his feet, her broad back straining, and she half lifted, half helped him into the tent.

Uncle John said, “He must be good an’ sick. He ain’t never done that before. Never seen him blubberin’ in my life.” He jumped up on the truck and tossed a mattress down.

Ma came out of the tent and went to Casy. “You been aroun’ sick people,” she said. “Grampa’s sick. Won’t you go take a look at him?”

Casy walked quickly to the tent and went inside. A double mattress was on the ground, the blankets spread neatly; and a little tin stove stood on iron legs, and the fire in it burned unevenly. A bucket of water, a wooden box of supplies, and a box for a table, that was all. The light of the setting sun came pinkly through the tent walls. Sairy Wilson knelt
on the ground, beside the mattress, and Grampa lay on his back. His eyes were open, staring upward, and his cheeks were flushed. He breathed heavily.

Casy took the skinny old wrist in his fingers. “Feeling kinda tired, Grampa?” he asked. The staring eyes moved toward his voice but did not find him. The lips practiced a speech but did not speak it. Casy felt the pulse and he dropped the wrist and put his hand on Grampa’s forehead. A struggle began in the old man’s body, his legs moved restlessly and his hands stirred. He said a whole string of blurred sounds that were not words, and his face was red under the spiky white whiskers.

Sairy Wilson spoke softly to Casy. “Know what’s wrong?”

He looked up at the wrinkled face and the burning eyes. “Do you?”

“I—think so.”

“What?” Casy asked.

“Might be wrong. I wouldn’ like to say.”

Casy looked back at the twitching red face. “Would you say—maybe—he’s workin’ up a stroke?”

“I’d say that,” said Sairy. “I seen it three times before.”

From outside came the sounds of camp-making, wood chopping, and the rattle of pans. Ma looked through the flaps. “Granma wants to come in. Would she better?”

The preacher said, “She’ll jus’ fret if she don’t.”

“Think he’s awright?” Ma asked.

Casy shook his head slowly. Ma looked quickly down at the struggling old face with blood pounding through it. She drew outside and her voice came through. “He’s awright, Granma. He’s jus’ takin’ a little res’.”

And Granma answered sulkily, “Well, I want ta see him. He’s a tricky devil. He wouldn’t never let ya know.” And she came scurrying through the flaps. She stood over the mattresses and looked down. “What’s the matter’th you?” she demanded of Grampa. And again his eyes reached toward her voice and his lips writhed. “He’s sulkin’,” said Granma. “I tol’ you he was tricky. He was gonna sneak away this mornin’ so he wouldn’t have to come. An’ then his hip got a-hurtin’,” she said disgustedly. “He’s jus’ sulkin’. I seen him when he wouldn’ talk to nobody before.”

Casy said gently, “He ain’t sulkin’, Granma. He’s sick.”

“Oh!” She looked down at the old man again. “Sick bad, you think?”

“Purty bad, Granma.”

For a moment she hesitated uncertainly. “Well,” she said quickly, “why ain’t you prayin’? You’re a preacher, ain’t you?”

Casy’s strong fingers blundered over to Grampa’s wrist and clasped around it. “I tol’ you, Granma. I ain’t a preacher no more.”

“Pray anyway,” she ordered. “You know all the stuff by heart.”

“I can’t,” said Casy. “I don’ know what to pray for or who to pray to.”

Granma’s eyes wandered away and came to rest on Sairy. “He won’t pray,” she said. “D’I ever tell ya how Ruthie prayed when she was a little skinner? Says, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. An’ when she got there the cupboard was bare, an’ so the poor dog got none. Amen.’ That’s jus’ what she done.” The shadow of someone walking between the tent and the sun crossed the canvas.

Grampa seemed to be struggling; all his muscles twitched. And suddenly he jarred as though under a heavy blow. He lay still and his breath was stopped. Casy looked down at the old man’s face and saw that it was turning a blackish purple. Sairy touched Casy’s shoulder. She whispered, “His tongue, his tongue, his tongue.”

Casy nodded. “Get in front a Granma.” He pried the tight jaws apart and reached into the old man’s throat for the tongue. And as he lifted it clear, a rattling breath came out, and a sobbing breath was indrawn. Casy found a stick on the ground and held down the tongue with it, and the uneven breath rattled in and out.

Granma hopped about like a chicken. “Pray,” she said. “Pray, you. Pray, I tell ya.” Sairy tried to hold her back. “Pray, goddamn you!” Granma cried.

Casy looked up at her for a moment. The rasping breath came louder and more unevenly. “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name——”

“Glory!” shouted Granma.

“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done—on earth—as it is in Heaven.”

“Amen.”

A long gasping sigh came from the open mouth, and then a crying release of air.

“Give us this day—our daily bread—and forgive us —” The breathing had stopped. Casy looked down into Grampa’s eyes and they were clear and deep and penetrating, and there was a knowing serene look in them.

“Hallelujah!” said Granma. “Go on.”

“Amen,” said Casy.

Granma was still then. And outside the tent all the noise had stopped. A car whished by on the highway. Casy still knelt on the floor beside the mattress. The people outside were listening, standing quietly intent on the sounds of dying. Sairy took Granma by the arm and led her outside, and Granma moved with dignity and held her head high. She walked for the family and held her head straight for the family. Sairy took her to a mattress lying on the ground and sat her down on it. And Granma looked straight ahead, proudly, for she was on show now. The tent was still, and at last Casy spread the tent flaps with his hands and stepped out.