The Grapes of Wrath (41 page)

Uncle John called, “You all right?”

It was a moment before she answered. “All right. Guess I dropped off to sleep.” And after a time Granma was still, and Ma lay rigid beside her.

The night hours passed, and the dark was in against the truck. Sometimes cars passed them, going west and away; and sometimes great trucks came up out of the west and rumbled eastward. And the stars flowed down in a slow cascade over the western horizon. It was near midnight when they neared Daggett, where the inspection station is.
The road was floodlighted there, and a sign illuminated, “KEEP RIGHT AND STOP.” The officers loafed in the office, but they came out and stood under the long covered shed when Tom pulled in. One officer put down the license number and raised the hood.

Tom asked, “What’s this here?”

“Agricultural inspection. We got to look over your stuff. Got any vegetables or seeds?”

“No,” said Tom.

“Well, we got to look over your stuff. You got to unload.”

Now Ma climbed heavily down from the truck. Her face was swollen and her eyes were hard. “Look, mister. We got a sick ol’ lady. We got to get her to a doctor. We can’t wait.” She seemed to fight with hysteria. “You can’t make us wait.”

“Yeah? Well, we got to look you over.”

“I swear we ain’t got any thing!” Ma cried. “I swear it. An’ Granma’s awful sick.”

“You don’t look so good yourself,” the officer said.

Ma pulled herself up the back of the truck, hoisted herself with huge strength. “Look,” she said.

The officer shot a flashlight beam up on the old shrunken face. “By God, she is,” he said. “You swear you got no seeds or fruits or vegetables, no corn, no oranges?”

“No, no. I swear it!”

“Then go ahead. You can get a doctor in Barstow. That’s only eight miles. Go on ahead.”

Tom climbed in and drove on.

The officer turned to his companion. “I couldn’ hold ’em.”

“Maybe it was a bluff,” said the other.

“Oh, Jesus, no! You should of seen that ol’ woman’s face. That wasn’t no bluff.”

Tom increased his speed to Barstow, and in the little town he stopped, got out, and walked around the truck. Ma leaned out. “It’s awright,” she said. “I didn’ wanta stop there, fear we wouldn’ get acrost.”

“Yeah! But how’s Granma?”

“She’s awright—awright. Drive on. We got to get acrost.” Tom shook his head and walked back.

“Al,” he said, “I’m gonna fill her up, an’ then you drive some.” He pulled to an all-night gas station and filled the tank and the radiator, and filled the crank case. Then Al slipped under the wheel and Tom took the outside, with Pa in the middle. They drove away into the darkness and the little hills near Barstow were behind them.

Tom said, “I don’ know what’s got into Ma. She’s flighty as a dog with a flea in his ear. Wouldn’ a took long to look over the stuff. An’ she says Granma’s sick; an’ now she says Granma’s awright. I can’t figger her out. She ain’t right. S’pose she wore her brains out on the trip.”

Pa said, “Ma’s almost like she was when she was a girl. She was a wild one then. She wasn’ scairt of nothin’. I thought havin’ all the kids an’ workin’ took it out a her, but I guess it ain’t. Christ! When she got that jack handle back there, I tell you I wouldn’ wanna be the fella took it away from her.”

“I dunno what’s got into her,” Tom said. “Maybe she’s jus’ tar’d out.”

Al said, “I won’t be doin’ no weepin’ an’ a-moanin’ to get through. I got this goddamn car on my soul.”

Tom said, “Well, you done a damn good job a pickin’. We ain’t had hardly no trouble with her at all.”

All night they bored through the hot darkness, and jack-rabbits scuttled into the lights and dashed away in long jolting leaps. And the dawn came up behind them when the lights of Mojave were ahead. And the dawn showed high mountains to the west. They filled with water and oil at Mojave and crawled into the mountains, and the dawn was about them.

Tom said, “Jesus, the desert’s past! Pa, Al, for Christ sakes! The desert’s past!”

“I’m too goddamn tired to care,” said Al.

“Want me to drive?”

“No, wait awhile.”

They drove through Tehachapi in the morning glow, and the sun came up behind them, and then—suddenly they saw the great valley below them. Al jammed on the brake and stopped in the middle of the road, and, “Jesus Christ! Look!” he said. The vineyards, the orchards, the great flat valley, green and beautiful, the trees set in rows, and the farm houses.

And Pa said, “God Almighty!” The distant cities, the little towns in the orchard land, and the morning sun, golden on the valley. A car honked behind them. Al pulled to the side of the road and parked.

“I want ta look at her.” The grain fields golden in the morning, and the willow lines, the eucalyptus trees in rows.

Pa sighed, “I never knowed they was anything like her.” The peach trees and the walnut groves, and the dark green patches of oranges. And red roofs among the trees, and barns—rich barns. Al got out and stretched his legs.

He called, “Ma—come look. We’re there!”

Ruthie and Winfield scrambled down from the car, and then they stood, silent and awestruck, embarrassed before the great valley. The distance was thinned with haze, and the land grew softer and softer in the distance. A windmill flashed in the sun, and its turning blades were like a little heliograph, far away. Ruthie and Winfield looked at it, and Ruthie whispered, “It’s California.”

Winfield moved his lips silently over the syllables. “There’s fruit,” he said aloud.

Casy and Uncle John, Connie and Rose of Sharon climbed down. And they stood silently. Rose of Sharon had started to brush her hair back, when she caught sight of the valley and her hand dropped slowly to her side.

Tom said, “Where’s Ma? I want Ma to see it. Look, Ma! Come here, Ma.” Ma was climbing slowly, stiffly, down the back board. Tom looked at her. “My God, Ma, you sick?” Her face was stiff and putty-like, and her eyes seemed to have sunk deep into her head, and the rims were red with weariness. Her feet touched the ground and she braced herself by holding the truck-side.

Her voice was a croak. “Ya say we’re acrost?”

Tom pointed to the great valley. “Look!”

She turned her head, and her mouth opened a little. Her fingers went to her throat and gathered a little pinch of skin and twisted gently. “Thank God!” she said. “The fambly’s here.” Her knees buckled and she sat down on the running board.

“You sick, Ma?”

“No, jus’ tar’d.”

“Didn’ you get no sleep?”

“No.”

“Was Granma bad?”

Ma looked down at her hands, lying together like tired lovers in her lap. “I wisht I could wait an’ not tell you. I wisht it could be all—nice.”

Pa said, “Then Granma’s bad.”

Ma raised her eyes and looked over the valley. “Granma’s dead.”

They looked at her, all of them, and Pa asked, “When?”

“Before they stopped us las’ night.”

“So that’s why you didn’ want ’em to look.”

“I was afraid we wouldn’ get acrost,” she said. “I tol’ Granma we couldn’ he’p her. The fambly had ta get acrost. I tol’ her, tol’ her when she was a-dyin’. We couldn’ stop in the desert. There was the young ones—an’ Rosasharn’s baby. I tol’ her.” She put up her hands and covered her face for a moment. “She can get buried in a nice green place,” Ma said softly. “Trees aroun’ an’ a nice place. She got to lay her head down in California.”

The family looked at Ma with a little terror at her strength.

Tom said, “Jesus Christ! You layin’ there with her all night long!”

“The fambly hadda get acrost,” Ma said miserably.

Tom moved close to put his hand on her shoulder.

“Don’ touch me,” she said. “I’ll hol’ up if you don’ touch me. That’d get me.”

Pa said, “We got to go on now. We got to go on down.”

Ma looked up at him. “Can—can I set up front? I don’ wanna go back there no more—I’m tar’d. I’m awful tar’d.”

They climbed back on the load, and they avoided the long stiff figure covered and tucked in a comforter, even the head covered and tucked. They moved to their places and tried to keep their eyes from it—from the hump on the comfort that would be the nose, and the steep cliff that would be the jut of the chin. They tried to keep their eyes away, and they could not. Ruthie and Winfield, crowded in a forward corner as far away from the body as they could get, stared at the tucked figure.

And Ruthie whispered, “Tha’s Granma, an’ she’s dead.”

Winfield nodded solemnly. “She ain’t breathin’ at all. She’s awful dead.”

And Rose of Sharon said softly to Connie, “She was a-dyin’ right when we——”

“How’d we know?” he reassured her.

Al climbed on the load to make room for Ma in the seat. And Al swaggered a little because he was sorry. He plumped down beside Casy and Uncle John. “Well, she was ol’. Guess her time was up,” Al said. “Ever’body got to die.” Casy and Uncle John turned eyes expressionlessly on him and looked at him as though he were a curious talking bush. “Well, ain’t they?” he demanded. And the eyes looked away, leaving Al sullen and shaken.

Casy said in wonder, “All night long, an’ she was alone.” And he said, “John, there’s a woman so great with love—she scares me. Makes me afraid an’ mean.”

John asked, “Was it a sin? Is they any part of it you might call a sin?”

Casy turned on him in astonishment, “A sin? No, there ain’t no part of it that’s a sin.”

“I ain’t never done nothin’ that wasn’t part sin,” said John, and he looked at the long wrapped body.

Tom and Ma and Pa got into the front seat. Tom let the truck roll and started on compression. And the heavy truck moved, snorting and jerking and popping down the hill. The sun was behind them, and the valley golden and green before them. Ma shook her head slowly from side to side. “It’s purty,” she said. “I wisht they could of saw it.”

“I wisht so too,” said Pa.

Tom patted the steering wheel under his hand. “They was too old,” he said. “They wouldn’t of saw nothin’ that’s here. Grampa would a been a-seein’ the Injuns an’ the prairie country when he was a young fella. An’ Granma would a remembered an’ seen the first home she lived in. They was too ol’. Who’s really seein’ it is Ruthie an’ Winfiel’.”

Pa said, “Here’s Tommy talkin’ like a growed-up man, talkin’ like a preacher almos’.”

And Ma smiled sadly. “He is. Tommy’s growed way up—way up so I can’t get aholt of ’im sometimes.”

They popped down the mountain, twisting and looping, losing the valley sometimes, and then finding it again. And the hot breath of the valley came up to them, with hot green smells on it, and with resinous
sage and tarweed smells. The crickets crackled along the road. A rattlesnake crawled across the road and Tom hit it and broke it and left it squirming.

Tom said, “I guess we got to go to the coroner, wherever he is. We got to get her buried decent. How much money might be lef’, Pa?”

“’Bout forty dollars,” said Pa.

Tom laughed. “Jesus, are we gonna start clean! We sure ain’t bringin’ nothin’ with us.” He chuckled a moment, and then his face straightened quickly. He pulled the visor of his cap down low over his eyes. And the truck rolled down the mountain into the great valley.

Once California belonged to Mexico and its land to Mexicans; and a horde of tattered feverish Americans poured in. And such was their hunger for land that they took the land—stole Sutter’s land, Guerrero’s land, took the grants and broke them up and growled and quarreled over them, those frantic hungry men; and they guarded with guns the land they had stolen. They put up houses and barns, they turned the earth and planted crops. And these things were possession, and possession was ownership.

The Mexicans were weak and fed. They could not resist, because they wanted nothing in the world as frantically as the Americans wanted land.

Then, with time, the squatters were no longer squatters, but owners; and their children grew up and had children on the land. And the hunger was gone from them, the feral hunger, the gnawing, tearing hunger for land, for water and earth and the good sky over it, for the green thrusting grass, for the swelling roots. They had these things so completely that they did not know about them any more. They had no more the stomach-tearing lust for a rich acre and a shining blade to plow it, for seed and a windmill beating its wings in the air. They arose in the dark no more to hear the sleepy birds’ first chittering, and the morning wind around the house while they waited for the first light to go out to the dear acres. These things were lost, and crops were reckoned in dollars, and land was valued by principal plus interest, and crops were bought and sold before they were planted. Then crop failure, drought, and flood were no longer little deaths within life, but simple losses of money. And all their love was thinned with money, and all their fierceness dribbled away in interest until they were no longer
farmers at all, but little shopkeepers of crops, little manufacturers who must sell before they can make. Then those farmers who were not good shopkeepers lost their land to good shopkeepers. No matter how clever, how loving a man might be with earth and growing things, he could not survive if he were not also a good shopkeeper. And as time went on, the business men had the farms, and the farms grew larger, but there were fewer of them.

Now farming became industry, and the owners followed Rome, although they did not know it. They imported slaves, although they did not call them slaves: Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos. They live on rice and beans, the business men said. They don’t need much. They wouldn’t know what to do with good wages. Why, look how they live. Why, look what they eat. And if they get funny—deport them.

And all the time the farms grew larger and the owners fewer. And there were pitifully few farmers on the land any more. And the imported serfs were beaten and frightened and starved until some went home again, and some grew fierce and were killed or driven from the country. And the farms grew larger and the owners fewer.

And the crops changed. Fruit trees took the place of grain fields, and vegetables to feed the world spread out on the bottoms: lettuce, cauliflower, artichokes, potatoes—stoop crops. A man may stand to use a scythe, a plow, a pitchfork; but he must crawl like a bug between the rows of lettuce, he must bend his back and pull his long bag between the cotton rows, he must go on his knees like a penitent across a cauliflower patch.