“Shucks!” Ruthie yawned. “I wisht it had a been a baby.”
Mrs. Wainwright sat down beside Ma and took the cardboard from her and fanned the air. Ma folded her hands in her lap, and her tired eyes never left the face of Rose of Sharon, sleeping in exhaustion. “Come on,” Mrs. Wainwright said. “Jus’ lay down. You’ll be right beside her. Why, you’d wake up if she took a deep breath, even.”
“Awright, I will.” Ma stretched out on the mattress beside the sleeping girl. And Mrs. Wainwright sat on the floor and kept watch.
Pa and Al and Uncle John sat in the car doorway and watched the steely dawn come. The rain had stopped, but the sky was deep and solid with cloud. As the light came, it was reflected on the water. The men could see the current of the stream, slipping swiftly down, bearing black branches of trees, boxes, boards. The water swirled into the flat where the boxcars stood. There was no sign of the embankment left. On the flat the current stopped. The edges of the flood were lined with yellow foam. Pa leaned out the door and placed a twig on the cat-walk, just above the water line. The men watched the water slowly climb to it, lift it gently and float it away. Pa placed another twig an inch above the water and settled back to watch.
“Think it’ll come inside the car?” Al asked.
“Can’t tell. They’s a hell of a lot of water got to come down from the hills yet. Can’t tell. Might start up to rain again.”
Al said, “I been a-thinkin’. If she come in, ever’thing’ll get soaked.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, she won’t come up more’n three-four feet in the car ’cause she’ll go over the highway an’ spread out first.”
“How you know?” Pa asked.
“I took a sight on her, off the end of the car.” He held his hand. “‘Bout this far up she’ll come.”
“Awright,” Pa said. “What about it? We won’t be here.”
“We got to be here. Truck’s here. Take a week to get the water out of her when the flood goes down.”
“Well- what’s your idear?”
“We can tear out the side-boards of the truck an’ build a kinda platform in here to pile our stuff an’ to set up on.”
“Yeah? How’ll we cook- how’ll we eat?”
“Well, it’ll keep our stuff dry.”
The light grew stronger outside, a gray metallic light. The second little stick floated away from the cat-walk. Pa placed another one higher up. “Sure climbin’,” he said. “I guess we better do that.”
Ma turned restlessly in her sleep. Her eyes started wide open. She cried sharply in warning, “Tom! Oh, Tom! Tom!”
Mrs. Wainwright spoke soothingly. The eyes flicked closed again and Ma squirmed under her dream. Mrs. Wainwright got up and walked to the doorway. “Hey!” she said softly. “We ain’t gonna git out soon.” She pointed to the corner of the car where the apple box was. “That ain’t doin’ no good. Jus’ cause trouble and sorra. Couldn’ you fellas kinda- take it out an’ bury it?”
The men were silent. Pa said at last, “Guess you’re right. Jus’ cause sorra. ‘Gainst the law to bury it.”
“They’s lots a things ‘gainst the law that we can’t he’p doin’.”
“Yeah.”
Al said, “We oughta git them truck sides tore off ‘fore the water comes up much more.”
Pa turned to Uncle John. “Will you take an’ bury it while Al an’ me git that lumber in?”
Uncle John said sullenly, “Why do I got to do it? Why don’ you fellas? I don’ like it.” And then, “Sure. I’ll do it. Sure, I will. Come on, give it to me.” His voice began to rise. “Come on! Give it to me.”
“Don’ wake ’em up,” Mrs. Wainwright said. She brought the apple box to the doorway and straightened the sack decently over it.
“Shovel’s standin’ right behin’ you,” Pa said.
Uncle John took the shovel in one hand. He slipped out the doorway into the slowly moving water, and it rose nearly to his waist before he struck bottom. He turned and settled the apple box under his other arm.
Pa said, “Come on, Al. Le’s git that lumber in.”
In the gray dawn light Uncle John waded around the end of the car, past the Joad truck; and he climbed the slippery bank to the highway. He walked down the highway, past the boxcar flat, until he came to a place where the boiling stream ran close to the road, where the willows grew along the road side. He put his shovel down, and holding the box in front of him, he edged through the brush until he came to the edge of the swift stream. For a time he stood watching it swirl by, leaving its yellow foam among the willow stems. He held the apple box against his chest. And then he leaned over and set the box in the stream and steadied it with his hand. He said fiercely, “Go down an’ tell ’em. Go down in the street an’ rot an’ tell ’em that way. That’s the way you can talk. Don’ even know if you was a boy or a girl. Ain’t gonna find out. Go on down now, an’ lay in the street. Maybe they’ll know then.” He guided the box gently out into the current and let it go. It settled low in the water, edged sideways, whirled around, and turned slowly over. The sack floated away, and the box, caught in the swift water, floated quickly away, out of sight, behind the brush. Uncle John grabbed the shovel and went rapidly back to the boxcars. He sloshed down into the water and waded to the truck, where Pa and Al were working, taking down the one-by-six planks.
Pa looked over at him. “Get it done?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, look,” Pa said. “If you’ll he’p Al, I’ll go down the store an’ get some stuff to eat.”
“Get some bacon,” Al said. “I need some meat.”
“I will,” Pa said. He jumped down from the truck and Uncle John took his place.
When they pushed the planks into the car door, Ma awakened and sat up. “What you doin’?”
“Gonna build up a place to keep outa the wet.”
“Why?” Ma asked. “It’s dry in here.”
“Ain’t gonna be. Water’s comin’ up.”
Ma struggled up to her feet and went to the door. “We got to git outa here.”
“Can’t,” Al said. “All our stuff’s here. Truck’s here. Ever’thing we got.”
“Where’s Pa?”
“Gone to get stuff for breakfas’.”
Ma looked down at the water. It was only six inches down from the floor by now. She went back to the mattress and looked at Rose of Sharon. The girl stared back at her.
“How you feel?” Ma asked.
“Tar’d. Jus’ tar’d out.”
“Gonna get some breakfas’ into you.”
“I ain’t hungry.”
Mrs. Wainwright moved beside Ma. “She looks all right. Come through it fine.”
Rose of Sharon’s eyes questioned Ma, and Ma tried to avoid the question. Mrs. Wainwright walked to the stove.
“Ma?”
“Yeah? What you want?”
“Is- it- all right?”
Ma gave up the attempt. She kneeled down on the mattress. “You can have more,” she said. “We done ever’thing we knowed.”
Rose of Sharon struggled and pushed herself up. “Ma!”
“You couldn’ he’p it.”
The girl lay back again, and covered her eyes with her arms. Ruthie crept close and looked down in awe. She whispered harshly, “She sick, Ma? She gonna die?”
“‘Course not. She’s gonna be awright. Awright.”
Pa came in with his armload of packages. “How is she?”
“Awright,” Ma said. “She’s gonna be awright.”
Ruthie reported to Winfield. “She ain’t gonna die. Ma says so.”
And Winfield, picking his teeth with a splinter in a very adult manner, said, “I knowed it all the time.”
“How’d you know?”
“I won’t tell,” said Winfield, and he spat out a piece of the splinter.
Ma built the fire up with the last twigs and cooked the bacon and made gravy. Pa had brought store bread. Ma scowled when she saw it. “We got any money lef’?”
“Nope,” said Pa. “But we was so hungry.”
“An’ you got store bread,” Ma said accusingly.
“Well, we was awful hungry. Worked all night long.”
Ma sighed. “Now what we gonna do?”
As they ate, the water crept up and up. Al gulped his food and he and Pa built the platform. Five feet wide, six feet long, four feet above the floor. And the water crept to the edge of the doorway, seemed to hesitate a long time, and then moved slowly inward over the floor. And outside the rain began again, as it had before, big heavy drops splashing on the water, pounding hollowly on the roof.
Al said, “Come on now, let’s get the mattresses up. Let’s put the blankets up, so they don’t git wet.” They piled their possessions up on the platform, and the water crept over the floor. Pa and Ma, Al and Uncle John, each at a corner, lifted Rose of Sharon’s mattress, with the girl on it, and put it on top of the pile.