The proprietor leaned forward in his chair, the better to see the ragged dirty man. He scratched among the gray hairs on his chest. He said coldly, “You sure you ain’t one of these here troublemakers? You sure you ain’t a labor faker?”
And the ragged man cried, “I swear to God I ain’t!”
“They’s plenty of ’em,” the proprietor said. “Goin’ aroun’ stirrin’ up trouble. Gettin’ folks mad. Chiselin’ in. They’s plenty of ’em. Time’s gonna come when we string ’em all up, all them troublemakers. We gonna run ’em outa the country. Man wants to work, O.K. If he don’t- the hell with him. We ain’t gonna let him stir up trouble.”
The ragged man drew himself up. “I tried to tell you folks,” he said. “Somepin it took me a year to find out. Took two kids dead, took my wife dead to show me. But I can’t tell you. I should of knew that. Nobody couldn’t tell me, neither. I can’t tell ya about them little fellas layin’ in the tent with their bellies puffed out an’ jus’ skin on their bones, an’ shiverin’ an’ whinin’ like pups, an’ me runnin’ aroun’ tryin’ to get work- not for money, not for wages!” he shouted. “Jesus Christ, jus’ for a cup a flour an’ a spoon a lard. An’ then the coroner come. ‘Them children died a heart failure,’ he said. Put it on his paper. Shiverin’, they was, an’ their bellies stuck out like a pig bladder.”
The circle was quiet, and mouths were open a little. The men breathed shallowly, and watched.
The ragged man looked around at the circle, and then he turned and walked quickly away into the darkness. The dark swallowed him, but his dragging footsteps could be heard a long time after he had gone, footsteps along the road; and a car came by on the highway, and its lights showed the ragged man shuffling along the road, his head hanging down and his hands in the black coat pockets.
The men were uneasy. One said, “Well- gettin’ late. Got to get to sleep.”
The proprietor said, “Prob’ly shif’less. They’s so goddamn many shif’less fellas on the road now.” And then he was quiet. And he tipped his chair back against the wall again and fingered his throat.
Tom said, “Guess I’ll go see Ma for a minute, an’ then we’ll shove along a piece.” The Joad men moved away.
Pa said, “S’pose he’s tellin’ the truth- that fella?”
The preacher answered, “He’s tellin’ the truth, awright. The truth for him. He wasn’t makin’ nothin’ up.”
“How about us?” Tom demanded. “Is that the truth for us?”
“I don’ know,” said Casy.
“I don’ know,” said Pa.
They walked to the tent, tarpaulin spread over a rope. And it was dark inside, and quiet. When they came near, a grayish mass stirred near the door and arose to person height. Ma came out to meet them.
“All sleepin’,” she said. “Granma finally dozed off.” Then she saw it was Tom. “How’d you get here?” she demanded anxiously. “You ain’t had no trouble?”
“Got her fixed,” said Tom. “We’re ready to go when the rest is.”
“Thank the dear God for that,” Ma said. “I’m just a-twitterin’ to go on. Wanta get where it’s rich an’ green. Wanta get there quick.”
Pa cleared his throat. “Fella was jus’ sayin’-”
Tom grabbed his arm and yanked it. “Funny what he says,” Tom said. “Says they’s lots a folks on the way.”
Ma peered through the darkness at them. Inside the tent Ruthie coughed and snorted in her sleep. “I washed ’em up,” Ma said. “Fust water we got enough of to give ’em a goin’-over. Lef’ the buckets out for you fellas to wash too. Can’t keep nothin’ clean on the road.”
“Ever’body in?” Pa asked.
“All but Connie an’ Rosasharn. They went off to sleep in the open. Says it’s too warm in under cover.”
Pa observed querulously, “That Rosasharn is gettin’ awful scary an’ nimsy-mimsy.”
“It’s her first,” said Ma. “Her an’ Connie sets a lot a store by it. You done the same thing.”
“We’ll go now,” Tom said. “Pull off the road a little piece ahead. Watch out for us ef we don’t see you. Be off right-han’ side.”
“Al’s stayin’?”
“Yeah. Leave Uncle John come with us. ‘Night, Ma.”
They walked away through the sleeping camp. In front of one tent a low fitful fire burned and a woman watched a kettle that cooked early breakfast. The smell of the cooking beans was strong and fine.
“Like to have a plate a them,” Tom said politely as they went by.
The woman smiled. “They ain’t done or you’d be welcome,” she said. “Come aroun’ in the daybreak.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Tom said. He and Casy and Uncle John walked by the porch. The proprietor still sat in his chair, and the lantern hissed and flared. He turned his head as the three went by. “Ya runnin’ outa gas,” Tom said.
“Well, time to close up anyways.”
“No more half-bucks rollin’ down the road, I guess,” Tom said.
The chair legs hit the floor. “Don’t you go a-sassin’ me. I ‘member you. You’re one of these here troublemakers.”
“Damn right,” said Tom. “I’m bolshevisky.”
“They’s too damn many of you kinda guys aroun’.”
Tom laughed as they went out the gate and climbed into the Dodge. He picked up a clod and threw it at the light. They heard it hit the house and saw the proprietor spring to his feet and peer into the darkness. Tom started the car and pulled into the road. And he listened closely to the motor as it turned over, listened for knocks. The road spread dimly under the weak lights of the car.
CHAPTER 17
THE CARS OF THE migrant people crawled out of the side roads onto the great cross-country highway, and they took the migrant way to the West. In the daylight they scuttled like bugs to the westward; and as the dark caught them, they clustered like bugs near to shelter and to water. And because they were lonely and perplexed, because they had all come from a place of sadness and worry and defeat, and because they were all going to a new mysterious place, they huddled together; they talked together; they shared their lives, their food, and the things they hoped for in the new country. Thus it might be that one family camped near a spring, and another camped for the spring and for company, and a third because two families had pioneered the place and found it good. And when the sun went down, perhaps twenty families and twenty cars were there.
In the evening a strange thing happened: the twenty families became one family, the children were the children of all. The loss of home became one loss, and the golden time in the West was one dream. And it might be that a sick child threw despair into the hearts of twenty families, of a hundred people; that a birth there in a tent kept a hundred people quiet and awestruck through the night and filled a hundred people with the birth-joy in the morning. A family which the night before had been lost and fearful might search its goods to find a present for a new baby. In the evening, sitting about the fires, the twenty were one. They grew to be units of the camps, units of the evenings and the nights. A guitar unwrapped from a blanket and tuned- and the songs, which were all of the people, were sung in the nights. Men sang the words, and women hummed the tunes.
Every night a world created, complete with furniture- friends made and enemies established; a world complete with braggarts and with cowards, with quiet men, with humble men, with kindly men. Every night relationships that make a world, established; and every morning the world torn down like a circus.
At first the families were timid in the building and tumbling worlds, but gradually the technique of building worlds became their technique. Then leaders emerged, then laws were made, then codes came into being. And as the worlds moved westward they were more complete and better furnished, for their builders were more experienced in building them.
The families learned what rights must be observed- the right of privacy in the tent; the right to keep the past black hidden in the heart; the right to talk and to listen; the right to refuse help or to accept, to offer help or to decline it; the right of son to court and daughter to be courted; the right of the hungry to be fed; the rights of the pregnant and the sick to transcend all other rights.
And the families learned, although no one told them, what rights are monstrous and must be destroyed: the right to intrude upon privacy, the right to be noisy while the camp slept, the right of seduction or rape, the right of adultery and theft and murder. These rights were crushed, because the little worlds could not exist for even a night with such rights alive.