And next there was a huge tent, ragged, torn in strips and the tears mended with pieces of wire. The flaps were up, and inside four wide mattresses lay on the ground. A clothes line strung along the side bore pink cotton dresses and several pairs of overalls. There were forty tents and shacks, and beside each habitation some kind of automobile. Far down the line a few children stood and stared at the newly arrived truck, and they moved toward it, little boys in overalls and bare feet, their hair gray with dust.
Tom stopped the truck and looked at Pa. “She ain’t very purty,” he said. “Want to go somewheres else?”
“Can’t go nowhere else till we know where we’re at,” Pa said. “We got to ast about work.”
Tom opened the door and stepped out. The family climbed down from the load and looked curiously at the camp. Ruthie and Winfield, from the habit of the road, took down the bucket and walked toward the willows, where there would be water; and the line of children parted for them and closed after them.
The flaps of the first shack parted and a woman looked out. Her gray hair was braided, and she wore a dirty, flowered Mother Hubbard. Her face was wizened and dull, deep gray pouches under blank eyes, and a mouth slack and loose.
Pa said, “Can we jus’ pull up anywheres an’ camp?”
The head was withdrawn inside the shack. For a moment there was quiet and then the flaps were pushed aside and a bearded man in shirt sleeves stepped out. The woman looked out after him, but she did not come into the open.
The bearded man said, “Howdy, folks,” and his restless dark eyes jumped to each member of the family, and from them to the truck to the equipment.
Pa said, “I jus’ ast your woman if it’s all right to set our stuff anywheres.”
The bearded man looked at Pa intently, as though he had said something very wise that needed thought. “Set down anywheres, here in this place?” he asked.
“Sure. Anybody own this place, that we got to see ‘fore we can camp?”
The bearded man squinted one eye nearly closed and studied Pa. “You wanta camp here?”
Pa’s irritation arose. The gray woman peered out of the burlap shack. “What you think I’m a-sayin’?” Pa said.
“Well, if you wanta camp here, why don’t ya? I ain’t a-stoppin’ you.”
Tom laughed. “He got it.”
Pa gathered his temper. “I jus’ wanted to know does anybody own it? Do we got to pay?”
The bearded man thrust out his jaw. “Who owns it?” he demanded.
Pa turned away. “The hell with it,” he said. The woman’s head popped back in the tent.
The bearded man stepped forward menacingly. “Who owns it?” he demanded. “Who’s gonna kick us outa here? You tell me.”
Tom stepped in front of Pa. “You better go take a good long sleep,” he said. The bearded man dropped his mouth open and put a dirty finger against his lower gums. For a moment he continued to look wisely, speculatively at Tom, and then he turned on his heels and popped into the shack after the gray woman.
Tom turned on Pa. “What the hell was that?” he asked.
Pa shrugged his shoulders. He was looking across the camp. In front of a tent stood an old Buick, and the head was off. A young man was grinding the valves, and as he twisted back and forth, back and forth, on the tool, he looked up at the Joad truck. They could see that he was laughing to himself. When the bearded man was gone, the young man left his work and sauntered over.
“H’are ya?” he said, and his blue eyes were shiny with amusement. “I seen you just met the Mayor.”
“What the hell’s the matter with ‘im?” Tom demanded.
The young man chuckled. “He’s jus’ nuts like you an’ me. Maybe he’s a little nutser’n me, I don’ know.”
Pa said, “I jus’ ast him if we could camp here.”
The young man wiped his greasy hands on his trousers. “Sure. Why not? You folks jus’ come acrost?”
“Yeah,” said Tom. “Jus’ got in this mornin’.”
“Never been in Hooverville before?”
“Where’s Hooverville?”
“This here’s her.”
“Oh!” said Tom. “We jus’ got in.”
Winfield and Ruthie came back, carrying a bucket of water between them.
Ma said, “Le’s get the camp up. I’m tuckered out. Maybe we can all rest.” Pa and Uncle John climbed up on the truck to unload the canvas and the beds.
Tom sauntered to the young man, and walked beside him back to the car he had been working on. The valve-grinding brace lay on the exposed block, and a little yellow can of valve-grinding compound was wedged on top of the vacuum tank. Tom asked, “What the hell was the matter’th that ol’ fella with the beard?”
The young man picked up his brace and went to work, twisting back and forth, grinding valve against valve seat. “The Mayor? Chris’ knows. I guess maybe he’s bull-simple.”
“What’s ‘bull-simple’?”
“I guess cops push ‘im aroun’ so much he’s still spinning.”
Tom asked, “Why would they push a fella like that aroun’?”.
The young man stopped his work and looked in Tom’s eyes. “Chris’ knows,” he said. “You jus’ come. Maybe you can figger her out. Some fellas says one thing, an’ some says another thing. But you jus’ camp in one place a little while, an’ you see how quick a deputy sheriff shoves you along.” He lifted a valve and smeared compound on the seat.
“But what the hell for?”
“I tell ya I don’ know. Some says they don’ want us to vote; keep us movin’ so we can’t vote. An’ some says so we can’t get on relief. An’ some says if we set in one place we’d get organized. I don’ know why. I on’y know we get rode all the time. You wait, you’ll see.”
“We ain’t no bums,” Tom insisted. “We’re lookin’ for work. We’ll take any kind a work.”
The young man paused in fitting the brace to the valve slot. He looked in amazement at Tom. “Lookin’ for work?” he said. “So you’re lookin’ for work. What ya think ever’body else is lookin’ for? Di’monds? What you think I wore my ass down to a nub lookin’ for?” He twisted the brace back and forth.
Tom looked about at the grimy tents, the junk equipment, at the old cars, the lumpy mattresses out in the sun, at the blackened cans on fire-blackened holes where the people cooked. He asked quietly, “Ain’t they no work?”
“I don’ know. Mus’ be. Ain’t no crop right here now. Grapes to pick later, an’ cotton to pick later. We’re a-movin’ on, soon’s I get these here valves groun’. Me an’ my wife an’ my kids. We heard they was work up north. We’re shovin’ north, up aroun’ Salinas.”
Tom saw Uncle John and Pa and the preacher hoisting the tarpaulin on the tent poles and Ma on her knees inside, brushing off the mattresses on the ground. A circle of quiet children stood to watch the new family get settled, quiet children with bare feet and dirty faces. Tom said, “Back home some fellas come through with han’bills- orange ones. Says they need lots a people out here to work the crops.”
The young man laughed. “They say they’s three hunderd thousan’ us folks here, an’ I bet ever’ dam’ fam’ly seen them han’bills.”
“Yeah, but if they don’ need folks, what’d they go to the trouble puttin’ them things out for?”
“Use your head, why don’cha?”
“Yeah, but I wanta know.”
“Look,” the young man said. “S’pose you got a job a work, an’ there’s jus’ one fella wants the job. You got to pay ‘im what he asts. But s’pose they’s a hunderd men.” He put down his tool. His eyes hardened and his voice sharpened. “S’pose they’s a hunderd men wants that job. S’pose them men got kids, an’ them kids is hungry. S’pose a lousy dime’ll buy a box a mush for them kids. S’pose a nickel’ll buy at leas’ somepin for them kids. An’ you got a hunderd men. Jus’ offer ’em a nickel- why, they’ll kill each other fightin’ for that nickel. Know what they was payin’ las’ job I had? Fifteen cents an hour. Ten hours for a dollar an’ a half, an’ ya can’t stay on the place. Got to burn gasoline gettin’ there.” He was panting with anger, and his eyes blazed with hate. “That’s why them han’bills was out. You can print a hell of a lot of han’bills with what ya save payin’ fifteen cents an hour for fiel’ work.”
Tom said, “That’s stinkin’.”
The young man laughed harshly. “You stay out here a little while, an’ if you smell any roses, you come let me smell, too.”