“Here’s where we’re a-workin’,” Wilkie said.
His father opened the barn and passed out two picks and three shovels. And he said to Tom, “Here’s your beauty.”
Tom hefted the pick. “Jumping Jesus! If she don’t feel good!”
“Wait’ll about ‘leven o’clock,” Wilkie suggested. “See how good she feels then.”
They walked to the end of the ditch. Tom took off his coat and dropped it on the dirt pile. He pushed up his cap and stepped into the ditch. Then he spat on his hands. The pick arose into the air and flashed down. Tom grunted softly. The pick rose and fell, and the grunt came at the moment it sank into the ground and loosened the soil.
Wilkie said, “Yes, sir, Pa, we got here a first-grade muckstick man. This here boy been married to that there little digger.”
Tom said, “I put in time ( umph ). Yes, sir, I sure did ( umph ). Put in my years ( umph! ). Kinda like the feel ( umph! ).” The soil loosened ahead of him. The sun cleared the fruit trees now and the grape leaves were golden green on the vines. Six feet along and Tom stepped aside and wiped his forehead. Wilkie came behind him. The shovel rose and fell and the dirt flew out to the pile beside the lengthening ditch.
“I heard about this here Central Committee,” said Tom. “So you’re one of ’em.”
“Yes, sir,” Timothy replied. “And it’s a responsibility. All them people. We’re doin’ our best. An’ the people in the camp a-doin’ their best. I wisht them big farmers wouldn’ plague us so. I wisht they wouldn’.”
Tom climbed back into the ditch and Wilkie stood aside. Tom said, “How ’bout this fight ( umph! ) at the dance, he tol’ about ( umph )? What they wanta do that for?”
Timothy followed behind Wilkie, and Timothy’s shovel beveled the bottom of the ditch and smoothed it ready for the pipe. “Seems like they got to drive us,” Timothy said. “They’re scairt we’ll organize, I guess. An’ maybe they’re right. This here camp is a organization. People there look out for theirselves. Got the nicest strang band in these parts. Got a little charge account in the store for folks that’s hungry. Fi’ dollars- you can git that much food an’ the camp’ll stan’ good. We ain’t never had no trouble with the law. I guess the big farmers is scairt of that. Can’t throw us in jail- why, it scares ’em. Figger maybe if we can gove’n ourselves, maybe we’ll do other things.”
Tom stepped clear of the ditch and wiped the sweat out of his eyes. “You hear what that paper said ’bout agitators up north a Bakersfiel’?”
“Sure,” said Wilkie. “They do that all a time.”
“Well, I was there. They wasn’t no agitators. What they call reds. What the hell is these reds anyways?”
Timothy scraped a little hill level in the bottom of the ditch. The sun made his white bristle beard shine. “They’s a lot of fellas wanta know what reds is.” He laughed. “One of our boys foun’ out.” He patted the piled earth gently with his shovel. “Fella named Hines- got ’bout thirty thousand acres, peaches and grapes- got a cannery an’ a winery. Well, he’s all a time talkin’ about ‘them goddamn reds.’ ‘Goddamn reds is drivin’ the country to ruin,’ he says, an’ ‘We got to drive these here red bastards out.’ Well, they were a young fella jus’ come out west here, an’ he’s listenin’ one day. He kinda scratched his head an’ he says, ‘Mr. Hines, I ain’t been here long. What is these goddamn reds?’ Well, sir, Hines says, ‘A red is any son-of-a-bitch that wants thirty cents an hour when we’re payin’ twenty-five!’ Well, this young fella he thinks about her, an’ he scratches his head, an’ he says, ‘Well, Jesus, Mr. Hines. I ain’t a son-of-a-bitch, but if that’s what a red is- why, I want thirty cents an hour. Ever’body does. Hell, Mr. Hines, we’re all reds.'” Timothy drove his shovel along the ditch bottom, and the solid earth shone where the shovel cut it.
Tom laughed. “Me too, I guess.” His pick arced up and drove down, and the earth cracked under it. The sweat rolled down his forehead and down the sides of his nose, and it glistened on his neck. “Damn it,” he said, “a pick is a nice tool ( umph ), if you don’ fight it ( umph ). You an’ the pick ( umph ) workin’ together ( umph ).”
In line, the three men worked, and the ditch inched along, and the sun shone hotly down on them in the growing morning.
When Tom left her, Ruthie gazed in at the door of the sanitary unit for a while. Her courage was not strong without Winfield to boast for. She put a bare foot in on the concrete floor, and then withdrew it. Down the line a woman came out of a tent and started a fire in a tin camp stove. Ruthie took a few steps in that direction, but she could not leave. She crept to the entrance of the Joad tent and looked in. On one side, lying on the ground, lay Uncle John, his mouth open and his snores bubbling spittily in his throat. Ma and Pa were covered with a comfort, their heads in, away from the light. Al was on the far side from Uncle John, and his arm was flung over his eyes. Near the front of the tent Rose of Sharon and Winfield lay, and there was the space where Ruthie had been, beside Winfield. She squatted down and peered in. Her eyes remained on Winfield’s tow head; and as she looked, the little boy opened his eyes and stared out at her, and his eyes were solemn. Ruthie put her finger to her lips and beckoned with her other hand. Winfield rolled his eyes over to Rose of Sharon. Her pink flushed face was near to him, and her mouth was open a little. Winfield carefully loosened the blanket and slipped out. He crept out of the tent cautiously and joined Ruthie. “How long you been up?” he whispered.
She led him away with elaborate caution, and when they were safe, she said, “I never been to bed. I was up all night.”
“You was not,” Winfield said. “You’re a dirty liar.”
“Awright,” she said. “If I’m a liar I ain’t gonna tell you nothin’ that happened. I ain’t gonna tell how the fella got killed with a stab knife an’ how they was a bear come in an’ took off a little chile.”
“They wasn’t no bear,” Winfield said uneasily. He brushed up his hair with his fingers and he pulled down his overalls at the crotch.
“All right- they wasn’t no bear,” she said sarcastically. “An’ they ain’t no white things made outa dish-stuff, like in the catalogues.”
Winfield regarded her gravely. He pointed to the sanitary unit. “In there?” he asked.
“I’m a dirty liar,” Ruthie said. “It ain’t gonna do me no good to tell stuff to you.”
“Le’s go look,” Winfield said.
“I already been,” Ruthie said. “I already set on ’em. I even pee’d in one.”
“You never neither,” said Winfield.
They went to the unit building, and that time Ruthie was not afraid. Boldly she led the way into the building. The toilets lined one side of the large room, and each toilet had its compartment with a door in front of it. The porcelain was gleaming white. Hand basins lined another wall, while on the third wall were four shower compartments.
“There,” said Ruthie. “Them’s the toilets. I seen ’em in the catalogue.” The children drew near to one of the toilets. Ruthie, in a burst of bravado, boosted her skirt and sat down. “I tol’ you I been here,” she said. And to prove it, there was a tinkle of water in the bowl.
Winfield was embarrassed. His hand twisted the flushing lever. There was a roar of water, Ruthie leaped into the air and jumped away. She and Winfield stood in the middle of the room and looked at the toilet. The hiss of water continued in it.
“You done it,” Ruthie said. “You went an’ broke it. I seen you.”
“I never. Honest I never.”
“I seen you,” Ruthie said. “You jus’ ain’t to be trusted with no nice stuff.”
Winfield sunk his chin. He looked up at Ruthie and his eyes filled with tears. His chin quivered. And Ruthie was instantly contrite.
“Never you mind,” she said. “I won’t tell on you. We’ll pretend like she was already broke. We’ll pretend we ain’t even been in here.” She led him out of the building.
The sun lipped over the mountain by now, shone on the corrugated-iron roofs of the five sanitary units, shone on the gray tents and on the swept ground of the streets between the tents. And the camp was waking up. The fires were burning in camp stoves, in the stoves made of kerosene cans and of sheets of metal. The smell of smoke was in the air. Tent flaps were thrown back and people moved about in the streets. In front of the Joad tent Ma stood looking up and down the street. She saw the children and came over to them.