The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

Square noses, round noses, rusty noses, shovel noses, and the long curves of streamlines, and the flat surfaces before streamlining. Bargains Today. Old monsters with deep upholstery—you can cut her into a truck easy. Two-wheel trailers, axles rusty in the hard afternoon sun. Used Cars. Good Used Cars. Clean, runs good. Don’t pump oil. Christ, look at ’er! Somebody took nice care of ’er. Cadillacs, La Salles, Buicks, Plymouths, Packards, Chevvies, Fords, Pontiacs. Row on row, headlights glinting in the afternoon sun. Good Used Cars.

THE SKY GRAYED among the stars, and the pale, late quarter-moon was insubstantial and thin. Tom Joad and the preacher walked quickly along a road that was only wheel tracks and beaten caterpillar tracks through a cotton field. Only the unbalanced sky showed the approach of dawn, no horizon to the west, and a line to the east. The two men walked in silence and smelled the dust their feet kicked into the air.

“Well, I dunno. You seen that car come las’ night when we had a little fire. You seen how the house was smashed. They’s somepin purty mean goin’ on. ’Course Muley’s crazy, all right. Creepin’ aroun’ like a coyote; that’s boun’ to make him crazy. He’ll kill somebody purty soon an’ they’ll run him down with dogs. I can see it like a prophecy. He’ll get worse an’ worse. Wouldn’ come along with us, you say?’’

The preacher said, “I don’t recollect that John had a fambly. Just a lone man, ain’t he? I don’t recollect much about him.’’ “Lonest goddamn man in the world,’’ said Joad.

“What the hell, if somebody called me, I wouldn’t hear him neither. ’Minds me of a story they tell about Willy Feeley when he was a young fella. Willy was bashful, awful bashful. Well, one day he takes a heifer over to Graves’ bull. Ever’body was out but Elsie Graves, and Elsie wasn’t bashful at all. Willy, he stood there turnin’ red an’ he couldn’ even talk. Elsie says, ‘I know what you come for; the bull’s out in back a the barn.’ Well, they took the heifer out there an’ Willy an’ Elsie sat on the fence to watch. Purty soon Willy got feelin’ purty fly. Elsie looks over an’ says, like she don’t know, ‘What’s a matter, Willy?’ Willy’s so randy he can’t hardly set still. ‘By God,’ he says, ‘by God, I wisht I was a-doin’ that!’ Elsie says, ‘Why not, Willy? It’s your heifer.’ ’’ The preacher laughed softly. “You know,’’ he said, “it’s a nice thing not bein’ a preacher no more. Nobody use’ ta tell stories when I was there, or if they did I couldn’ laugh. An’ I couldn’ cuss. Now I cuss all I want, any time I want, an’ it does a fella good to cuss if he wants to.’’

“Don’t yell,’’ said Tom. “Let’s creep up on ’em, like,’’ and he walked so fast that the dust rose as high as his waist. And then he came to the edge of the cotton field. Now they were in the yard proper, earth beaten hard, shiny hard, and a few dusty crawling weeds on the ground. And Joad slowed as though he feared to go on. The preacher, watching him, slowed to match his step. Tom sauntered forward, sidled embarrassedly toward the truck. It was a Hudson Super-Six1 sedan, and the top had been ripped in two with a cold chisel. Old Tom Joad stood in the truck bed and he was nailing on the top rails of the truck sides. His grizzled, bearded face was low over his work, and a bunch of six-penny nails stuck out of his mouth. He set a nail and his hammer thundered it in. From the house came the clash of a lid on the stove and the wail of a child. Joad sidled up to the truck bed and leaned against it. And his father looked at him and did not see him. His father set another nail and drove it in. A flock of pigeons started from the deck of the tank house and flew around and settled again and strutted to the edge to look over; white pigeons and blue pigeons and grays, with iridescent wings.

“What do you want?’’ old Tom mumbled around his mouthful of nails. He wore a black, dirty slouch hat and a blue work shirt over which was a buttonless vest; his jeans were held up by a wide harness-leather belt with a big square brass buckle, leather and metal polished from years of wearing and his shoes were cracked and the soles swollen and boat-shaped from years of sun and wet and dust.

The sleeves of his shirt were tight on his forearms, held down by the bulging powerful muscles. Stomach and hips were lean, and legs, short, heavy, and strong. His face, squared by a bristling pepper and salt beard, was all drawn down to the forceful chin, a chin thrust out and built out by the stubble beard which was not so grayed on the chin, and gave weight and force to its thrust.

He held his hammer suspended in the air, about to drive a set nail, and he looked over the truck side at Tom, looked resentful at being interrupted. And then his chin drove forward and his eyes looked at Tom’s face, and then gradually his brain became aware of what he saw. The hammer dropped slowly to his side, and with his left hand he took the nails from his mouth. And he said wonderingly, as though he told himself the fact, “It’s Tommy—’’ And then, still informing himself, “It’s Tommy come home.’’ His mouth opened again, and a look of fear came into his eyes. “Tommy,’’ he said softly, “you ain’t busted out? You ain’t got to hide?’’ He listened tensely. “Naw,’’ said Tom. “I’m paroled. I’m free. I got my papers.’’

“Tommy,’’ he said, “we are goin’ to California. But we was gonna write you a letter an’ tell you.’’ And he said, incredulously, “But you’re back. You can go with us. You can go!’’ The lid of a coffee pot slammed in the house. Old Tom looked over his shoulder. “Le’s supprise ’em,’’ he said, and his eyes shone with excitement. “Your ma got a bad feelin’ she ain’t never gonna see you no more. She got that quiet look like when somebody died. Almost she don’t want to go to California, fear she’ll never see you no more.’’ A stove lid clashed in the house again. “Le’s supprise ’em,’’ old Tom repeated. “Le’s go in like you never been away. Le’s jus’ see what your ma says.’’

Pa stepped inside, clearing the door, and Tom looked in at his mother. She was lifting the curling slices of pork from the frying pan. The oven door was open, and a great pan of high brown biscuits stood waiting there. She looked out the door, but the sun was behind Tom, and she saw only a dark figure outlined by the bright yellow sunlight. She nodded pleasantly. “Come in,’’ she said. “Jus’ lucky I made plenty bread this morning.’’

She moved toward him lithely, soundlessly in her bare feet, and her face was full of wonder. Her small hand felt his arm, felt the soundness of his muscles. And then her fingers went up to his cheek as a blind man’s fingers might. And her joy was nearly like sorrow. Tom pulled his underlip between his teeth and bit it. Her eyes went wonderingly to his bitten lip, and she saw the little line of blood against his teeth and the trickle of blood down his lip. Then she knew, and her control came back, and her hand dropped. Her breath came out explosively. “Well!’’ she cried. “We come mighty near to goin’ on without ya. An’ we was wonderin’ how in the worl’ you could ever find us.’’ She picked up the fork and combed the boiling grease and brought out a dark curl of crisp pork. And she set the pot of tumbling coffee on the back of the stove.

Tom asked, “Where is Grampa? I ain’t seen the ol’ devil.’’ Ma stacked the plates on the kitchen table and piled cups beside them. She said confidentially, “Oh, him an’ Granma sleeps in the barn. They got to get up so much in the night. They was stumblin’ over the little fellas.’’ Pa broke in, “Yeah, ever’ night Grampa’d get mad. Tumble over Winfield, an’ Winfield’d yell, an’ Grampa’d get mad an’ wet his drawers, an’ that’d make him madder, an’ purty soon ever’body in the house’d be yellin’ their head off.’’ His words tumbled out between chuckles. “Oh, we had lively times. One night when ever’body was yellin’ an’ a-cussin’, your brother Al, he’s a smart aleck now, he says, ‘Goddamn it, Grampa, why don’t you run off an’ be a pirate?’ Well, that made Grampa so goddamn mad he went for his gun. Al had ta sleep out in the fiel’ that night. But now Granma an’ Grampa both sleeps in the barn.’’

She was pouring coffee. She did not look at him. “Tommy,’’ she said hesitantly, timidly. “Yeah?’’ His timidity was set off by hers, a curious embarrassment. Each one knew the other was shy, and became more shy in the knowledge. “Tommy, I got to ask you—you ain’t mad?’’ “Mad, Ma?’’ “You ain’t poisoned mad? You don’t hate nobody? They didn’ do nothin’ in that jail to rot you out with crazy mad?’’

“No-o-o,’’ he said. “I was for a little while. But I ain’t proud like some fellas. I let stuff run off’n me. What’s a matter, Ma?’’

“I don’ know all like this—but I know it. He done a little bad thing an’ they hurt ’im, caught ’im an’ hurt him so he was mad, an’ the nex’ bad thing he done was mad, an’ they hurt ’im again. An’ purty soon he was mean-mad. They shot at him like a varmint, an’ he shot back, an’ then they run him like a coyote, an’ him a-snappin’ an’ a-snarlin’, mean as a lobo. An’ he was mad. He wasn’t no boy or no man no more, he was jus’ a walkin’ chunk a mean-mad. But the folks that knowed him didn’ hurt ’im. He wasn’ mad at them. Finally they run him down an’ killed ’im. No matter how they say it in the paper how he was bad—that’s how it was.’’ She paused and she licked her dry lips, and her whole face was an aching question. “I got to know, Tommy. Did they hurt you so much? Did they make you mad like that?’’ Tom’s heavy lips were pulled tight over his teeth. He looked down at his big flat hands. “No,’’ he said. “I ain’t like that.’’ He paused and studied the broken nails, which were ridged like clam shells. “All the time in stir I kep’ away from stuff like that. I ain’ so mad.’’ She sighed, “Thank God!’’ under her breath.

Using his hands, his strong fingers for forceps, he had pulled and twisted the baby. The midwife, arriving late, had found the baby’s head pulled out of shape, its neck stretched, its body warped; and she had pushed the head back and molded the body with her hands. But Pa always remembered, and was ashamed. And he was kinder to Noah than to the others. In Noah’s broad face, eyes too far apart, and long fragile jaw, Pa thought he saw the twisted, warped skull of the baby. Noah could do all that was required of him, could read and write, could work and figure, but he didn’t seem to care; there was a listlessness in him toward things people wanted and needed. He lived in a strange silent house and looked out of it through calm eyes. He was a stranger to all the world, but he was not lonely.

Granma said proudly, “A wicketer, cussin’er man never lived. He’s goin’ to hell on a poker, praise Gawd! Wants to drive the truck!’’ she said spitefully. “Well, he ain’t goin’ ta.’’

“Grace fust,’’ Granma clamored. “Grace fust.’’ Grampa focused his eyes fiercely until he recognized Casy. “Oh, that preacher,’’ he said. “Oh, he’s all right. I always liked him since I seen him—’’ He winked so lecherously that Granma thought he had spoken and retorted, “Shut up, you sinful ol’ goat.’’

“I been thinkin’,’’ he said. “I been in the hills, thinkin’, almost you might say like Jesus went into the wilderness to think His way out of a mess of troubles.’’

“Seems like Jesus got all messed up with troubles, and He couldn’t figure nothin’ out, an’ He got to feelin’ what the hell good is it all, an’ what’s the use fightin’ an’ figurin’. Got tired, got good an’ tired, an’ His sperit all wore out. Jus’ about come to the conclusion, the hell with it. An’ so He went off into the wilderness.’’ “A—men,’’ Granma bleated. So many years she had timed her responses to the pauses. And it was so many years since she had listened to or wondered at the words used.

“That’s Al Joad. His brother killed a fella with a shovel.’’ And now Al, moving humbly near, saw that his brother was not a swaggerer as he had supposed. Al saw the dark brooding eyes of his brother, and the prison calm, the smooth hard face trained to indicate nothing to a prison guard, neither resistance nor slavishness. And instantly Al changed. Unconsciously he became like his brother, and his handsome face brooded, and his shoulders relaxed. He hadn’t remembered how Tom was.

IN THE LITTLE HOUSES the tenant people sifted their belongings and the belongings of their fathers and of their grandfathers. Picked over their possessions for the journey to the west. The men were ruthless because the past had been spoiled, but the women knew how the past would cry to them in the coming days. The men went into the barns and the sheds. That plow, that harrow, remember in the war we planted mustard? Remember a fella wanted us to put in that rubber bush they call guayule?1 Get rich, he said. Bring out those tools—get a few dollars for them. Eighteen dollars for that plow, plus freight—Sears Roebuck.

Harness, carts, seeders, little bundles of hoes. Bring ’em out. Pile ’em up. Load ’em in the wagon. Take ’em to town. Sell ’em for what you can get. Sell the team and the wagon, too. No more use for anything.

They didn’t sing or pick the guitars. They walked back to the farms, hands in pockets and heads down, shoes kicking the red dust up. Maybe we can start again, in the new rich land—in California, where the fruit grows. We’ll start over.

When grampa came—did I tell you?—he had pepper and salt and a rifle. Nothing else. That goes. And a bottle for water. That just about fills us. Right up the sides of the trailer, and the kids can set in the trailer, and granma on a mattress. Tools, a shovel and saw and wrench and pliers. An ax, too. We had that ax forty years. Look how she’s wore down. And ropes, of course. The rest? Leave it—or burn it up.

The women sat among the doomed things, turning them over and looking past them and back. This book. My father had it. He liked a book. Pilgrim’s Progress.2

She said, “Tom, I hope things is all right in California.’’ He turned and looked at her. “What makes you think they ain’t?’’ he asked.

“Well—nothing. Seems too nice, kinda. I seen the han’bills fellas pass out, an’ how much work they is, an’ high wages an’ all; an’ I seen in the paper how they want folks to come an’ pick grapes an’ oranges an’ peaches. That’d be nice work, Tom, pickin’ peaches. Even if they wouldn’t let you eat none, you could maybe snitch a little ratty one sometimes. An’ it’d be nice under the trees, workin’ in the shade. I’m scared of stuff so nice. I ain’t got faith. I’m scared somepin ain’t so nice about it.’’

“They say it’s two thousan’ miles where we’re goin’. How far ya think that is, Tom? I seen it on a map, big mountains like on a post card, an’ we’re goin’ right through ’em. How long ya s’pose it’ll take to go that far, Tommy?’’ “I dunno,’’ he said. “Two weeks, maybe ten days if we got luck. Look, Ma, stop your worryin’. I’m a-gonna tell you somepin about bein’ in the pen. You can’t go thinkin’ when you’re gonna be out. You’d go nuts. You got to think about that day, an’ then the nex’ day, about the ball game Sat’dy. That’s what you got to do. Ol’ timers does that. A new young fella gets buttin’ his head on the cell door. He’s thinkin’ how long it’s gonna be. Whyn’t you do that? Jus’ take ever’ day.’’

“I don’ know,’’ said Tom. “Preachin’s a kinda tone a voice, an’ preachin’s a way a lookin’ at things. Preachin’s bein’ good to folks when they wanna kill ya for it. Las’ Christmus in McAlester, Salvation Army come an’ done us good. Three solid hours a cornet music, an’ we set there. They was bein’ nice to us. But if one of us tried to walk out, we’d a-drawed solitary. That’s preachin’. Doin’ good to a fella that’s down an’ can’t smack ya in the puss for it. No, you ain’t no preacher. But don’t you blow no cornets aroun’ here.’’

And whereas Ruthie felt the might, the responsibility, and the dignity of her developing breasts, Winfield was kid-wild and calfish. Beside them, clinging lightly to the bars, stood Rose of Sharon, and she balanced, swaying on the balls of her feet, and took up the road shock in her knees and hams. For Rose of Sharon was pregnant and careful. Her hair, braided and wrapped around her head, made an ash-blond crown. Her round soft face, which had been voluptuous and inviting a few months ago, had already put on the barrier of pregnancy, the self-sufficient smile, the knowing perfection-look; and her plump body—full soft breasts and stomach, hard hips and buttocks that had swung so freely and provocatively as to invite slapping and stroking—her whole body had become demure and serious. Her whole thought and action were directed inward on the baby. She balanced on her toes now, for the baby’s sake.

They were all tired on the truck. Ruthie and Winfield were tired from seeing too much movement, too many faces, from fighting to get licorice whips; tired from the excitement of having Uncle John secretly slip gum into their pockets. And the men in the seat were tired and angry and sad, for they had got eighteen dollars for every movable thing from the farm: the horses, the wagon, the implements, and all the furniture from the house. Eighteen dollars.

Then they were beaten, believed him, and took two dollars less than he had first offered. And now they were weary and frightened because they had gone against a system they did not understand and it had beaten them. They knew the team and the wagon were worth much more. They knew the buyer man would get much more, but they didn’t know how to do it. Merchandising was a secret to them. Al, his eyes darting from road to panel board, said, “That fella, he ain’t a local fella. Didn’ talk like a local fella. Clothes was different, too.’’ And Pa explained, “When I was in the hardware store I talked to some men I know. They say there’s fellas comin’ in jus’ to buy up the stuff us fellas got to sell when we get out. They say these new fellas is cleaning up. But there ain’t nothin’ we can do about it. Maybe Tommy should of went. Maybe he could of did better.’’

And when he said, “Hello, how you kids doin’?’’ they replied softly, “Hello! All right.’’ And they stood apart and watched him secretly, the great brother who had killed a man and been in prison. They remembered how they had played prison in the chicken coop and fought for the right to be prisoner.

The film of evening light made the red earth lucent, so that its dimensions were deepened, so that a stone, a post, a building had greater depth and more solidity than in the daytime light; and these objects were curiously more individual—a post was more essentially a post, set off from the earth it stood in and the field of corn it stood out against. And plants were individuals, not the mass of crop; and the ragged willow tree was itself, standing free of all other willow trees. The earth contributed a light to the evening. The front of the gray, paintless house, facing the west, was luminous as the moon is. The gray dusty truck, in the yard before the door, stood out magically in this light, in the overdrawn perspective of a stereopticon.

This was Al’s first participation in the conference. Always he had stood behind with the women before. And now he made his report solemnly. “She’s old an’ she’s ornery,’’ he said gravely. “I gave the whole thing a good goin’-over ’fore we bought her. Didn’ listen to the fella talkin’ what a hell of a bargain she was. Stuck my finger in the differential an’ they wasn’t no sawdust. Opened the gear box an’ they wasn’t no sawdust. Test’ her clutch an’ rolled her wheels for line. Went under her an’ her frame ain’t splayed none. She never been rolled. Seen they was a cracked cell in her battery an’ made the fella put in a good one. The tires ain’t worth a damn, but they’re a good size. Easy to get. She’ll ride like a bull calf, but she ain’t shootin’ no oil. Reason I says buy her is she was a pop’lar car. Wreckin’ yards is full a Hudson Super-Sixes, an’ you can buy parts cheap. Could a got a bigger, fancier car for the same money, but parts too hard to get, an’ too dear. That’s how I figgered her anyways.’’ The last was his submission to the family. He stopped speaking and waited for their opinions.

“You’re all right, Al,’’ Grampa said. “I was a squirt jus’ like you, a-fartin’ aroun’ like a dog-wolf. But when they was a job, I done it. You’ve growed up good.’’ He finished in the tone of a benediction, and Al reddened a little with pleasure.

Grampa said, “They was two ways a thinkin’. Some folks use’ ta figger that a preacher was poison luck.’’ Tom said, “This fella says he ain’t a preacher no more.’’ Grampa waved his hand back and forth. “Once a fella’s a preacher, he’s always a preacher. That’s somepin you can’t get shut of. They was some folks figgered it was a good respectable thing to have a preacher along. Ef somebody died, preacher buried ’em. Weddin’ come due, or overdue, an’ there’s your preacher. Baby come, an’ you got a christener right under the roof. Me, I always said they was preachers an’ preachers. Got to pick ’em. I kinda like this fella. He ain’t stiff.’’

The adults moved toward the lighted kitchen through the deep dusk, and Ma served them greens and side-meat in tin plates. But before Ma ate, she put the big round wash tub on the stove and started the fire to roaring. She carried buckets of water until the tub was full, and then around the tub she clustered the buckets, full of water. The kitchen became a swamp of heat, and the family ate hurriedly, and went out to sit on the doorstep until the water should get hot. They sat looking out at the dark, at the square of light the kitchen lantern threw on the ground outside the door, with a hunched shadow of Grampa in the middle of it. Noah picked his teeth thoroughly with a broom straw. Ma and Rose of Sharon washed up the dishes and piled them on the table.

She looked quickly about the kitchen. “The bucket,’’ she said. “All the stuff to eat with: plates an’ the cups, the spoons an’ knives an’ forks. Put all them in that drawer, an’ take the drawer. The big fry pan an’ the big stew kettle, the coffee pot. When it gets cool, take the rack outa the oven. That’s good over a fire. I’d like to take the wash tub, but I guess there ain’t room. I’ll wash clothes in the bucket. Don’t do no good to take little stuff. You can cook little stuff in a big kettle, but you can’t cook big stuff in a little pot. Take the bread pans, all of ’em. They fit down inside each other.’’ She stood and looked about the kitchen. “You jus’ take that stuff I tol’ you, Tom. I’ll fix up the rest, the big can a pepper an’ the salt an’ the nutmeg an’ the grater. I’ll take all that stuff jus’ at the last.’’ She picked up a lantern and walked heavily into the bedroom, and her bare feet made no sound on the floor.

She touched the letters with her fingers, touched them lightly, and she smoothed a newspaper clipping on which there was an account of Tom’s trial. For a long time she held the box, looking over it, and her fingers disturbed the letters and then lined them up again. She bit her lower lip, thinking, remembering. And at last she made up her mind. She picked out the ring, the watch charm, the earrings, dug under the pile and found one gold cuff link. She took a letter from an envelope and dropped the trinkets in the envelope. She folded the envelope over and put it in her dress pocket. Then gently and tenderly she closed the box and smoothed the top carefully with her fingers. Her lips parted. And then she stood up, took her lantern, and went back into the kitchen. She lifted the stove lid and laid the box gently among the coals. Quickly the heat browned the paper. A flame licked up and over the box. She replaced the stove lid and instantly the fire sighed up and breathed over the box.

The light of the dawn was a little sharper now. It paled the lanterns a little. Al came back with Grampa struggling and limping by his side. “He wasn’t sleepin’,’’ Al said. “He was settin’ out back of the barn. They’s somepin wrong with ’im.’’ Grampa’s eyes had dulled, and there was none of the old meanness in them. “Ain’t nothin’ the matter with me,’’ he said. “I jus’ ain’t a-goin’.’’ “Not goin’?’’ Pa demanded. “What you mean you ain’t a-goin’? Why, here we’re all packed up, ready. We got to go. We got no place to stay.’’ “I ain’t sayin’ for you to stay,’’ said Grampa. “You go right on along. Me—I’m stayin’. I give her a goin’-over all night mos’ly. This here’s my country. I b’long here. An’ I don’t give a goddamn if they’s oranges an’ grapes crowdin’ a fella outa bed even. I ain’t a-goin’. This country ain’t no good, but it’s my country. No, you all go ahead. I’ll jus’ stay right here where I b’long.’’

“Well, look. If we got to catch him an’ tie him down, we li’ble to hurt him, an’ he’ll git so mad he’ll hurt himself. Now we can’t argue with him. If we could get him drunk it’d be all right. You got any whisky?’’ “No,’’ said Pa. “There ain’t a drop a’ whisky in the house. An’ John got no whisky. He never has none when he ain’t drinkin’.’’ Ma said, “Tom, I got a half a bottle soothin’ sirup I got for Winfiel’ when he had them earaches. Think that might work? Use ta put Winfiel’ ta sleep when his earache was bad.’’ “Might,’’ said Tom. “Get it, Ma. We’ll give her a try anyways.’’

Tom took it from her and tasted it. “Don’ taste bad,’’ he said. “Make up a cup a black coffee, good an’ strong. Le’s see—says one teaspoon. Better put in a lot, coupla tablespoons.’’ Ma opened the stove and put a kettle inside, down next to the coals, and she measured water and coffee into it. “Have to give it to ’im in a can,’’ she said. “We got the cups all packed.’’ Tom and his father went back outside. “Fella got a right to say what he’s gonna do. Say, who’s eatin’ spareribs?’’ said Grampa. “We’ve et,’’ said Tom. “Ma’s fixin’ you a cup a coffee an’ some pork.’’ He went into the house, and he drank his coffee and ate his pork. The group outside in the growing dawn watched him quietly, through the door. They saw him yawn and sway, and they saw him put his arms on the table and rest his head on his arms and go to sleep.

“Come on,’’ Tom said. “Le’s get Grampa on.’’ Pa and Uncle John and Tom and Al went into the kitchen where Grampa slept, his forehead down on his arms, and a line of drying coffee on the table. They took him under the elbows and lifted him to his feet, and he grumbled and cursed thickly, like a drunken man.

THE HOUSES were left vacant on the land, and the land was vacant because of this. Only the tractor sheds of corrugated iron, silver and gleaming, were alive; and they were alive with metal and gasoline and oil, the disks of the plows shining. The tractors had lights shining, for there is no day and night for a tractor and the disks turn the earth in the darkness and they glitter in the daylight. And when a horse stops work and goes into the barn there is a life and a vitality left, there is a breathing and a warmth, and the feet shift on the straw, and the jaws champ on the hay, and the ears and the eyes are alive.

The people in flight streamed out on 66, sometimes a single car, sometimes a little caravan. All day they rolled slowly along the road, and at night they stopped near water. In the day ancient leaky radiators sent up columns of steam, loose connecting rods hammered and pounded. And the men driving the trucks and the overloaded cars listened apprehensively. How far between towns? It is a terror between towns. If something breaks—well, if something breaks we camp right here while Jim walks to town and gets a part and walks back and—how much food we got?

Well, California’s a big State. It ain’t that big. The whole United States ain’t that big. It ain’t that big. It ain’t big enough. There ain’t room enough for you an’ me, for your kind an’ my kind, for rich and poor together all in one country, for thieves and honest men. For hunger and fat. Whyn’t you go back where you come from?

That’s what’s important. You go steal that tire an’ you’re a thief, but he tried to steal your four dollars for a busted tire. They call that sound business.