The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

Two hundred and fifty thousand people over the road. Fifty thousand old cars—wounded, steaming. Wrecks along the road, abandoned. Well, what happened to them? What happened to the folks in that car? Did they walk? Where are they? Where does the courage come from? Where does the terrible faith come from?

“No,’’ she said quickly. “No, I ain’t. You can’t do that. I can’t do that. It’s too much—livin’ too many lives. Up ahead they’s a thousan’ lives we might live, but when it comes, it’ll on’y be one. If I go ahead on all of ’em, it’s too much. You got to live ahead ’cause you’re so young, but—it’s jus’ the road goin’ by for me. An’ it’s jus’ how soon they gonna wanta eat some more pork bones.’’ Her face tightened. “That’s all I can do. I can’t do no more. All the rest’d get upset if I done any more’n that. They all depen’ on me jus’ thinkin’ about that.’’

He wore brown corduroys, and suspenders and a polo shirt; and he had a cardboard sun helmet, painted silver, on his head. The sweat beaded on his nose and under his eyes and formed streams in the wrinkles of his neck. He strolled toward the truck, looking truculent and stern. “You folks aim to buy anything? Gasoline or stuff?” he asked. Al was out already, unscrewing the steaming radiator cap with the tips of his fingers, jerking his hand away to escape the spurt when the cap should come loose. He looked over at the fat man. “Need some gas, mister.’’ “Got any money?’’ “Sure. Think we’re beggin’?’’

“It ain’t that I’m tryin’ to git trade outa rich folks,’’ the fat man went on. “I’m jus’ tryin’ to git trade. Why, the folks that stops here begs gasoline an’ they trades for gasoline. I could show you in my back room the stuff they’ll trade for gas an’ oil: beds an’ baby buggies an’ pots an’ pans. One family traded a doll their kid had for a gallon. An’ what’m I gonna do with the stuff, open a junk shop? Why, one fella wanted to gimme his shoes for a gallon. An’ if I was that kinda fella I bet I could git—’’ He glanced at Ma and stopped.

Casy answered him. “It’s ever’body,’’ he said. “Here’s me that used to give all my fight against the devil ’cause I figgered the devil was the enemy. But they’s somepin worse’n the devil got hold a the country, an’ it ain’t gonna let go till it’s chopped loose. Ever see one a them Gila monsters take hold, mister? Grabs hold, an’ you chop him in two an’ his head hangs on. Chop him at the neck an’ his head hangs on. Got to take a screw-driver an’ pry his head apart to git him loose. An’ while he’s layin’ there, poison is drippin’ an’ drippin’ into the hole he’s made with his teeth.’’ He stopped and looked sideways at Tom. The fat man stared hopelessly straight ahead. His hand started turning the crank slowly. “I dunno what we’re comin’ to,’’ he said softly.

She looked at him and smiled secretly. She was all secrets now she was pregnant, secrets and little silences that seemed to have meanings. She was pleased with herself, and she complained about things that didn’t really matter. And she demanded services of Connie that were silly, and both of them knew they were silly. Connie was pleased with her too, and filled with wonder that she was pregnant. He liked to think he was in on the secrets she had. When she smiled slyly, he smiled slyly too, and they exchanged confidences in whispers. The world had drawn close around them, and they were in the center of it, or rather Rose of Sharon was in the center of it with Connie making a small orbit about her. Everything they said was a kind of secret.

“Well, I’m a-scairt about it. Sometimes you do a crime, an’ you don’t even know it’s bad. Maybe they got crimes in California we don’t even know about. Maybe you gonna do somepin an’ it’s all right, an’ in California it ain’t all right.’’

The appeal to hospitality had an instant effect. The lean face broke into a smile. “Why, sure, come on off the road. Proud to have ya.’’ And he called, “Sairy, there’s some folks goin’ ta stay with us. Come on out an’ say how d’ya do. Sairy ain’t well,’’ he added. The tent flaps opened and a wizened woman came out—a face wrinkled as a dried leaf and eyes that seemed to flame in her face, black eyes that seemed to look out of a well of horror. She was small and shuddering. She held herself upright by a tent flap, and the hand holding onto the canvas was a skeleton covered with wrinkled skin.

‘Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. An’ when she got there the cupboard was bare, an’ so the poor dog got none. Amen.’

Granma hopped about like a chicken. “Pray,’’ she said. “Pray, you. Pray, I tell ya.’’ Sairy tried to hold her back. “Pray, goddamn you!’’ Granma cried. Casy looked up at her for a moment. The rasping breath came louder and more unevenly. “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name——’’ “Glory!’’ shouted Granma. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done—on earth—as it is in Heaven.’’ “Amen.’’

“Give us this day—our daily bread—and forgive us—’’ The breathing had stopped. Casy looked down into Grampa’s eyes and they were clear and deep and penetrating, and there was a knowing serene look in them. “Hallelujah!’’ said Granma. “Go on.’’ “Amen,’’ said Casy.

Granma moved with dignity and held her head high. She walked for the family and held her head straight for the family. Sairy took her to a mattress lying on the ground and sat her down on it. And Granma looked straight ahead, proudly, for she was on show now. The tent was still, and at last Casy spread the tent flaps with his hands and stepped out. Pa asked softly, “What was it?’’ “Stroke,’’ said Casy. “A good quick stroke.’’

“We got to figger what to do. They’s laws. You got to report a death, an’ when you do that, they either take forty dollars for the undertaker or they take him for a pauper.’’

Pa said softly, “Grampa buried his pa with his own hand, done it in dignity, an’ shaped the grave nice with his own shovel. That was a time when a man had the right to be buried by his own son an’ a son had the right to bury his own father.’’

“On’y it’s like hidin’ him in the night. Grampa’s way was t’ come out a-shootin’.’’ Pa said ashamedly, “We can’t do like Grampa done. We got to get to California ’fore our money gives out.’’ Tom broke in, “Sometimes fellas workin’ dig up a man an’ then they raise hell an’ figger he been killed. The gov’ment’s got more interest in a dead man than a live one. They’ll go hell-scrapin’ tryin’ to fin’ out who he was and how he died. I offer we put a note of writin’ in a bottle an’ lay it with Grampa, tellin’ who he is an’ how he died, an’ why he’s buried here.’’ Pa nodded agreement. “Tha’s good. Wrote out in a nice han’. Be not so lonesome too, knowin’ his name is there with ’im, not jus’ a old fella lonesome underground. Any more stuff to say?’’

She folded the quilt neatly about Grampa’s legs and around his shoulders. She brought the corner of the quilt over his head like a cowl and pulled it down over his face. Sairy handed her half-a-dozen big safety pins, and she pinned the quilt neatly and tightly about the long package. And at last she stood up. “It won’t be a bad burying,’’ she said. “We got a preacher to see him in, an’ his folks is all aroun’.’’ Suddenly she swayed a little, and Sairy went to her and steadied her. “It’s sleep—’’ Ma said in a shamed tone. “No, I’m awright. We been so busy gettin’ ready, you see.’’

A bright fire burned in the bottom of the little gulch. And Tom, with sticks and wire, had made supports from which two kettles hung and bubbled furiously, and good steam poured out under the lids. Rose of Sharon knelt on the ground out of range of the burning heat, and she had a long spoon in her hand. She saw Ma come out of the tent, and she stood up and went to her. “Ma,’’ she said. “I got to ask.’’ “Scared again?’’ Ma asked. “Why, you can’t get through nine months without sorrow.’’ “But will it—hurt the baby?’’ Ma said, “They used to be a sayin’, ‘A chile born outa sorrow’ll be a happy chile.’ Isn’t that so, Mis’ Wilson?’’

Tom sat down in the firelight. He squinted his eyes in concentration, and at last wrote slowly and carefully on the end paper in big clear letters: “This here is William James Joad, dyed of a stroke, old old man. His fokes bured him becaws they got no money to pay for funerls. Nobody kilt him. Jus a stroke an he dyed.’’ He stopped. “Ma, listen to this here.’’ He read it slowly to her.

Tom flipped the pages and looked down the verses. “Now here is one,’’ he said. “This here’s a nice one, just blowed full a religion: ‘Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.’2 How’s that?’’ “That’s real nice,’’ said Ma. “Put that one in.’’ Tom wrote it carefully. Ma rinsed and wiped a fruit jar and Tom screwed the lid down tight on it. “Maybe the preacher ought to wrote it,’’ he said. Ma said, “No, the preacher wan’t no kin.’’

Casy said, “It’ll be a short one.’’ He bowed his head, and the others followed his lead. Casy said solemnly, “This here ol’ man jus’ lived a life an’ jus’ died out of it. I don’ know whether he was good or bad, but that don’t matter much. He was alive, an’ that’s what matters. An’ now he’s dead, an’ that don’t matter. Heard a fella tell a poem one time, an’ he says ‘All that lives is holy.’3 Got to thinkin’, an’ purty soon it means more than the words says. An’ I wouldn’ pray for a ol’ fella that’s dead. He’s awright. He got a job to do, but it’s all laid out for ’im an’ there’s on’y one way to do it. But us, we got a job to do, an’ they’s a thousan’ ways, an’ we don’ know which one to take. An’ if I was to pray, it’d be for the folks that don’ know which way to turn. Grampa here, he got the easy straight. An’ now cover ’im up and let ’im get to his work.’’

Sairy studied her wrinkled hands in the firelight. “We got to get some sleep tonight.’’ She stood up. “Grampa—it’s like he’s dead a year,’’ Ma said.

The great owners, striking at the immediate thing, the widening government, the growing labor unity; striking at new taxes, at plans; not knowing these things are results, not causes. Results, not causes; results, not causes. The causes lie deep and simply—the causes are a hunger in a stomach, multiplied a million times; a hunger in a single soul, hunger for joy and some security, multiplied a million times; muscles and mind aching to grow, to work, to create, multiplied a million times. The last clear definite function of man—muscles aching to work, minds aching to create beyond the single need—this is man. To build a wall, to build a house, a dam, and in the wall and house and dam to put something of Manself, and to Manself take back something of the wall, the house, the dam; to take hard muscles from the lifting, to take the clear lines and form from conceiving.

This you may say of man—when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it.

The Western States nervous under the beginning change. Texas and Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. A single family moved from the land. Pa borrowed money from the bank, and now the bank wants the land.

If our tractor turned the long furrows of our land, it would be good.

One man, one family driven from the land; this rusty car creaking along the highway to the west. I lost my land, a single tractor took my land. I am alone and I am bewildered. And in the night one family camps in a ditch and another family pulls in and the tents come out. The two men squat on their hams and the women and children listen. Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution.

“I have a little food’’ plus “I have none.’’

Only a little multiplication now, and this land, this tractor are ours. The two men squatting in a ditch, the little fire, the side-meat stewing in a single pot, the silent, stone-eyed women; behind, the children listening with their souls to words their minds do not understand. The night draws down. The baby has a cold. Here, take this blanket. It’s wool. It was my mother’s blanket—take it for the baby. This is the thing to bomb. This is the beginning—from “I’’ to “we.’’

ALONG 66 the hamburger stands—Al & Susy’s Place—Carl’s Lunch—Joe & Minnie—Will’s Eats. Board-and-bat shacks. Two gasoline pumps in front, a screen door, a long bar, stools, and a foot rail. Near the door three slot machines, showing through the glass the wealth in nickels three bars will bring. And beside them, the nickel phonograph with records piled up like pies, ready to swing out to the turntable and play dance music, “Ti-pi-ti-pi-tin,” “Thanks for the Memory,”1 Bing Crosby, Benny Goodman.

Beer taps behind the counter, and in back the coffee urns, shiny and steaming, with glass gauges showing the coffee level.

The cook is Joe or Carl or Al, hot in a white coat and apron, beady sweat on white forehead, below the white cook’s cap; moody, rarely speaking, looking up for a moment at each new entry. Wiping the griddle, slapping down the hamburger. He repeats Mae’s orders gently, scrapes the griddle, wipes it down with burlap. Moody and silent.

There’s the backbone of the joint. Where the trucks stop, that’s where the customers come. Can’t fool truck drivers, they know. They bring the custom. They know.

Well, a Zephyr got sap. The big cars on the highway. Languid, heat-raddled ladies, small nucleuses about whom revolve a thousand accouterments: creams, ointments to grease themselves, coloring matter in phials—black, pink, red, white, green, silver—to change the color of hair, eyes, lips, nails, brows, lashes, lids. Oils, seeds, and pills to make the bowels move. A bag of bottles, syringes, pills, powders, fluids, jellies to make their sexual intercourse safe, odorless, and unproductive. And this apart from clothes.

Worried because formulas do not work out; hungry for security and yet sensing its disappearance from the earth. In their lapels the insignia of lodges and service clubs, places where they can go and, by a weight of numbers of little worried men, reassure themselves that business is noble and not the curious ritualized thievery they know it is; that business men are intelligent in spite of the records of their stupidity; that they are kind and charitable in spite of the principles of sound business; that their lives are rich instead of the thin tiresome routines they know; and that a time is coming when they will not be afraid any more.

“I talked to good sound business men out there. They don’t see a chance till we get rid of that fellow in the White House.”

But the worried eyes are never calm, and the pouting mouth is never glad. The big car cruising along at sixty.

The other man puts a nickel in the phonograph, watches the disk slip free and the turntable rise up under it. Bing Crosby’s voice—golden. “Thanks for the memory, of sunburn at the shore—You might have been a headache, but you never were a bore—’’ And the truck driver sings for Mae’s ears, you might have been a haddock but you never was a whore— Mae laughs. Who’s ya frien’, Bill? New on this run, ain’t he? The other puts a nickel in the slot machine, wins four slugs, and puts them back. Walks to the counter.

Sitting together on the stools, spoons sticking up out of the coffee mugs. Passing the time of day. And Al, rubbing down his griddle, listening but making no comment. Bing Crosby’s voice stops. The turntable drops down and the record swings into its place in the pile. The purple light goes off. The nickel, which has caused all this mechanism to work, has caused Crosby to sing and an orchestra to play—this nickel drops from between the contact points into the box where the profits go. This nickel, unlike most money, has actually done a job of work, has been physically responsible for a reaction.

Mae said, “You can’t get no loaf a bread for a dime. We only got fifteen-cent loafs.’’ From behind her Al growled, “God Almighty, Mae, give ’em bread.’’ “We’ll run out ’fore the bread truck comes.’’ “Run out, then, goddamn it,’’ said Al. And he looked sullenly down at the potato salad he was mixing. Mae shrugged her plump shoulders and looked to the truck drivers to show them what she was up against.

Al wiped his hands on his apron. He looked at a paper pinned to the wall over the griddle. Three lines of marks in columns on the paper. Al counted the longest line. He walked along the counter to the cash register, rang “No Sale,’’ and took out a handful of nickels. “What ya doin’?’’ Mae asked. “Number three’s ready to pay off,’’ said Al. He went to the third slot machine and played his nickels in, and on the fifth spin of the wheels the three bars came up and the jack pot dumped out into the cup. Al gathered up the big handful of coins and went back of the counter. He dropped them in the drawer and slammed the cash register.

“I wonder what they’ll do in California?’’ said Mae. “Who?’’ “Them folks that was just in.’’ “Christ knows,’’ said Al. “S’pose they’ll get work?’’ “How the hell would I know?’’ said Al.

“Hi, sister!’’ “I won’t be a sister to no man,’’ said Mae. They laughed and Mae laughed. “What’ll it be, boys?’’ “Oh, a cup a Java. What kinda pie ya got?’’ “Pineapple cream an’ banana cream an’ chocolate cream an’ apple.’’ “Give me apple. No, wait—what’s that big thick one?’’ Mae picked up the pie and smelled it. “Pineapple cream,’’ she said. “Well, chop out a hunk a that.’’

Al Joad drove the touring car, and his mother sat beside him, and Rose of Sharon beside her. Ahead the truck crawled. The hot air folded in waves over the land, and the mountains shivered in the heat. Al drove listlessly, hunched back in the seat, his hand hooked easily over the crossbar of the steering wheel; his gray hat, peaked and pulled to an incredibly cocky shape, was low over one eye; and as he drove, he turned and spat out the side now and then. Ma, beside him, had folded her hands in her lap, had retired into a resistance against weariness. She sat loosely, letting the movement of the car sway her body and her head. She squinted her eyes ahead at the mountains. Rose of Sharon was braced against the movement of the car, her feet pushed tight against the floor, and her right elbow hooked over the door. And her plump face was tight against the movement, and her head jiggled sharply because her neck muscles were tight. She tried to arch her whole body as a rigid container to preserve her fetus from shock.

Al explained, “I don’ know what made her go out. I give her plenty of oil.’’ Al knew the blame was on him. He felt his failure. Ma said, “It ain’t your fault. You done ever’thing right.’’ And then she asked a little timidly, “Is it terrible bad?’’ “Well, it’s hard to get at, an’ we got to get a new con-rod or else some babbitt3 in this one.’’ He sighed deeply. “I sure am glad Tom’s here. I never fitted no bearing. Hope to Jesus Tom did.’’

Wilson said, “Seems like it’s my fault. This here goddamn wreck’s give me trouble right along. You folks been nice to us. Now you jus’ pack up an’ get along. Me an’ Sairy’ll stay, an’ we’ll figger some way. We don’t aim to put you folks out none.’’ Pa said slowly, “We ain’t a-gonna do it. No, sir. We got almost a kin bond. Grampa, he died in your tent.’’ Sairy said tiredly, “We been nothin’ but trouble, nothin’ but trouble.’’

“I got an idear,’’ he said. “Maybe nobody gonna like it, but here she is: The nearer to California our folks get, the quicker they’s gonna be money rollin’ in. Now this here car’ll go twicet as fast as that truck. Now here’s my idea. You take out some a that stuff in the truck, an’ then all you folks but me an’ the preacher get in an’ move on. Me an’ Casy’ll stop here an’ fix this here car an’ then we drive on, day an’ night, an’ we’ll catch up, or if we don’t meet on the road, you’ll be a-workin’ anyways. An’ if you break down, why, jus’ camp ’longside the road till we come. You can’t be no worse off, an’ if you get through, why, you’ll all be a-workin’, an’ stuff’ll be easy. Casy can give me a lif’ with this here car, an’ we’ll come a-sailin’.’’

Ma stepped to the touring car and reached in on the floor of the back seat. She brought out a jack handle and balanced it in her hand easily. “I ain’t a-gonna go,’’ she said. “I tell you, you got to go. We made up our mind.’’ And now Ma’s mouth set hard. She said softly, “On’y way you gonna get me to go is whup me.’’ She moved the jack handle gently again. “An’ I’ll shame you, Pa. I won’t take no whuppin’, cryin’ an’ a-beggin’. I’ll light into you. An’ you ain’t so sure you can whup me anyways. An’ if ya do get me, I swear to God I’ll wait till you got your back turned, or you’re settin’ down, an’ I’ll knock you belly-up with a bucket. I swear to Holy Jesus’ sake I will.’’

“I’m all worried up,’’ Casy said. “I didn’ even know it when I was a-preachin’ aroun’, but I was doin’ consid’able tom-cattin’ aroun’. If I ain’t gonna preach no more, I got to get married. Why, Tommy, I’m a-lustin’ after the flesh.’’ “Me too,’’ said Tom. “Say, the day I come outa McAlester I was smokin’. I run me down a girl, a hoor girl, like she was a rabbit. I won’t tell ya what happened. I wouldn’ tell nobody what happened.’’

“Hell it did!’’ said Tom. “Well, I saved my money anyway, an’ I give that girl a run. Thought I was nuts. I should a paid her, but I on’y got five bucks to my name. She said she didn’ want no money. Here, roll in under here an’ grab a-holt. I’ll tap her loose. Then you turn out that bolt an’ I turn out my end, an’ we let her down easy. Careful that gasket. See, she comes off in one piece. They’s on’y four cylinders to these here ol’ Dodges. I took one down one time. Got main bearings big as a cantaloupe. Now—let her down—hold it. Reach up an’ pull down that gasket where it’s stuck—easy now. There!’’

Casy kneeled down and looked under again. Tom rattled the connecting-rod bearing against the shaft. “There she is.’’ “What ya s’pose done it?’’ Casy asked. “Oh, hell, I don’ know! This buggy been on the road thirteen years. Says sixty-thousand miles on the speedometer. That means a hunderd an’ sixty, an’ God knows how many times they turned the numbers back. Gets hot—maybe somebody let the oil get low—jus’ went out.’’