The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

When you cross the Colorado river, there’s the desert, they say. Look out for the desert. See you don’t get hung up. Take plenty water, case you get hung up. I’m gonna take her at night. Me too. She’ll cut the living Jesus outa you. The families ate quickly, and the dishes were dipped and wiped. The tents came down. There was a rush to go. And when the sun arose, the camping place was vacant, only a little litter left by the people. And the camping place was ready for a new world in a new night.

“What ya think, Pa?’’ Tom asked. “Well, I don’ know. Do us good to get a little res’, ’specially Granma. But other ways, I’d kinda like to get acrost her an’ get settled into a job. On’y got ’bout forty dollars left. I’ll feel better when we’re all workin’, an’ a little money comin’ in.’’

“Well, Okie use’ ta mean you was from Oklahoma. Now it means you’re a dirty son-of-a-bitch. Okie means you’re scum. Don’t mean nothing itself, it’s the way they say it. But I can’t tell you nothin’. You got to go there. I hear there’s three hunderd thousan’ of our people there— an’ livin’ like hogs, ’cause ever’thing in California is owned. They ain’t nothin’ left. An’ them people that owns it is gonna hang on to it if they got ta kill ever’body in the worl’ to do it. An’ they’re scairt, an’ that makes ’em mad. You got to see it. You got to hear it. Purtiest goddamn country you ever seen, but they ain’t nice to you, them folks. They’re so scairt an’ worried they ain’t even nice to each other.’’

“Sure, nice to look at, but you can’t have none of it. They’s a grove of yella oranges—an’ a guy with a gun that got the right to kill you if you touch one. They’s a fella, newspaper fella near the coast, got a million acres—”1 Casy looked up quickly, “Million acres? What in the worl’ can he do with a million acres?’’ “I dunno. He jus’ got it. Runs a few cattle. Got guards ever’place to keep folks out. Rides aroun’ in a bullet-proof car. I seen pitchers of him. Fat, sof’ fella with little mean eyes an’ a mouth like a ass-hole. Scairt he’s gonna die. Got a million acres an’ scairt of dyin’.’’

Pa asked, “What’s he disappointed about if he got a million acres?’’ The preacher smiled, and he looked puzzled. He splashed a floating water bug away with his hand. “If he needs a million acres to make him feel rich, seems to me he needs it ’cause he feels awful poor inside hisself, and if he’s poor in hisself, there ain’t no million acres gonna make him feel rich, an’ maybe he’s disappointed that nothin’ he can do’ll make him feel rich—not rich like Mis’ Wilson was when she give her tent when Grampa died. I ain’t tryin’ to preach no sermon, but I never seen nobody that’s busy as a prairie dog collectin’ stuff that wasn’t disappointed.’’ He grinned. “Does kinda soun’ like a sermon, don’t it?’’

“It ain’t no use,’’ Noah said. “I’m sad, but I can’t he’p it. I got to go.’’ He turned abruptly and walked downstream along the shore. Tom started to follow, and then he stopped. He saw Noah disappear into the brush, and then appear again, following the edge of the river. And he watched Noah growing smaller on the edge of the river, until he disappeared into the willows at last. And Tom took off his cap and scratched his head. He went back to his willow cave and lay down to sleep. Under the spread tarpaulin Granma lay on a mattress, and Ma sat beside her. The air was stiflingly hot, and the flies buzzed in the shade of the canvas. Granma was naked under a long piece of pink curtain. She turned her old head restlessly from side to side, and she muttered and choked. Ma sat on the ground beside her, and with a piece of cardboard drove the flies away and fanned a stream of moving hot air over the tight old face. Rose of Sharon sat on the other side and watched her mother.

Ma raised her eyes to the girl’s face. Ma’s eyes were patient, but the lines of strain were on her forehead. Ma fanned and fanned the air, and her piece of cardboard warned off the flies. “When you’re young, Rosasharn, ever’thing that happens is a thing all by itself. It’s a lonely thing. I know, I ’member, Rosasharn.’’

A large woman in a torn black dress looked into the tent. Her eyes were bleared and indefinite, and the skin sagged to her jowls and hung down in little flaps. Her lips were loose, so that the upper lip hung like a curtain over her teeth, and her lower lip, by its weight, folded outward, showing her lower gums. “Mornin’, ma’am,’’ she said. “Mornin’, an’ praise God for victory.’’

“Jehovites is good people. They’re howlers an’ jumpers. I dunno. Somepin jus’ come over me. I didn’ think I could stan’ it. I’d jus’ fly all apart.’’ From some little distance there came the sound of the beginning meeting, a sing-song chant of exhortation. The words were not clear, only the tone. The voice rose and fell, and went higher at each rise. Now a response filled in the pause, and the exhortation went up with a tone of triumph, and a growl of power came into the voice. It swelled and paused, and a growl came into the response. And now gradually the sentences of exhortation shortened, grew sharper, like commands; and into the responses came a complaining note. The rhythm quickened. Male and female voices had been one tone, but now in the middle of a response one woman’s voice went up and up in a wailing cry, wild and fierce, like the cry of a beast; and a deeper woman’s voice rose up beside it, a baying voice, and a man’s voice traveled up the scale in the howl of a wolf. The exhortation stopped, and only the feral howling came from the tent, and with it a thudding sound on the earth. Ma shivered. Rose of Sharon’s breath was panting and short, and the chorus of howls went on so long it seemed that lungs must burst.

Now the high voice broke into hysteria, the gabbling screams of a hyena, the thudding became louder. Voices cracked and broke, and then the whole chorus fell to a sobbing, grunting undertone, and the slap of flesh and the thuddings on the earth; and the sobbing changed to a little whining, like that of a litter of puppies at a food dish.

She slept deeply, and snored through her half-open mouth. The whining from the distance was softer and softer until it could not be heard at all any more. Rose of Sharon looked at Ma, and her eyes were blank with tears. “It done good,’’ said Rose of Sharon. “It done Granma good. She’s a-sleepin’.’’

Ma’s face blackened with anger. She got slowly to her feet. She stooped to the utensil box and picked out the iron skillet. “Mister,’’ she said, “you got a tin button an’ a gun. Where I come from, you keep your voice down.’’ She advanced on him with the skillet. He loosened the gun in the holster. “Go ahead,’’ said Ma. “Scarin’ women. I’m thankful the men folks ain’t here. They’d tear ya to pieces. In my country you watch your tongue.’’ The man took two steps backward. “Well, you ain’t in your country now. You’re in California, an’ we don’t want you goddamn Okies settlin’ down.’’

The sun sank low in the afternoon, but the heat did not seem to decrease. Tom awakened under his willow, and his mouth was parched and his body was wet with sweat, and his head was dissatisfied with his rest. He staggered to his feet and walked toward the water. He peeled off his clothes and waded into the stream. And the moment the water was about him, his thirst was gone. He lay back in the shallows and his body floated. He held himself in place with his elbows in the sand, and looked at his toes, which bobbed above the surface.

Then suddenly he saw Tom’s head and saw that Tom was watching him. He stopped his game and sat up. Tom said, “Hello.’’ “ ’Lo!’’ “Looks like you was playin’ mushrat.’’ “Well, I was.’’

“I was scairt,’’ she said. “They was a policeman here. He says we can’t stay here. I was scairt he talked to you. I was scairt you’d hit him if he talked to you.’’ Tom said, “What’d I go an’ hit a policeman for?’’ Ma smiled. “Well—he talked so bad—I nearly hit him myself.’’

She hesitated a long time. “Tom, this here policeman—he called us— Okies. He says, ‘We don’ want you goddamn Okies settlin’ down.’ ’’ Tom studied her, and his hand still rested gently on her bare foot. “Fella tol’ about that,’’ he said. “Fella tol’ how they say it.’’ He considered, “Ma, would you say I was a bad fella? Oughta be locked up—like that?’’ “No,’’ she said. “You been tried— No. What you ast me for?’’ “Well, I dunno. I’d a took a sock at that cop.’’ Ma smiled with amusement. “Maybe I oughta ast you that, ’cause I nearly hit ’im with a skillet.’’

Tom looked down the line of tents and he saw Ruthie and Winfield standing in front of a tent in decorous conversation with someone inside. Ruthie was twisting her skirt in her hands, while Winfield dug a hole in the ground with his toe. Tom called, “You, Ruthie!’’ She looked up and saw him and trotted toward him, with Winfield behind her. When she came up, Tom said, “You go get our folks. They’re sleepin’ down the willows. Get ’em. An’ you, Winfiel’. You tell the Wilsons we’re gonna get rollin’ soon as we can.’’ The children spun around and charged off.

The sun sank toward the baked and broken hills to the west. The pot over the fire bubbled furiously. Ma went under the tarpaulin and came out with an apronful of potatoes, and she dropped them into the boiling water. “I pray God we gonna be let to wash some clothes. We ain’t never been dirty like this. Don’t even wash potatoes ’fore we boil ’em. I wonder why? Seems like the heart’s took out of us.’’

The family climbed on the truck, Ma on top, beside Granma. Tom and Al and Pa in the seat, and Winfield on Pa’s lap. Connie and Rose of Sharon made a nest against the cab. The preacher and Uncle John and Ruthie were in a tangle on the load.

Tom kept the truck in second gear over the rough road, to protect the springs. At Needles he drove into a service station, checked the worn tires for air, checked the spares tied to the back. He had the gas tank filled, and he bought two five-gallon cans of gasoline and a two-gallon can of oil. He filled the radiator, begged a map, and studied it. The service-station boy, in his white uniform, seemed uneasy until the bill was paid. He said, “You people sure have got nerve.’’ Tom looked up from the map. “What you mean?’’ “Well, crossin’ in a jalopy like this.’’ “You been acrost?’’ “Sure, plenty, but not in no wreck like this.’’

Tom grinned. “It don’t take no nerve to do somepin when there ain’t nothin’ else you can do. Well, thanks. We’ll drag on.’’ And he got in the truck and moved away.

“Well, you and me got sense. Them goddamn Okies got no sense and no feeling. They ain’t human. A human being wouldn’t live like they do. A human being couldn’t stand it to be so dirty and miserable. They ain’t a hell of a lot better than gorillas.’’

The truck took the road and moved up the long hill, through the broken, rotten rock. The engine boiled very soon and Tom slowed down and took it easy. Up the long slope, winding and twisting through dead country, burned white and gray, and no hint of life in it.

The little starved bushes, sage and grease-wood, threw bold shadows on the sand and bits of rock. The glaring sun was straight ahead. Tom held his hand before his eyes to see at all. They passed the crest and coasted down to cool the engine. They coasted down the long sweep to the floor of the desert, and the fan turned over to cool the water in the radiator. In the driver’s seat, Tom and Al and Pa, and Winfield on Pa’s knee, looked into the bright descending sun, and their eyes were stony, and their brown faces were damp with perspiration. The burnt land and the black, cindery hills broke the even distance and made it terrible in the reddening light of the setting sun.

“Jesus, the desert’s past! Pa, Al, for Christ sakes! The desert’s past!’’ “I’m too goddamn tired to care,’’ said Al. “Want me to drive?’’ “No, wait awhile.’’ They drove through Tehachapi in the morning glow, and the sun came up behind them, and then—suddenly they saw the great valley below them. Al jammed on the brake and stopped in the middle of the road, and, “Jesus Christ! Look!’’ he said. The vineyards, the orchards, the great flat valley, green and beautiful, the trees set in rows, and the farm houses.

They popped down the mountain, twisting and looping, losing the valley sometimes, and then finding it again. And the hot breath of the valley came up to them, with hot green smells on it, and with resinous sage and tarweed smells. The crickets crackled along the road. A rattlesnake crawled across the road and Tom hit it and broke it and left it squirming. Tom said, “I guess we got to go to the coroner, wherever he is. We got to get her buried decent. How much money might be lef’, Pa?’’ “ ’Bout forty dollars,’’ said Pa. Tom laughed. “Jesus, are we gonna start clean! We sure ain’t bringin’ nothin’ with us.’’

shopkeepers. No matter how clever, how loving a man might be with earth and growing things, he could not survive if he were not also a good shopkeeper. And as time went on, the business men had the farms, and the farms grew larger, but there were fewer of them. Now farming became industry, and the owners followed Rome, although they did not know it. They imported slaves, although they did not call them slaves: Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos. They live on rice and beans, the business men said. They don’t need much. They wouldn’t know what to do with good wages. Why, look how they live. Why, look what they eat. And if they get funny—deport them.

And it came about that owners no longer worked on their farms. They farmed on paper; and they forgot the land, the smell, the feel of it, and remembered only that they owned it, remembered only what they gained and lost by it. And some of the farms grew so large that one man could not even conceive of them any more, so large that it took batteries of bookkeepers to keep track of interest and gain and loss; chemists to test the soil, to replenish; straw bosses to see that the stooping men were moving along the rows as swiftly as the material of their bodies could stand. Then such a farmer really became a storekeeper, and kept a store. He paid the men, and sold them food, and took the money back.

A man might work and feed himself; and when the work was done, he might find that he owed money to the company. And the owners not only did not work the farms any more, many of them had never seen the farms they owned.

They were hungry, and they were fierce. And they had hoped to find a home, and they found only hatred. Okies—the owners hated them because the owners knew they were soft and the Okies strong, that they were fed and the Okies hungry; and perhaps the owners had heard from their grandfathers how easy it is to steal land from a soft man if you are fierce and hungry and armed.

Well, maybe we could get a little piece of her. Maybe—a little piece. Right down there—a patch. Jimson weed now. Christ, I could git enough potatoes off’n that little patch to feed my whole family! It ain’t our’n. It got to have Jimson weeds. Now and then a man tried; crept on the land and cleared a piece, trying like a thief to steal a little richness from the earth. Secret gardens hidden in the weeds. A package of carrot seeds and a few turnips. Planted potato skins, crept out in the evening secretly to hoe in the stolen earth.

All over the State, jabbering in the Hoovervilles.

Three hundred thousand in California and more coming. And in California the roads full of frantic people running like ants to pull, to push, to lift, to work. For every manload to lift, five pairs of arms extended to lift it; for every stomachful of food available, five mouths open.

The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of revolt so that it might be stamped out.

The great owners formed associations for protection and they met to discuss ways to intimidate, to kill, to gas. And always they were in fear of a principal—three hundred thousand—if they ever move under a leader—the end. Three hundred thousand, hungry and miserable; if they ever know themselves, the land will be theirs and all the gas, all the rifles in the world won’t stop them. And the great owners, who had become through the might of their holdings both more and less than men, ran to their destruction, and used every means that in the long run would destroy them. Every little means, every violence, every raid on a Hooverville, every deputy swaggering through a ragged camp put off the day a little and cemented the inevitability of the day.

And hands went into pockets and little coins came out. In front of the tent a little heap of silver grew. And the family found it there. Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won’t all be poor. Pray God some day a kid can eat.

Tom started the car and they rolled through the streets and out toward the country. And by a bridge they saw a collection of tents and shacks. Tom said, “Might’s well stop here. Find out what’s doin’, an’ where at the work is.’’ He drove down a steep dirt incline and parked on the edge of the encampment. There was no order in the camp; little gray tents, shacks, cars were scattered about at random.

The camp was neat and sturdy. A Model A roadster and a little home-made bed trailer stood beside the tent. 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 cautiously toward it, little boys in overalls and bare feet, their hair gray with dust.

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. ’’

“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 heel and popped into the shack after the gray woman. Tom turned on Pa. “What the hell was that?’’ he asked.

“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.’’

“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.’’

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.’’

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?’’

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.’’

“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.’’

The young man laughed harshly. “You stay out here a little while, an’ if you smell any roses, you come let me smell, too.’’

The young man grinned. “I didn’ mean it. You ain’t been here. Folks figgered that out. An’ the folks with the peach orchard figgered her out too. Look, if the folks gets together, they’s a leader—got to be—fella that does the talkin’. Well, first time this fella opens his mouth they grab ’im an’ stick ’im in jail. An’ if they’s another leader pops up, why, they stick ’im in jail.’’

“An’ here’s another thing. Ever hear a’ the blacklist?’’ “What’s that?’’ “Well, you jus’ open your trap about us folks gettin’ together, an’ you’ll see. They take your pitcher an’ send it all over. Then you can’t get work nowhere. An’ if you got kids——’’ Tom took off his cap and twisted it in his hands. “So we take what we can get, huh, or we starve; an’ if we yelp we starve.’’

“You’re nuts,’’ said the young man. “They’ll pick you right off. You got no name, no property. They’ll find you in a ditch, with the blood dried on your mouth an’ your nose. Be one little line in the paper—know what it’ll say? ‘Vagrant foun’ dead.’ An’ that’s all. You’ll see a lot of them little lines, ‘Vagrant foun’ dead.’ ’’