Across the Fruited Plain

surprised the Beech

s, trunk. "I take three grown folks, three kids, one b

out their most needed clothing and made it into

" cried Grandma,

t-door neighbor. The clock she would not leave and

as hardly room for the passengers' feet. The crowding did help warm the unheated truck

place at all to t

wedged motionless. All they could look forward to was lunchtime, when they could stretch themselves and

n front angrily asking the driv

ed ahead as if

?" roared the man, poundi

get there in time for your jobs,"

ep and bodies aching. When they stumbled into the roadside hamburger stand, the lights blurred before their eyes, and the hot steamy air with its cooking smells made Rose-Ellen so dizzy that

ld begin to look forward to the night's rest. Grandpa said likely they wouldn't drive muc

that the ache wakened them, hearing dimly the same angry man arguing with

n't stop

bed. Once, through uneasy dreams, she felt Daddy shaking her gently, and while she tried to pull away and back into sleep, Grandpa's determi

sleep-blurred eyes with a mighty effort and saw the

ther eagle brooding her

aglets is out from under her wings, f

es." Rose-Ellen yawned wide

worse-the sleepiness or the hunger. The angry man d

didn'

gether, they got the baby's bottles filled. Poor Sally couldn't understand the cold

and pop for sale. Grandpa had his family choose each a chocolate bar and a bottle. He wanted to get

she chewed every bite till it slid down her throat; an

them rest and food; but there was nothing they could do: the pad

er country, the highway running between swamps of black water, where gray trees stood veiled in gray mo

s Rose, too. When Rose-Ellen asked her if she had ever heard of such a

o acres, and when it grew hot "dat grass, oooop she go and we work all night for

in the morning and were in the fields at half-

want the sleep. And then the boss, he no give u

-Ellen asked h

me, no clo'es,"

flowers. Grandpa and Daddy tried to tell the children about the things they were passing, but the children were too sleepy and sickish to

Ellen had been picturing a village of huts like those at the bogs, or bright-papered shacks like the oystershuckers'.

ointed to a sort of hobo camp with lights glimmering t

y can't expect dec

tretch out somewheres. Even u

i peered out of a patched tent and said, "Iss a bambina! Oooh, the little so-white bambina! Look

echam would lay down in a filthy place like this. . . ." Grandma declared. Ros

red to pick grapefruit, Grandpa asked

sn't any," Grandp

mean we've got to stay

se-Ellen must go to the store for provisions. They brushed their clothes, all wrinkles from the long trip, and dem

they had given their order. "You're new here, aren't you?"

apping canvas room, but the heap of supplies was heav

h, we don't deliver to the camps," h

lently piled their purchases into the tub they had boug

e of automobile seats put together on the ground. That night the Beecham men went to the nearest dumps and found enou

hich he made a stove, cutting holes in it, turn

when they had done their best to make the shelter a home. "But all the same, I want fo

"or if they even had room for us in school. I feel as

ce in our whole country where you couldn't live de

d the men picked the pale round fruit ever so carefully, clipping it gently so as not to bruise the skin and cau

t the foreman said he was bruising too much fruit. At first Grandma said she was glad he was fired,

h teach you words and ways I never thoug

t was hardest for Grandma and Jimmie

our teeth and han

e the Bi

the middle of the night, Rose-Ellen woke to the shriek of wind and the crack of canvas. Then, w

nd and battering rain. Then Sally's wail sounded, and G

ell and the wind still blew; but fitfully, as if they, too, were tired out. The family scurried around putting up the tent and building a fire and drying things

ng and coughing. Grandma was saying, "My land, my land, I'd give five years of my life to be in my own house with th

dress followed the gray head in. "Is she bad sick? Ha

're the first since we struck this place. You'll have to excuse me," she apologized, as the children

eap of suffering here in the camp, or like enough we'd not have ought of it, and us church fol

as milk. Grandma sighed as she wondered how she would get these good things for the sick baby. However, Sally did seem to be so

aller. "Storm's wrecked the crop so bad he's layin

on her lap. "My land of love," she said,