Across the Fruited Plain

t of April, the Beecham family p

t in the "jungle" camp. "I don't believe there are enou

st of them will be canned; and other folks have to shell and sort them

f work everything ma

ps as she set a white patch in a blue overall knee. "Then eac

t. "We use' to get along in winter with turnips and cabbage and such, and fruit the womenfolks cann

r thought of it, but it's turned the country upside down and made a million

the million workers coming in just when they're

; and how they do hate the sight of us 'rubber tramps,' the

ured on them. Grandpa said it put him in mind of heaven. Grandma said it would be heaven-on-earth to live there, if only you had a decent little house and a garden. The desert places were as b

Ellen complained, "like seeing t

all on the market, the price would go down. But there's not enough so that those that

ked out in the barnyard, so it was fortunate that it was the dry season. From May to August the men and Dick picked, trimmed, packed let

ack with flies besides, and sickening with odor. Grandma's cushiony pinkness e

wind to the shorn lamb. What with no Center near here and only the public health nur

air and all, with yellow laundry soap, and washed their clothes and put the automobile-seat beds in

rowded steeply by the sea. But the Reo had had to have a new gas-line and a battery, and little

s higher than the fields. Beside the river ran the highway. The Beechams looked down at pear orchards, tule marshes and ranch houses. Ever

work. The Reo was having to have her tires patched twice a day, and slow leaks

the fish that passed them on an endless belt, making it ready for others to pack in cans. At the feet of some

own on the other side of the road, where the foreman had told them his packers lived. Ev

any sun or air at all!" Rose-Ellen squeezed Sally thankfully. Even though the baby was underwe

a little like woodbine, but rough to touch. The fruits resembled small spruce cones of pale yellow-green tissue paper.

ld sixty pounds each--more when the weather was not so dry--and sixty pounds meant ninety cents. School had not started yet, so the children worked all day. Some

ying herself. "We've got to earn what we can. I never see the beat of it. I

money. They were given tickets marked with the amount due

ffee before his eyes. "Thirty-five cents, and not the best grade, mind you! Pink salmon hi

or for beds, and mud deep in the dooryards where the campers emptied

he public health nurses, when they came to visit the sick ones, warned the

salami, heavy with spices. "And those nurse also are crazy. Back in asparagus I send-it my kids to the Center, and what you think? They take off Pepe's clothes! Th

u do then?" Rose

kids to the Center!" Mrs.

"your baby might feel better in such hot w

over a single flour-sack undergarment. "We have-it

Seven years old, Pedro might have been, but he could move about only by sitting

Pedro my scrapbook?" he w

think more about others, you wouldn't be

e shack wall till dark, Jimmie telling stories to match the pictures. It was a week before they co

hey liked her, and looked smilingly at the clock and approvingly at Carrie

" they told Grandma. "There wouldn't be half

camp gathered to discuss the renewed order

Rose-Ellen, "'You no cover up your grub, we throw him out

ng but talk,"

ose-Ellen, staying home with sick Jimmie, watched a nurse trot out of the Serafini shack, carrying long loaves of bread and loops of sausage, alive with fl

of angry bees, with threats of what the

w on their side; we couldn't do a thing. Besides, if you'll hold your horses

od, since they must do so or lose it. And they had to a

Serafini persisted,

hot old swaddlings had been taken off at last. Perhaps Mrs

f my aflabet, Rose-Ellen," Jimmi

"You never would let us teach you any

ahead of Pedro," he explained, and

entered round Dick. He was fourteen now, and not only his voice, but his way, was c

randma scolded, "and that gang he'

o tan him, if he keeps on lighting out every night. That gang set f

"When I was his age I had chores to keep me busy, and when you were his age you had gym,

ggested, "why don't we p

"But it would be great to get into apples in Washington, for ins

, not before. Grandma sagged when she heard. "I ain't sick," she said, "b

oks like, with prices at the company store so high, if we stayed another month we'd ow

"Those tires were a poor buy. We h

e we can get there before the tires b

dro'll cry if we go away. He can print his first name now,