Across the Fruited Plain Part 3

"We-we were s'posed to write thank-you letters!" Jimmie burst out miserably. "She sat us all down to a table and gave us pens and paper."

"And what did you do, Son?" Daddy asked, smoothing the bristly little head. "I said could I take mine home," Jimmie mumbled, fishing a tight-folded sheet of paper from his pocket.

"I'll write it for you," Rose-Ellen offered. She sat down and began the letter, with Jimmie telling her what he wanted to say.

"But the real honest thing to do will be to tell her you didn't write it yourself," Grandma said pityingly.

"They have stories and games at night," Jimmie said, changing the subject. "She said to bring d.i.c.k and Rose-Ellen."

d.i.c.k and Rose-Ellen were too tired for stories and games that night. They tumbled into bed as soon as supper was done, and had to be dragged awake for breakfast. Not till a week's picking had hardened their muscles did they go to the Center.

When they did go--Jimmie limping along with his clipped head tucked sulkily between his shoulders as if he were not really proud to take them-they found the place alive with fun. Besides the three girls and the woman, there was a young man from a near-by university. He was organizing ping-pong games and indoor baseball for the boys and girls and even volleyball for some grown men who had come. Everyone was busy and everyone happy.

"It's slick here, some ways," d.i.c.k said that night.

"For a few weeks," Daddy agreed.

"If it wasn't for the misery in my back, it wouldn't be bad,"

Grandma murmured. "But an old body'd rather settle down in her own place. Who'd ever've thought I'd leave my solid oak dining set after I was sixty! But I'd like the country fine if we had a real house to live in."

"I'm learning to do spatter prints--for Christmas," said Rose-Ellen, brushing her hair before going to bed.

"Jimmie, why on earth don't you take this chance to learn reading?" Daddy coaxed.

"Daddy, you won't tell Her I can't read?" Jimmie begged.

Yet, as October pa.s.sed, something happened to change Jimmie's mind.

As October pa.s.sed, too, the Beechams grew skillful at picking.

They couldn't earn much, for it took a lot of cranberries to fill a peck measure-two gallons-especially this year, when the berries were small; and the pickers got only fifteen cents a peck. The bogs had to be flooded every night to keep the fruit from freezing; so every morning the mud was icy and so were the shower-baths from the wet bushes. But except for Grandma, they didn't find it hard work now.

"It's sure bad on the rheumatiz," said Grandma one morning, as she bent stiffly to wash clothes in the tub that had been filled and heated with such effort. "If we was home, we'd be lighting little kindling fires in the furnace night and morning. And hot water just by lighting the gas! Land, I never knew my own luck."

"But I like it here!" Jimmie burst out eagerly. "Do you know something? I'm going to learn to read! I colored my pictures the neatest of anyone in the cla.s.s, and She put them all on the wall. So then I didn't mind telling her how I never learned to read and write and how Rose-Ellen wrote my letter to Jimmie Brown in Cleveland."

He beamed so proudly that Grandpa, wringing a sheet for Grandma, looked sorrowfully at him over his gla.s.ses. "It's a pity you didn't tell her sooner, young-one," he said. "The cranberries will be over in a few more days, and we'll be going back."

"Back to Philadelphia?" Rose-Ellen demanded. "Where? Not to a Home? I won't! I'd rather go on and shuck oysters like Pauline Isabel and her folks. I'd rather go on where they're cutting marsh hay. I'd rather--"

"Well, now," Grandpa's words were slow, "what about it, kids?

What about it, Grandma? Do we go back to the city and-and part company till times are better? Or go on into oysters together?"

The tears stole down Jimmie's cheeks, but he didn't say anything.

Daddy didn't say anything, either. He picked Sally up and hugged her so hard that she grunted and then put her tiny hands on his cheeks and peered into his eyes, chirping at him like a little bird.

"I calculate we'll go on into oysters," said Grandpa.

3: SHUCKING OYSTERS

This picnic way of living had one advantage; it made moving easy.

One day the Beechams were picking; the next day they had joined with two other families and hired a truck to take them and their belongings to Oystersh.e.l.l, on the inlet of the bay near by.

Pauline Isabel's family were going to a Negro oystershucking village almost in sight of Oystersh.e.l.l. "It's sure nice there!"

Pauline a.s.sured them happily. "I belong to a girls' club that meets every day after school; in the Meth'dis' church. We got a sure good school, too, good as any white school, up the road a piece."

The Beechams said good-by to Pauline's family, who had become their friends. Then they said good-by to Miss Abbott. That was hard for Jimmie. He b.u.t.ted his shaven little head against Her and then limped away as fast as he could.

The ride to Oystersh.e.l.l was exciting. Autumn had changed the look of the land. "G.o.d has taken all the red and yellow he's got, and just splashed it on in gobs," said Rose-Ellen as they traveled toward the seash.o.r.e.

"What I like," d.i.c.k broke in, "is to see the men getting in the salt hay with their horses on sleds."

The marshes were too soft to hold up anything so small as a hoof, so when farmers used horses there, they fastened broad wooden shoes on the horses' feet. Nowadays, though, horses were giving place to tractors.

The air had an increasingly queer smell, like iodized salt in boiling potatoes. The Beechams were nearing the salt-water inlets of the bay, where the tides rose and fell like the ocean-of which the inlets were part.

The tide was high when they drove down from Phillipsville to the settlement of Oystersh.e.l.l. The rows of wooden houses, the oyster-sheds and the company store seemed to be wading on stilts, and most people wore rubber boots.

Grandma said, "If the bog was bad for my rheumatiz, what's this going to be?"

A man showed the Beechams a vacant house in the long rows. "Not much to look at," he acknowledged, "but the rent ain't much, either. The roofs are tight and a few have running water, case you want it bad enough to pay extra."

"To think a rusty pipe and one faucet in my kitchen would ever be a luxury!" Grandma muttered. "But, my land, even the humpy wall-paper looks good now."

It was gay, clean paper, though pasted directly on the boards.

The house had a kitchen-dining-sitting room and one bedroom, with walls so thin they let through every word of the next-door radio.

"That's going to be a peekaneeka, sure," Grandma said grimly.

Children were not allowed to work in the oysters, but Grandma was going to try. The children could tell she was nervous about it, by the way her foot jerked up and down when she gave Sally her bottle that night; but she said she expected she wasn't too dumb to do what other folks could.

The children were still asleep when the grown-ups went to work in the six o'clock darkness of that November Sat.u.r.day. When they woke, mush simmered on the cookstove and a bottle of milk stood on the table. It took time to feed Sally and wash dishes and make beds; and then d.i.c.k and Rose-Ellen ran over to the nearest long oyster-house and peeked through a hole in the wall.

Down each side, raised above the fishy wet floor, ran a row of booths, each with a desk and step, made of rough boards. On each step stood a man or woman, in boots and heavy clothes, facing the desk. Only instead of pen and paper, these people had buckets, oysters, knives. As fast as they could, they were opening the big, h.o.r.n.y oyster sh.e.l.ls and emptying the oysters into the buckets.

Next time, d.i.c.k stayed with Sally, and Rose-Ellen and Jimmie peeked. They were startled when a big hand dropped on each of their heads.

"You kids skedaddle," ordered a big man. "If you want to see things, come back at four."

By four o'clock the grown folks were home, tired and smelling of fish; d.i.c.k and Rose-Ellen were prancing on tiptoe to go, and even Jimmie was ready.

"This is what he is like," said Rose-Ellen, "the man who said we could." She stuck in her chin and threw out her chest and tried to stride.

"That's the Big Boss, all right," Daddy said, laughing. "Guess it's O.K. But mind your _p_'s and _q_'s."

"And stick together. Specially in a strange place." Grandma wearily picked up the baby.