Across the Fruited Plain Part 5

When they had traveled two hours they wondered how they could bear thirteen hundred miles, cold, aching, wedged motionless.

All they could look forward to was lunchtime, when they could stretch themselves and ease their gnawing stomachs; but the sun climbed high and the truck still banged along without stopping.

The children could hear a man in front angrily asking the driver, "When we get-it--the dinner?"

The driver faced ahead as if he were deaf.

"When we get-it--the grub?" roared the man, pounding the driver's shoulder.

"If we stop once an hour, we don't get there in time for your jobs," the driver growled, and drove on.

Not till dark did they stop to eat. Grandpa, clambering down stiffly, had to lift Grandma and Sally out. Daddy took Jimmie, sobbing with weariness. d.i.c.k and Rose-Ellen tumbled out, feet asleep 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 she could hardly eat the hamburger and potato chips and coffee slammed down before her on the sloppy counter. Jimmie went to sleep with his head in his plate and had to be wakened to finish.

Still, the food did help them, and when they were wedged into their seats again, they could begin to look forward to the night's rest. Grandpa said likely they wouldn't drive much after ten, and Grandma said, "Land of love, ten? Does he think a body's made of leather?"

On and on they went, toppling sleepily against each other, aching so hard that the ache wakened them, hearing dimly the same angry man arguing with the driver. "When we stop to sleep, hah? I ask you, when we stop to sleep?"

They didn't stop at all.

Rose-Ellen was forever wishing she could wake up enough to pull up the extra quilt which always used to be neatly rolled at the foot of her bed. Once, through uneasy dreams, she felt Daddy shaking her gently, and while she tried to pull away and back into sleep, Grandpa's determinedly cheerful voice said, "Always did want to see Washington, D. C., and here we are. Look quick and you'll see the United States Capitol."

From the rumbling truck, Rose-Ellen and d.i.c.k focused sleep-blurred eyes with a mighty effort and saw the great dome and spreading wings, flooded with light.

"Puts me in mind of a mother eagle brooding her young," Grandpa muttered.

"Land of love, enough sight of them eaglets is out from under her wings, finding slim pickin's," Grandma snapped.

"Looks like white wax candles." Rose-Ellen yawned widely and went to sleep again.

When gray morning dawned, she did not know which was worse-the sleepiness or the hunger. The angry man demanded over and over, "When we stop for breakfast?"

They didn't stop.

Grandma had canned milk and boiled water along, and with all the Beechams working together, they got the baby's bottles filled.

Poor Sally couldn't understand the cold milk, but she was so hungry she finally drank it, staring reproachfully at her bottle.

Not till he had engine trouble did the driver halt. Fortunately the garage where he stopped had candy and pop for sale. Grandpa had his family choose each a chocolate bar and a bottle. He wanted to get more, for fear they would not stop for the noon meal, but in five minutes all the supplies were sold.

Rose-Ellen tried to make her chocolate almond bar last; she chewed every bite till it slid down her throat; and then, alas, she was so sick that it didn't stay down.

Grandpa and Daddy talked with others about making the driver give them rest and food; but there was nothing they could do: the padrone, back in Philadelphia, already had their money for the trip.

The children walked about while they waited. It was not cold, but the dampness chilled them. It was queer country, the highway running between swamps of black water, where gray trees stood veiled in gray moss. Gray cabins sat every-which-way in the clearing, heavy shutters swinging at their gla.s.sless windows.

A pale, thin girl talked to Rose-Ellen. She was Polish, and her name was Rose, too. When Rose-Ellen asked her if she had ever heard of such a dreadful trip, she shrugged and said she was used to going without sleep.

Last year, in asparagus, she and her parents and two brothers cared for twenty-two acres, and when it grew hot "dat gra.s.s, oooop she go and we work all night for git ahead of her."

Asparagus, even Rose-Ellen knew could grow past using in a day.

The Polish Rose said that they got up at four in the morning and were in the fields at half-past; and sometimes worked till near midnight.

"Mornings," she said, "I think I die, so bad I want the sleep.

And then the boss, he no give us half our wages. Now most a year it has been."

Curiously Rose-Ellen asked her about school.

"No money, no time, no clo'es," said Polish Rose.

The truck-driver shouted to his people to pile in and the truck went on. By noon the Beechams were seeing their first palm trees and winter flowers. Grandpa and Daddy tried to tell the children about the things they were pa.s.sing, but the children were too sleepy and sickish to care. Grandma's mouth was a thin line of pain and the baby wailed until people looked around crossly, though there were other crying babies.

The truck reached its destination late on the second evening and piled out its pa.s.sengers at a grapefruit camp. Rose-Ellen had been picturing a village of huts like those at the bogs, or bright-papered shacks like the oystershuckers'. Though the featherbeds were gone, it would be delicious to lie on the floor, uncrowded, and sheltered from the night.

But no such shelter awaited them. Instead, they were pointed to a sort of hobo camp with lights glimmering through torn canvas.

A heavy odor scented the darkness.

Grandpa said, "They can't expect decent folks . . . !"

Grandma said, "We've got to stretch out somewheres. Even under a tree. This baby. . . ."

Sally was crying a miserable little cry, and an Italian woman who reminded Rose-Ellen of Mrs. Albi peered out of a patched tent and said, "Iss a _bambina_! Oooh, the little so-white _bambina_! Look you here, quick! The people next door have leave these tent. You move in before some other bodies."

"These tent" was a top and three walls of dirty canvas. "If you'd told me a Beecham would lay down in a filthy place like this. . . ." Grandma declared. Rose-Ellen did not hear the end of the sentence. She was asleep on the earth floor.

Next day when the men and d.i.c.k were hired to pick grapefruit, Grandpa asked the boss about better living quarters.

"He said there wasn't any," Grandpa reported later.

"My land of love, you mean we've got to stay here?" Grandma groaned.

Grimly she set to work. The Italian neighbor had brought her a pot of stew and some coffee, but now Grandma and Rose-Ellen must go to the store for provisions. They brushed their clothes, all wrinkles from the long trip, and demanding the iron Grandma did not have. They combed their hair and washed. They set out, leaving the baby with Jimmie.

"Shall I send these?" the grocer asked respectfully, when they had given their order. "You're new here, aren't you?" Mussed as they were, the Beechams still looked respectable.

Grandma flushed. She hated to have anyone see that flapping canvas room, but the heap of supplies was heavy. "Please. We're working in the grapefruit," she said.

The grocer's face lost its smile. "Oh, we don't deliver to the camps," he snapped. "And it's strictly cash."

Grandma handed him the coins, and she and Rose-Ellen silently piled their purchases into the tub they had bought. They had to set it down many times on their way back.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bringing back the groceries]

Next Grandma made a twig broom and they swept the dirty ground.

Mrs. Rugieri, next door, showed Grandma her beds, made of automobile seats put together on the ground. That night the Beecham men went to the nearest dumps and found enough seats to make a bed for Grandpa and Grandma and the baby. Fortunately it was not cold; coats were covering enough.

On the dump Daddy found also an old tub, from which he made a stove, cutting holes in it, turning it upside down, and fastening in a stovepipe.

"I don't feel to blame folks so much as I used to for being dirty," Grandma admitted, when they had done their best to make the shelter a home. "But all the same, I want for you young-ones to keep away from them. I saw a baby that looked as if it had measles."