The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck [178]
Tom’s shoulders and arms were rigid, and a shiver went through him. Ma clung to his arm. The front of the truck was surrounded by the armed men. Some of them, to make a military appearance, wore tunics and Sam Browne belts.
Tom whined, “Which way is it at, mister?’’
“You turn right around an’ head north. An’ don’t come back till the cotton’s ready.’’
Tom shivered all over. “Yes, sir,’’ he said. He put the car in reverse, backed around and turned. He headed back the way he had come. Ma released his arm and patted him softly. And Tom tried to restrain his hard smothered sobbing.
“Don’ you mind,’’ Ma said. “Don’ you mind.’’
Tom blew his nose out the window and wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “The sons-of-bitches——’’
“You done good,’’ Ma said tenderly. “You done jus’ good.’’
Tom swerved into a side dirt road, ran a hundred yards, and turned off his lights and motor. He got out of the car, carrying the jack handle.
“Where you goin’?’’ Ma demanded.
“Jus’ gonna look. We ain’t goin’ north.’’ The red lanterns moved up the highway. Tom watched them cross the entrance of the dirt road and continue on. In a few moments there came the sounds of shouts and screams, and then a flaring light arose from the direction of the Hooverville. The light grew and spread, and from the distance came a crackling sound. Tom got in the truck again. He turned around and ran up the dirt road without lights. At the highway he turned south again, and he turned on his lights.
Ma asked timidly, “Where we goin’, Tom?’’
“Goin’ south,’’ he said. “We couldn’ let them bastards push us aroun’. We couldn’. Try to get aroun’ the town ’thout goin’ through it.’’
“Yeah, but where we goin’?’’ Pa spoke for the first time. “That’s what I want ta know.’’
“Gonna look for that gov’ment camp,’’ Tom said. “A fella said they don’ let no deputies in there. Ma—I got to get away from ’em. I’m scairt I’ll kill one.’’
“Easy, Tom.’’ Ma soothed him. “Easy, Tommy. You done good once. You can do it again.’’
“Yeah, an’ after a while I won’t have no decency lef’.”
“Easy,’’ she said. “You got to have patience. Why, Tom—us people will go on livin’ when all them people is gone. Why, Tom, we’re the people that live. They ain’t gonna wipe us out. Why, we’re the people—we go on.’’
“We take a beatin’ all the time.’’
“I know.’’ Ma chuckled. “Maybe that makes us tough. Rich fellas come up an’ they die, an’ their kids ain’t no good, an’ they die out. But, Tom, we keep a-comin’. Don’ you fret none, Tom. A different time’s comin’.’’
“How do you know?’’
“I don’ know how.’’
They entered the town and Tom turned down a side street to avoid the center. By the street lights he looked at his mother. Her face was quiet and a curious look was in her eyes, eyes like the timeless eyes of a statue. Tom put out his right hand and touched her on the shoulder. He had to. And then he withdrew his hand. “Never heard you talk so much in my life,’’ he said.
“Wasn’t never so much reason,’’ she said.
He drove through the side streets and cleared the town, and then he crossed back. At an intersection the sign said “99.’’ He turned south on it.
“Well, anyways they never shoved us north,’’ he said. “We still go where we want, even if we got to crawl for the right.’’
The dim lights felt along the broad black highway ahead.
Chapter 21
THE MOVING, questing people were migrants now. Those families which had lived on a little piece of land, who had lived and died on forty acres, had eaten or starved on the produce of forty acres, had now the whole West to rove in. And they scampered about, looking for work; and the highways were streams of people, and the ditch banks were lines of people. Behind them more were coming. The great highways streamed with moving people. There in the Middle and Southwest had lived a simple agrarian folk who had not changed with industry, who had not farmed with machines or known the power and danger of machines in private hands. They had not grown up in the paradoxes of industry.