The Grapes of Wrath

Her reaching hand found his head in the blackness and her fingers moved down to his nose, and then over his left cheek. “You got a bad scar, Tom. An’ your nose is all crooked.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing. Nobody wouldn’t know me, maybe. If my prints wasn’t on record, I’d be glad.” He went back to his eating. “Hush,” she said. “Listen!”

“It’s the wind, Ma. Jus’ the wind.” The gust poured down the stream, and the trees rustled under its passing.

She crawled close to his voice. “I wanta touch ya again, Tom. It’s like I’m blin’, it’s so dark. I wanta remember, even if it’s on’y my fingers that remember. You got to go away, Tom.”

“Yeah! I knowed it from the start.”

“We made purty good,” she said. “I been squirrelin’ money away. Hol’ out your han’, Tom. I got seven dollars here.”

“I ain’t gonna take ya money,” he said. “I’ll get ’long all right.”

“Hol’ out ya han’, Tom. I ain’t gonna sleep none if you got no money. Maybe you got to take a bus, or somepin. I want you should go a long ways off, three-four hunderd miles.”

“I ain’t gonna take it.”

“Tom,” she said sternly. “You take this money. You hear me? You got no right to cause me pain.”

“You ain’t playin’ fair,” he said. “I thought maybe you could go to a big city. Los Angeles, maybe. They wouldn’ never look for you there.”

“Hm-m,” he said. “Lookie, Ma. I been all day an’ all night hidin’ alone. Guess who I been thinkin’ about? Casy! He talked a lot. Used ta bother me. But now I been thinkin’ what he said, an’ I can rememberall of it. Says one time he went out in the wilderness to find his own soul, an’ he foun’ he didn’ have no soul that was his’n. Says he foun’ he jus’ got a little piece of a great big soul. Says a wilderness ain’t no good, ’cause his little piece of a soul wasn’t no good ’less it was with the rest, an’ was whole. Funny how I remember. Didn’ think I was even listenin’. But I know now a fella ain’t no good alone.”

“He was a good man,” Ma said.

Tom went on, “He spouted out some Scripture once, an’ it didn’ soun’ like no hellfire Scripture. He tol’ it twicet, an’ I remember it. Says it’s from the Preacher.”

“How’s it go, Tom?”

“Goes, ’Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lif’ up his fellow, but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up.’ That’s part of her.”

“Go on,” Ma said. “Go on, Tom.”

“Jus’ a little bit more. ’Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him, and a three-fold cord is not quickly broken.’”

“An’ that’s Scripture?”

“Casy said it was. Called it the Preacher.”

“Hush— listen.”

“On’y the wind, Ma. I know the wind. An’ I got to thinkin’, Ma— most of the preachin’ is about the poor we shall have always with us, an’ if you got nothin’, why, jus’ fol’ your hands an’ to hell with it, you gonna git ice cream on gol’ plates when you’re dead. An’ then this here Preacher says two get a better reward for their work.”

“Tom,” she said. “What you aimin’ to do?”

He was quiet for a long time. “I been thinkin’ how it was in that gov’ment camp, how our folks took care a theirselves, an’ if they was a fight they fixed it theirself; an’ they wasn’t no cops wagglin’ their guns, but they was better order than them cops ever give. I been a-wonderin’ why we can’t do that all over. Throw out the cops that ain’t our people. All work together for our own thingall farm our own lan’.”

“Tom,” Ma repeated, “what you gonna do?”

“What Casy done,” he said. “But they killed him.”

“Yeah,” said Tom. “He didn’ duck quick enough. He wasn’ doing nothin’ against the law, Ma. I been thinkin’ a hell of a lot, thinkin’ about our people livin’ like pigs, an’ the good rich lan’ layin’ fallow, or maybe one fella with a million acres, while a hunderd thousan’ good farmers is starvin’. An’ I been wonderin’ if all our folks got together an’ yelled, like them fellas yelled, only a few of ’em at the Hooper ranch—”

Ma said, “Tom, they’ll drive you, an’ cut you down like they done to young Floyd.”

“They gonna drive me anyways. They drivin’ all our people.”

“You don’t aim to kill nobody, Tom?”

“No. I been thinkin’, long as I’m a outlaw anyways, maybe I could— Hell, I ain’t thought it out clear, Ma. Don’ worry me now. Don’ worry me.”

They sat silent in the coal-black cave of vines. Ma said, “How’m I gonna know ’bout you? They might kill ya an’ I wouldn’ know. They might hurt ya. How’m I gonna know?”

Tom laughed uneasily, “Well, maybe like Casy says, a fella ain’t got a soul of his own, but on’y a piece of a big one— an’ then—”

“Then what, Tom?”