The Grapes of Wrath

Pa climbed the sides and looked under the canvas. “It ain’t here. We must a forgot it.”

Thirst set in instantly. Winfield moaned, “I wanta drink. I wanta drink.” The men licked their lips, suddenly conscious of their thirst. And a little panic started.

Al felt the fear growing. “We’ll get water first service station we come to. We need some gas too.” The family swarmed up the truck sides; Ma helped Granma in and got in beside her. Al started the motor and they moved on.

Castle to Paden twenty-five miles and the sun passed the zenith and started down. And the radiator cap began to jiggle up and down and steam started to whish out. Near Paden there was a shack beside the road and two gas pumps in front of it; and beside a fence, a water faucet and a hose. Al drove in and nosed the Hudson up to the hose. As they pulled in, a stout man, red of face and arms, got up from a chair behind the gas pumps and moved toward them. He wore brown corduroys, and suspenders and a polo shirt; and he had a cardboard sun helmet, painted silver, on his head. The sweat beaded on his nose and under his eyes and formed streams in the wrinkles of his neck. He strolled toward the truck, looking truculent and stern.

“You folks aim to buy anything? Gasoline or stuff?” he asked. Al was out already, unscrewing the steaming radiator cap with the tips of his fingers, jerking his hand away to escape the spurt when the cap should come loose. “Need some gas, mister.”

“Got any money?”

“Sure. Think we’re beggin’?”

The truculence left the fat man’s face. “Well, that’s all right, folks. He’p yourself to water.” And he hastened to explain. “Road is full a people, come in, use water, dirty up the toilet, an’ then, by God, they’ll steal stuff an’ don’t buy nothin’. Got no money to buy with. Come beggin’ a gallon gas to move on.”

Tom dropped angrily to the ground and moved toward the fat man. “We’re payin’ our way,” he said fiercely. “You got no call to give us a goin’-over. We ain’t asked you for nothin’.”

“I ain’t,” the fat man said quickly. The sweat began to soak through his short-sleeved polo shirt. “Jus’ he’p yourself to water, and go use the toilet if you want.”

Winfield had got the hose. He drank from the end and then turned the stream over his head and face and emerged dripping. “It ain’t cool,” he said.

“I don’t know what the country’s comin’ to,” the fat man continued. His complaint had shifted now and he was no longer talking to or about the Joads. “Fifty-sixty cars a folks go by ever’ day, folks all movin’ west with kids an’ househol’ stuff. Where they goin’? What they gonna do?”

“Doin’ the same as us,” said Tom. “Goin’ someplace to live. Tryin’ to get along. That’s all.”

“Well, I don’ know what the country’s comin’ to. I jus’ don’ know. Here’s me tryin’ to get along, too. Think any them big new cars stop here? No, sir! They go on to them yella-painted company stations in town. They don’t stop no place like this. Most folks stops here ain’t got nothin.”

Al flipped the radiator cap and it jumped into the air with a head of steam behind it, and a hollow bubbling sound came out of the radiator. On top of the truck, the suffering hound dog crawled timidly to the edge of the load and looked over, whimpering, toward the water. Uncle John climbed up and lifted him down by the scruff of the neck. For a moment the dog staggered on stiff legs, and then he went to lap the mud under the faucet. In the highway the cars whizzed by, glistening in the heat, and the hot wind of their going fanned into the service-station yard. Al filled the radiator with the hose.

“It ain’t that I’m tryin’ to git trade outa rich folks,” the fat man went on. “I’m jus’ tryin’ to git trade. Why, the folks that stops here begs gasoline an’ they trades for gasoline. I could show you in my back room the stuff they’ll trade for gas an’ oil: beds an’ baby buggies an’ pots an’ pans. One family traded a doll their kid had for a gallon. An’ what’m I gonna do with the stuff, open a junk shop? Why, one fella wanted to gimme his shoes for a gallon. An’ if I was that kinda fella I bet I could git—” He glanced at Ma and stopped.

Jim Casy had wet his head, and the drops still coursed down his high forehead, and his muscled neck was wet, and his shirt was wet. He moved over beside Tom. “It ain’t the people’s fault,” he said. “How’d you like to sell the bed you sleep on for a tankful a gas?”