The Grapes of Wrath

Ma raised her eyes to the girl’s face. Ma’s eyes were patient, but the lines of strain were on her forehead. Ma fanned and fanned the air, and her piece of cardboard warned off the flies. “When you’re young, Rosasharn, ever’thing that happens is a thing all by itself. It’s a lonely thing. I know, I ’member, Rosasharn.” Her mouth loved the name of her daughter. “You’re gonna have a baby, Rosasharn, and that’s somepin to you lonely and away. That’s gonna hurt you, an’ the hurt’ll be lonely hurt, an’ this here tent is alone in the worl’, Rosasharn.” She whipped the air for a moment to drive a buzzing blow fly on, and the big shining fly circled the tent twice and zoomed out into the blinding sunlight. And Ma went on, “They’s a time of change, an’ when that comes, dyin’ is a piece of all dyin’, and bearin’ is a piece of all bearin’, an bearin’ an’ dyin’ is two pieces of the same thing. An’ then things ain’t lonely any more. An’ then a hurt don’t hurt so bad, cause it ain’t a lonely hurt no more, Rosasharn. I wisht I could tell you so you’d know, but I can’t.” And her voice was so soft, so full of love, that tears crowded into Rose of Sharon’s eyes, and flowed over her eyes and blinded her.

“Take an’ fan Granma,” Ma said, and she handed the cardboard to her daughter. “That’s a good thing to do. I wisht I could tell you so you’d know.”

Granma, scowling her brows down over her closed eyes, bleated, “Will! You’re dirty! You ain’t never gonna get clean.” Her little wrinkled claws moved up and scratched her cheek. A red ant ran up the curtain cloth and scrambled over the folds of loose skin on the old lady’s neck. Ma reached quickly and picked it off, crushed it between thumb and forefinger, and brushed her fingers on her dress.

Rose of Sharon waved the cardboard fan. She looked up at Ma. “She-?” And the words parched in her throat.

“Wipe your feet, Will— you dirty pig!” Granma cried.

Ma said, “I dunno. Maybe if we can get her where it ain’t so hot, but I dunno. Don’t worry yourself, Rosasharn. Take your breath in when you need it, an’ let go when you need to.”

A large woman in a torn black dress looked into the tent. Her eyes were bleared and indefinite, and the skin sagged to her jowls and hung down in little flaps. Her lips were loose, so that the upper lip hung like a curtain over her teeth, and her lower lip, by its weight, folded outward, showing her lower gums. “Mornin’, ma’am,” she said. “Mornin’, an’ praise God for victory.”

Ma looked around. “Mornin’,” she said. The woman stooped into the tent and bent her head over Granma. “We heerd you got a soul here ready to join her Jesus. Praise God!”

Ma’s face tightened and her eyes grew sharp. “She’s tar’d, that’s all,” Ma said. “She’s wore out with the road an’ the heat. She’s jus’ wore out. Get a little res’, an’ she’ll be well.”

The woman leaned down over Granma’s face, and she seemed almost to sniff. Then she turned to Ma and nodded quickly, and her lips jiggled and her jowls quivered. “A dear soul gonna join her Jesus,” she said.

Ma cried, “That ain’t so!”

The woman nodded, slowly, this time, and put a puffy hand on Granma’s forehead. Ma reached to snatch the hand away, and quickly restrained herself. “Yes, it’s so, sister,” the woman said. “We got six in Holiness in our tent. I’ll go git ’em, an’ we’ll hol’ a meetin’— a prayer an’ grace. Jehovites, all. Six, countin’ me. I’ll go git ’em out.”

Ma stiffened. “No— no,” she said. “No, Granma’s tar’d. She couldn’t stan’ a meetin’.”

The woman said, “Couldn’t stan’ grace? Couldn’ stan’ the sweet breath of Jesus? What you talkin’ about, sister?”

Ma said, “No, not here. She’s too tar’d.”

The woman looked reproachfully at Ma. “Ain’t you believers, ma’am?”

“We always been Holiness.” Ma said, “but Granma’s tar’d, an’ we been a-goin’ all night. We won’t trouble you.”

“It ain’t no trouble, an’ if it was, we’d want ta do it for a soul a-soarin’ to the Lamb.”

Ma arose to her knees. “We thank ya,” she said coldly. “We ain’t gonna have no meetin’ in this here tent.”

The woman looked at her for a long time. “Well, we ain’t a-gonna let a sister go away ’thout a little praisin’. We’ll git the meetin’ goin’ in our own tent, ma’am. An’ we’ll forgive ya for your hard heart.”

Ma settled back again and turned her face to Granma, and her face was still set and hard. “She’s tar’d,” Ma said. “She’s on’y tar’d.” Granma swung her head back and forth and muttered under her breath.

The woman walked stiffly out of the tent. Ma continued to look down at the old face.

Rose of Sharon fanned her cardboard and moved the hot air in a stream. She said, “Ma!”

“Yeah?”

“Whyn’t ya let ’em hol’ a meetin’?”

“I dunno,” said Ma. “Jehovites is good people. They’re howlers an’ jumpers. I dunno. Somepin jus’ come over me. I didn’ think I could stan’ it. I’d jus’ fly all apart.”