The Grapes of Wrath

by John Steinbeck

  “Yeah? Well, we got to look you over.”

  “I swear we ain’t got any thing!” Ma cried. “I swear it. An’ Granma’s awful sick.”

  “You don’t look so good yourself,” the officer said.

  Ma pulled herself up the back of the truck, hoisted herself with huge strength. “Look,” she said.

  The officer shot a flashlight beam up on the old shrunken face. “By God, she is,” he said. “You swear you got no seeds or fruits or vegetables, no corn, no oranges?”

  “No, no. I swear it!”

  “Then go ahead. You can get a doctor in Barstow. That’s only eight miles. Go on ahead.”

  Tom climbed in and drove on.

  The officer turned to his companion. “I couldn’ hold ’em.”

  “Maybe it was a bluff,” said the other.

  “Oh, Jesus, no! You should of seen that ol’ woman’s face. That wasn’t no bluff.”

  Tom increased his speed to Barstow, and in the little town he stopped, got out, and walked around the truck. Ma leaned out. “It’s awright,” she said. “I didn’ wanta stop there, fear we wouldn’ get acrost.”

  “Yeah! But how’s Granma?”

  “She’s awright—awright. Drive on. We got to get acrost.” Tom shook his head and walked back.

  “Al,” he said, “I’m gonna fill her up, an’ then you drive some.” He pulled to an all-night gas station and filled the tank and the radiator, and filled the crank case. Then Al slipped under the wheel and Tom took the outside, with Pa in the middle. They drove away into the darkness and the little hills near Barstow were behind them.

  Tom said, “I don’ know what’s got into Ma. She’s flighty as a dog with a flea in his ear. Wouldn’ a took long to look over the stuff. An’ she says Granma’s sick; an’ now she says Granma’s awright. I can’t figger her out. She ain’t right. S’pose she wore her brains out on the trip.”

  Pa said, “Ma’s almost like she was when she was a girl. She was a wild one then. She wasn’ scairt of nothin’. I thought havin’ all the kids an’ workin’ took it out a her, but I guess it ain’t. Christ! When she got that jack handle back there, I tell you I wouldn’ wanna be the fella took it away from her.”

  “I dunno what’s got into her,” Tom said. “Maybe she’s jus’ tar’d out.”

  Al said, “I won’t be doin’ no weepin’ an’ a-moanin’ to get through. I got this goddamn car on my soul.”

  Tom said, “Well, you done a damn good job a pickin’. We ain’t had hardly no trouble with her at all.”

  All night they bored through the hot darkness, and jack-rabbits scuttled into the lights and dashed away in long jolting leaps. And the dawn came up behind them when the lights of Mojave were ahead. And the dawn showed high mountains to the west. They filled with water and oil at Mojave and crawled into the mountains, and the dawn was about them.

  Tom said, “Jesus, the desert’s past! Pa, Al, for Christ sakes! The desert’s past!”

  “I’m too goddamn tired to care,” said Al.

  “Want me to drive?”

  “No, wait awhile.”

  They drove through Tehachapi in the morning glow, and the sun came up behind them, and then—suddenly they saw the great valley below them. Al jammed on the brake and stopped in the middle of the road, and, “Jesus Christ! Look!” he said. The vineyards, the orchards, the great flat valley, green and beautiful, the trees set in rows, and the farm houses.

  And Pa said, “God Almighty!” The distant cities, the little towns in the orchard land, and the morning sun, golden on the valley. A car honked behind them. Al pulled to the side of the road and parked.

  “I want ta look at her.” The grain fields golden in the morning, and the willow lines, the eucalyptus trees in rows.

  Pa sighed, “I never knowed they was anything like her.” The peach trees and the walnut groves, and the dark green patches of oranges. And red roofs among the trees, and barns—rich barns. Al got out and stretched his legs.

  He called, “Ma—come look. We’re there!”

  Ruthie and Winfield scrambled down from the car, and then they stood, silent and awestruck, embarrassed before the great valley. The distance was thinned with haze, and the land grew softer and softer in the distance. A windmill flashed in the sun, and its turning blades were like a little heliograph, far away. Ruthie and Winfield looked at it, and Ruthie whispered, “It’s California.”

  Winfield moved his lips silently over the syllables. “There’s fruit,” he said aloud.

  Casy and Uncle John, Connie and Rose of Sharon climbed down. And they stood silently. Rose of Sharon had started to brush her hair back, when she caught sight of the valley and her hand dropped slowly to her side.

  Tom said, “Where’s Ma? I want Ma to see it. Look, Ma! Come here, Ma.” Ma was climbing slowly, stiffly, down the back board. Tom looked at her. “My God, Ma, you sick?” Her face was stiff and putty-like, and her eyes seemed to have sunk deep into her head, and the rims were red with weariness. Her feet touched the ground and she braced herself by holding the truck-side.

  Her voice was a croak. “Ya say we’re acrost?”

  Tom pointed to the great valley. “Look!”

  She turned her head, and her mouth opened a little. Her fingers went to her throat and gathered a little pinch of skin and twisted gently. “Thank God!” she said. “The fambly’s here.” Her knees buckled and she sat down on the running board.

  “You sick, Ma?”

  “No, jus’ tar’d.”

  “Didn’ you get no sleep?”

  “No.”

  “Was Granma bad?”

  Ma looked down at her hands, lying together like tired lovers in her lap. “I wisht I could wait an’ not tell you. I wisht it could be all—nice.”

  Pa said, “Then Granma’s bad.”

  Ma raised her eyes and looked over the valley. “Granma’s dead.”

  They looked at her, all of them, and Pa asked, “When?”

  “Before they stopped us las’ night.”

  “So that’s why you didn’ want ’em to look.”

  “I was afraid we wouldn’ get acrost,” she said. “I tol’ Granma we couldn’ he’p her. The fambly had ta get acrost. I tol’ her, tol’ her when she was a-dyin’. We couldn’ stop in the desert. There was the young ones—an’ Rosasharn’s baby. I tol’ her.” She put up her hands and covered her face for a moment. “She can get buried in a nice green place,” Ma said softly. “Trees aroun’ an’ a nice place. She got to lay her head down in California.”

  The family looked at Ma with a little terror at her strength.

  Tom said, “Jesus Christ! You layin’ there with her all night long!”

  “The fambly hadda get acrost,” Ma said miserably.

  Tom moved close to put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Don’ touch me,” she said. “I’ll hol’ up if you don’ touch me. That’d get me.”

  Pa said, “We got to go on now. We got to go on down.”

  Ma looked up at him. “Can—can I set up front? I don’ wanna go back there no more—I’m tar’d. I’m awful tar’d.”

  They climbed back on the load, and they avoided the long stiff figure covered and tucked in a comforter, even the head covered and tucked. They moved to their places and tried to keep their eyes from it—from the hump on the comfort that would be the nose, and the steep cliff that would be the jut of the chin. They tried to keep their eyes away, and they could not. Ruthie and Winfield, crowded in a forward corner as far away from the body as they could get, stared at the tucked figure.

  And Ruthie whispered, “Tha’s Granma, an’ she’s dead.”

  Winfield nodded solemnly. “She ain’t breathin’ at all. She’s awful dead.”

  And Rose of Sharon said softly to Connie, “She was a-dyin’ right when we——”

  “How’d we know?” he reassured her.

  Al climbed on the load to make room for Ma in the seat. And Al swaggered a little because he was sorry. He plumped down
beside Casy and Uncle John. “Well, she was ol’. Guess her time was up,” Al said. “Ever’body got to die.” Casy and Uncle John turned eyes expressionlessly on him and looked at him as though he were a curious talking bush. “Well, ain’t they?” he demanded. And the eyes looked away, leaving Al sullen and shaken.

  Casy said in wonder, “All night long, an’ she was alone.” And he said, “John, there’s a woman so great with love—she scares me. Makes me afraid an’ mean.”

  John asked, “Was it a sin? Is they any part of it you might call a sin?”

  Casy turned on him in astonishment, “A sin? No, there ain’t no part of it that’s a sin.”

  “I ain’t never done nothin’ that wasn’t part sin,” said John, and he looked at the long wrapped body.

  Tom and Ma and Pa got into the front seat. Tom let the truck roll and started on compression. And the heavy truck moved, snorting and jerking and popping down the hill. The sun was behind them, and the valley golden and green before them. Ma shook her head slowly from side to side. “It’s purty,” she said. “I wisht they could of saw it.”

  “I wisht so too,” said Pa.

  Tom patted the steering wheel under his hand. “They was too old,” he said. “They wouldn’t of saw nothin’ that’s here. Grampa would a been a-seein’ the Injuns an’ the prairie country when he was a young fella. An’ Granma would a remembered an’ seen the first home she lived in. They was too ol’. Who’s really seein’ it is Ruthie an’ Winfiel’.”

  Pa said, “Here’s Tommy talkin’ like a growed-up man, talkin’ like a preacher almos’.”

  And Ma smiled sadly. “He is. Tommy’s growed way up—way up so I can’t get aholt of ’im sometimes.”

  They popped down the mountain, twisting and looping, losing the valley sometimes, and then finding it again. And the hot breath of the valley came up to them, with hot green smells on it, and with resinous sage and tarweed smells. The crickets crackled along the road. A rattlesnake crawled across the road and Tom hit it and broke it and left it squirming.

  Tom said, “I guess we got to go to the coroner, wherever he is. We got to get her buried decent. How much money might be lef’, Pa?”

  “’Bout forty dollars,” said Pa.

  Tom laughed. “Jesus, are we gonna start clean! We sure ain’t bringin’ nothin’ with us.” He chuckled a moment, and then his face straightened quickly. He pulled the visor of his cap down low over his eyes. And the truck rolled down the mountain into the great valley.

  Chapter 19

  Once California belonged to Mexico and its land to Mexicans; and a horde of tattered feverish Americans poured in. And such was their hunger for land that they took the land—stole Sutter’s land, Guerrero’s land, took the grants and broke them up and growled and quarreled over them, those frantic hungry men; and they guarded with guns the land they had stolen. They put up houses and barns, they turned the earth and planted crops. And these things were possession, and possession was ownership.

  The Mexicans were weak and fed. They could not resist, because they wanted nothing in the world as frantically as the Americans wanted land.

  Then, with time, the squatters were no longer squatters, but owners; and their children grew up and had children on the land. And the hunger was gone from them, the feral hunger, the gnawing, tearing hunger for land, for water and earth and the good sky over it, for the green thrusting grass, for the swelling roots. They had these things so completely that they did not know about them any more. They had no more the stomach-tearing lust for a rich acre and a shining blade to plow it, for seed and a windmill beating its wings in the air. They arose in the dark no more to hear the sleepy birds’ first chittering, and the morning wind around the house while they waited for the first light to go out to the dear acres. These things were lost, and crops were reckoned in dollars, and land was valued by principal plus interest, and crops were bought and sold before they were planted. Then crop failure, drought, and flood were no longer little deaths within life, but simple losses of money. And all their love was thinned with money, and all their fierceness dribbled away in interest until they were no longer farmers at all, but little shopkeepers of crops, little manufacturers who must sell before they can make. Then those farmers who were not good shopkeepers lost their land to good shopkeepers. No matter how clever, how loving a man might be with earth and growing things, he could not survive if he were not also a good shopkeeper. And as time went on, the business men had the farms, and the farms grew larger, but there were fewer of them.

  Now farming became industry, and the owners followed Rome, although they did not know it. They imported slaves, although they did not call them slaves: Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos. They live on rice and beans, the business men said. They don’t need much. They wouldn’t know what to do with good wages. Why, look how they live. Why, look what they eat. And if they get funny—deport them.

  And all the time the farms grew larger and the owners fewer. And there were pitifully few farmers on the land any more. And the imported serfs were beaten and frightened and starved until some went home again, and some grew fierce and were killed or driven from the country. And the farms grew larger and the owners fewer.

  And the crops changed. Fruit trees took the place of grain fields, and vegetables to feed the world spread out on the bottoms: lettuce, cauliflower, artichokes, potatoes—stoop crops. A man may stand to use a scythe, a plow, a pitchfork; but he must crawl like a bug between the rows of lettuce, he must bend his back and pull his long bag between the cotton rows, he must go on his knees like a penitent across a cauliflower patch.

  And it came about that owners no longer worked on their farms. They farmed on paper; and they forgot the land, the smell, the feel of it, and remembered only that they owned it, remembered only what they gained and lost by it. And some of the farms grew so large that one man could not even conceive of them any more, so large that it took batteries of bookkeepers to keep track of interest and gain and loss; chemists to test the soil, to replenish; straw bosses to see that the stooping men were moving along the rows as swiftly as the material of their bodies could stand. Then such a farmer really became a storekeeper, and kept a store. He paid the men, and sold them food, and took the money back. And after a while he did not pay the men at all, and saved bookkeeping. These farms gave food on credit. A man might work and feed himself; and when the work was done, he might find that he owed money to the company. And the owners not only did not work the farms any more, many of them had never seen the farms they owned.

  And then the dispossessed were drawn west—from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Carloads, caravans, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless—restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do—to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut—anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land.

  We ain’t foreign. Seven generations back Americans, and beyond that Irish, Scotch, English, German. One of our folks in the Revolution, an’ they was lots of our folks in the Civil War—both sides. Americans.

  They were hungry, and they were fierce. And they had hoped to find a home, and they found only hatred. Okies—the owners hated them because the owners knew they were soft and the Okies strong, that they were fed and the Okies hungry; and perhaps the owners had heard from their grandfathers how easy it is to steal land from a soft man if you are fierce and hungry and armed. The owners hated them. And in the towns, the storekeepers hated them because they had no money to spend. There is no shorter path to a storekeeper’s contempt, and all his admirations are exactly opposite. The town men, little bankers, hated Okies because there was nothing to gain from them. They had nothing. And the laboring people hated Okies because a hungry man must work, and if he must work, if he has
to work, the wage payer automatically gives him less for his work; and then no one can get more.

  And the dispossessed, the migrants, flowed into California, two hundred and fifty thousand, and three hundred thousand. Behind them new tractors were going on the land and the tenants were being forced off. And new waves were on the way, new waves of the dispossessed and the homeless, hardened, intent, and dangerous.

  And while the Californians wanted many things, accumulation, social success, amusement, luxury, and a curious banking security, the new barbarians wanted only two things—land and food; and to them the two were one. And whereas the wants of the Californians were nebulous and undefined, the wants of the Okies were beside the roads, lying there to be seen and coveted: the good fields with water to be dug for, the good green fields, earth to crumble experimentally in the hand, grass to smell, oaten stalks to chew until the sharp sweetness was in the throat. A man might look at a fallow field and know, and see in his mind that his own bending back and his own straining arms would bring the cabbages into the light, and the golden eating corn, the turnips and carrots.

  And a homeless hungry man, driving the roads with his wife beside him and his thin children in the back seat, could look at the fallow fields which might produce food but not profit, and that man could know how a fallow field is a sin and the unused land a crime against the thin children. And such a man drove along the roads and knew temptation at every field, and knew the lust to take these fields and make them grow strength for his children and a little comfort for his wife. The temptation was before him always. The fields goaded him, and the company ditches with good water flowing were a goad to him.

  And in the south he saw the golden oranges hanging on the trees, the little golden oranges on the dark green trees; and guards with shotguns patrolling the lines so a man might not pick an orange for a thin child, oranges to be dumped if the price was low.

  He drove his old car into a town. He scoured the farms for work. Where can we sleep the night?