John Steinbeck Fullscreen Grapes of Wrath (1939)

Pause

“Should get us up to that place.”

Ma poised a dish over the bucket.

“Well?” she demanded.

Tom said,

“You win.

We’ll move on, I guess.

Huh, Pa?”

“Guess we got to,” Pa said.

Ma glanced at him.

“When?”

“Well—no need waitin’.

Might’s well go in the mornin’.”

“We got to go in the mornin’.

I tol’ you what’s lef’.”

“Now, Ma, don’ think I don’ wanta go.

I ain’t had a good gutful to eat in two weeks. ’Course I filled up, but I didn’ take no good from it.”

Ma plunged the dish into the bucket.

“We’ll go in the mornin’,” she said.

Pa sniffled.

“Seems like times is changed,” he said sarcastically. “Time was when a man said what we’d do.

Seems like women is tellin’ now.

Seems like it’s purty near time to get out a stick.”

Ma put the clean dripping tin dish out on a box.

She smiled down at her work.

“You get your stick, Pa,” she said.

“Times when they’s food an’ a place to set, then maybe you can use your stick an’ keep your skin whole.

But you ain’t a-doin’ your job, either a-thinkin’ or a-workin’.

If you was, why, you could use your stick, an’ women folks’d sniffle their nose an’ creep-mouse aroun’.

But you jus’ get you a stick now an’ you ain’t lickin’ no woman; you’re a-fightin’, ’cause I got a stick all laid out too.”

Pa grinned with embarrassment.

“Now it ain’t good to have the little fellas hear you talkin’ like that,” he said.

“You get some bacon inside the little fellas ’fore you come tellin’ what else is good for ’em,” said Ma.

Pa got up in disgust and moved away, and Uncle John followed him.

Ma’s hands were busy in the water, but she watched them go, and she said proudly to Tom,

“He’s all right.

He ain’t beat.

He’s like as not to take a smack at me.”

Tom laughed.

“You jus’ a-treadin’ him on?”

“Sure,” said Ma. “Take a man, he can get worried an’ worried, an’ it eats out his liver, an’ purty soon he’ll jus’ lay down and die with his heart et out.

But if you can take an’ make ’im mad, why, he’ll be awright.

Pa, he didn’ say nothin’, but he’s mad now.

He’ll show me now. He’s awright.”

Al got up.

“I’m gonna walk down the row,” he said.

“Better see the truck’s ready to go,” Tom warned him.

“She’s ready.”

“If she ain’t, I’ll turn Ma on ya.”

“She’s ready.” Al strolled jauntily along the row of tents.

Tom sighed.