“Got a little trouble up ahead.
Don’t you worry. You’ll get through.
Just follow the line.”
There came the splattering blast of motorcycles starting.
The line of cars moved on, with the Joad truck last.
Two motorcycles led the way, and two followed.
Tom said uneasily,
“I wonder what’s a matter.”
“Maybe the road’s out,” Al suggested.
“Don’ need four cops to lead us.
I don’ like it.”
The motorcycles ahead speeded up.
The line of old cars speeded up.
Al hurried to keep in back of the last car.
“These here is our own people, all of ’em,” Tom said. “I don’ like this.”
Suddenly the leading policemen turned off the road into a wide graveled entrance.
The old cars whipped after them.
The motorcycles roared their motors.
Tom saw a line of men standing in the ditch beside the road, saw their mouths open as though they were yelling, saw their shaking fists and their furious faces.
A stout woman ran toward the cars, but a roaring motorcycle stood in her way.
A high wire gate swung open.
The six old cars moved through and the gate closed behind them.
The four motorcycles turned and sped back in the direction from which they had come.
And now that the motors were gone, the distant yelling of the men in the ditch could be heard.
Two men stood beside the graveled road.
Each one carried a shotgun.
One called,
“Go on, go on.
What the hell are you waiting for?”
The six cars moved ahead, turned a bend and came suddenly on the peach camp.
There were fifty little square, flat-roofed boxes, each with a door and a window, and the whole group in a square.
A water tank stood high on one edge of the camp.
And a little grocery store stood on the other side.
At the end of each row of square houses stood two men armed with shotguns and wearing big silver stars pinned to their shirts.
The six cars stopped.
Two bookkeepers moved from car to car.
“Want to work?”
Tom answered,
“Sure, but what is this?”
“That’s not your affair.
Want to work?”
“Sure we do.”
“Name?”
“Joad.”
“How many men?”
“Four.”
“Women?”
“Two.”
“Kids?”
“Two.”