Tom and Pa were carrying the mattresses into the house when a clerk appeared. He wore khaki trousers and a blue shirt and a black necktie.
He wore silver-bound eyeglasses, and his eyes, through the thick lenses, were weak and red, and the pupils were staring little bull’s eyes.
He leaned forward to look at Tom.
“I want to get you checked down,” he said. “How many of you going to work?”
Tom said,
“They’s four men.
Is this here hard work?”
“Picking peaches,” the clerk said. “Piece work.
Give five cents a box.”
“Ain’t no reason why the little fellas can’t help?”
“Sure not, if they’re careful.”
Ma stood in the doorway.
“Soon’s I get settled down I’ll come out an’ help.
We got nothin’ to eat, mister.
Do we get paid right off ?”
“Well, no, not money right off.
But you can get credit at the store for what you got coming.”
“Come on, let’s hurry,” Tom said. “I want ta get some meat an’ bread in me tonight.
Where do we go, mister?”
“I’m going out there now.
Come with me.”
Tom and Pa and Al and Uncle John walked with him down the dusty street and into the orchard, in among the peach trees.
The narrow leaves were beginning to turn a pale yellow.
The peaches were little globes of gold and red on the branches.
Among the trees were piles of empty boxes.
The pickers scurried about, filling their buckets from the branches, putting the peaches in the boxes, carrying the boxes to the checking station; and at the stations, where the piles of filled boxes waited for the trucks, clerks waited to check against the names of the pickers.
“Here’s four more,” the guide said to a clerk.
“O.K.
Ever picked before?”
“Never did,” said Tom.
“Well, pick careful.
No bruised fruit, no windfalls.
Bruise your fruit an’ we won’t check ’em.
There’s some buckets.”
Tom picked up a three-gallon bucket and looked at it.
“Full a holes on the bottom.”
“Sure,” said the near-sighted clerk. “That keeps people from stealing them.
All right—down in that section. Get going.”
The four Joads took their buckets and went into the orchard.
“They don’t waste no time,” Tom said.
“Christ Awmighty,” Al said. “I ruther work in a garage.”
Pa had followed docilely into the field.
He turned suddenly on Al.
“Now you jus’ quit it,” he said.
“You been a-hankerin’ an’ a-complainin’ an’ a-bullblowin’.
You get to work.
You ain’t so big I can’t lick you yet.”
Al’s face turned red with anger.
He started to bluster.
Tom moved near to him.