You know how it is.
Well, the folks that owns the lan’ says,
‘We can’t afford to keep no tenants.’
An’ they says, ‘The share a tenant gets is jus’ the margin a profit we can’t afford to lose.’
An’ they says, ‘If we put all our lan’ in one piece we can jus’ hardly make her pay.’
So they tractored all the tenants off a the lan’.
All ’cept me, an’ by God I ain’t goin’.
Tommy, you know me.
You knowed me all your life.”
“Damn right,” said Joad, “all my life.”
“Well, you know I ain’t a fool.
I know this land ain’t much good.
Never was much good ’cept for grazin’.
Never should a broke her up.
An’ now she’s cottoned damn near to death.
If on’y they didn’ tell me I got to get off, why, I’d prob’y be in California right now a-eatin’ grapes an’ a-pickin’ an orange when I wanted.
But them sons-a-bitches says I got to get off—an’, Jesus Christ, a man can’t, when he’s tol’ to!”
“Sure,” said Joad. “I wonder Pa went so easy.
I wonder Grampa didn’ kill nobody.
Nobody never tol’ Grampa where to put his feet.
An’ Ma ain’t nobody you can push aroun’, neither.
I seen her beat the hell out of a tin peddler with a live chicken one time ’cause he give her a argument.
She had the chicken in one han’, an’ the ax in the other, about to cut its head off.
She aimed to go for that peddler with the ax, but she forgot which hand was which, an’ she takes after him with the chicken.
Couldn’ even eat that chicken when she got done.
They wasn’t nothing but a pair a legs in her han’.
Grampa throwed his hip outa joint laughin’.
How’d my folks go so easy?”
“Well, the guy that come aroun’ talked nice as pie.
‘You got to get off. It ain’t my fault.’
‘Well,’ I says, ‘whose fault is it?
I’ll go an’ I’ll nut the fella.’‘It’s the Shawnee Lan’ an’ Cattle Company.
I jus’ got orders.’
‘Who’s the Shawnee Lan’ an’ Cattle Company?’‘It ain’t nobody.
It’s a company.’
Got a fella crazy.
There wasn’t nobody you could lay for.
Lot a the folks jus’ got tired out lookin’ for somepin to be mad at—but not me.
I’m mad at all of it.
I’m stayin’.”
A large red drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone, and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going.
And dusk crept over the sky from the eastern horizon, and darkness crept over the land from the east.
The evening star flashed and glittered in the dusk.
The gray cat sneaked away toward the open barn shed and passed inside like a shadow.
Joad said,
“Well, we ain’t gonna walk no eight miles to Uncle John’s place tonight.
My dogs is burned up.
How’s it if we go to your place, Muley?
That’s on’y about a mile.”
“Won’t do no good.” Muley seemed embarrassed. “My wife an’ the kids an’ her brother all took an’ went to California.