Can’t they go outside?”
Ma said,
“No.
They got to act growed up, even if they ain’t.
They’s no help for it.
Ruthie—you an’ Winfiel’ ain’t ever to say what you hear, else you’ll jus’ break us to pieces.”
“We won’t,” Ruthie said. “We’re growed up.”
“Well, jus’ be quiet, then.” The cups of coffee were on the floor.
The short thick flame of the lantern, like a stubby butterfly’s wing, cast a yellow gloom on the walls.
“Now tell,” said Tom.
Ma said,
“Pa, you tell.”
Uncle John slupped his coffee.
Pa said,
“Well, they dropped the price like you said.
An’ they was a whole slew a new pickers so goddamn hungry they’d pick for a loaf a bread.
Go for a peach, an’ somebody’d get it first.
Gonna get the whole crop picked right off.
Fellas runnin’ to a new tree.
I seen fights—one fella claims it’s his tree, ’nother fella wants to pick off ’n it.
Brang these here folks from as far’s El Centro.
Hungrier’n hell.
Work all day for a piece a bread.
I says to the checker,
‘We can’t work for two an’ a half cents a box,’ an’ he says,
‘Go on, then, quit.
These fellas can.’
I says,
‘Soon’s they get fed up they won’t.’
An’ he says,
‘Hell, we’ll have these here peaches in ’fore they get fed up.”’ Pa stopped.
“She was a devil,” said Uncle John. “They say they’s two hunderd more men comin’ in tonight.”
Tom said,
“Yeah! But how about the other?”
Pa was silent for a while.
“Tom,” he said, “looks like you done it.”
“I kinda thought so.
Couldn’ see. Felt like it.”
“Seems like the people ain’t talkin’ ’bout much else,” said Uncle John. “They got posses out, an’ they’s fellas talkin’ up a lynchin’—’course when they catch the fella.”
Tom looked over at the wide-eyed children.
They seldom blinked their eyes. It was as though they were afraid something might happen in the split second of darkness.
Tom said,
“Well—this fella that done it, he on’y done it after they killed Casy.”
Pa interrupted,
“That ain’t the way they’re tellin’ it now.
They’re sayin’ he done it fust.”
Tom’s breath sighed out,
“Ah-h!”
“They’re workin’ up a feelin’ against us folks.
That’s what I heard. All them drum-corpse fellas an’ lodges an’ all that.