Right here.”
“Give it to me.
I ain’t had any sence noon.”
“She thinks it’s like medicine.”
“That nurse-lady says so.”
“You got potatoes ready?”
“Right there—peeled.”
“We’ll fry ’em,” said Ma. “Got pork chops.
Cut up them potatoes in the new fry pan.
And th’ow in a onion.
You fellas go out an’ wash, an’ bring in a bucket a water.
Where’s Ruthie an’ Winfiel’?
They oughta wash.
They each got Cracker Jack,” Ma told Rose of Sharon. “Each got a whole box.”
The men went out to wash in the stream.
Rose of Sharon sliced the potatoes into the frying pan and stirred them about with the knife point.
Suddenly the tarpaulin was thrust aside.
A stout perspiring face looked in from the other end of the car.
“How’d you all make out, Mis’ Joad?”
Ma swung around.
“Why, evenin’, Mis’ Wainwright.
We done good.
Three an’ a half.
Three fifty-seven, exact.”
“We done four dollars.”
“Well,” said Ma. “’Course they’s more of you.”
“Yeah.
Jonas is growin’ up.
Havin’ pork chops, I see.”
Winfield crept in through the door.
“Ma!”
“Hush a minute.
Yes, my men jus’ loves pork chops.”
“I’m cookin’ bacon,” said Mrs. Wainwright. “Can you smell it cookin’?”
“No—can’t smell it over these here onions in the potatoes.”
“She’s burnin’!” Mrs. Wainwright cried, and her head jerked back.
“Ma,” Winfield said.
“What?
You sick from Cracker Jack?”
“Ma—Ruthie tol’.”
“Tol’ what?”
“’Bout Tom.”
Ma stared.
“Tol’?” Then she knelt in front of him. “Winfiel’, who’d she tell?”
Embarrassment seized Winfield.
He backed away.
“Well, she on’y tol’ a little bit.”
“Winfiel’!
Now you tell what she said.”
“She—she didn’ eat all her Cracker Jack. She kep’ some, an’ she et jus’ one piece at a time, slow, like she always done, an’ she says,