“Hello, Al.
Jesus, you’re growin’ like a bean!
I wouldn’t of knowed you.”
Al, his hand ready if Tom should want to shake it, grinned selfconsciously.
Tom stuck out his hand and Al’s hand jerked out to meet it.
And there was liking between these two.
“They tell me you’re a good hand with a truck,” said Tom.
And Al, sensing that his brother would not like a boaster, said,
“I don’t know nothin’ much about it.”
Pa said,
“Been smart-alecking aroun’ the country.
You look wore out.
Well, you got to take a load of stuff into Sallisaw to sell.”
Al looked at his brother Tom.
“Care to ride in?” he said as casually as he could.
“No, I can’t,” said Tom. “I’ll help aroun’ here.
We’ll be—together on the road.”
Al tried to control his question.
“Did—did you bust out?
Of jail?”
“No,” said Tom. “I got paroled.”
“Oh.” And Al was a little disappointed.
Chapter 9
In the little houses the tenant people sifted their belongings and the belongings of their fathers and of their grandfathers.
Picked over their possessions for the journey to the west.
The men were ruthless because the past had been spoiled, but the women knew how the past would cry to them in the coming days.
The men went into the barns and the sheds.
That plow, that harrow, remember in the war we planted mustard?
Remember a fella wanted us to put in that rubber bush they call guayule?
Get rich, he said.
Bring out those tools—get a few dollars for them.
Eighteen dollars for that plow, plus freight—Sears Roebuck.
Harness, carts, seeders, little bundles of hoes.
Bring ’em out.
Pile ’em up.
Load ’em in the wagon.
Take ’em to town.
Sell ’em for what you can get.
Sell the team and the wagon, too.
No more use for anything.
Fifty cents isn’t enough to get for a good plow.
That seeder cost thirty-eight dollars.
Two dollars isn’t enough.
Can’t haul it all back—Well, take it, and a bitterness with it.
Take the well pump and the harness.
Take halters, collars, hames, and tugs.
Take the little glass brow-band jewels, roses red under glass.
Got those for the bay gelding. ’Member how he lifted his feet when he trotted?
Junk piled up in a yard.
Can’t sell a hand plow any more.