He was a long time answering.
“Yeah?
What about it, Ma?”
“Well, I’m scairt about it.
It’ll make you kinda runnin’ away.
Maybe they’ll catch ya.”
Tom held his hand over his eyes to protect himself from the lowering sun.
“Don’t you worry,” he said. “I figgered her out. They’s lots a fellas out on parole an’ they’s more goin’ in all the time.
If I get caught for anything else out west, well, then they got my pitcher an’ my prints in Washington.
They’ll sen’ me back.
But if I don’t do no crimes, they won’t give a damn.”
“Well, I’m a-scairt about it.
Sometimes you do a crime, an’ you don’t even know it’s bad.
Maybe they got crimes in California we don’t even know about.
Maybe you gonna do somepin an’ it’s all right, an’ in California it ain’t all right.”
“Be jus’ the same if I wasn’t on parole,” he said. “On’y if I get caught I get a bigger jolt’n other folks.
Now you quit a-worryin’,” he said.
“We got plenty to worry about ’thout you figgerin’ out things to worry about.”
“I can’t he’p it,” she said. “Minute you cross the line you done a crime.”
“Well, tha’s better’n stickin’ aroun’ Sallisaw an’ starvin’ to death,” he said. “We better look out for a place to stop.”
They went through Bethany and out on the other side.
In a ditch, where a culvert went under the road, an old touring car was pulled off the highway and a little tent was pitched beside it, and smoke came out of a stove pipe through the tent.
Tom pointed ahead.
“There’s some folks campin’.
Looks like as good a place as we seen.”
He slowed his motor and pulled to a stop beside the road.
The hood of the old touring car was up, and a middle-aged man stood looking down at the motor.
He wore a cheap straw sombrero, a blue shirt, and a black, spotted vest, and his jeans were stiff and shiny with dirt.
His face was lean, the deep cheek-lines great furrows down his face so that his cheek bones and chin stood out sharply.
He looked up at the Joad truck and his eyes were puzzled and angry.
Tom leaned out of the window.
“Any law ’gainst folks stoppin’ here for the night?”
The man had seen only the truck.
His eyes focused down on Tom.
“I dunno,” he said. “We on’y stopped here ’cause we couldn’ git no further.”
“Any water here?”
The man pointed to a service-station shack about a quarter of a mile ahead.
“They’s water there they’ll let ya take a bucket of.”
Tom hesitated.
“Well, ya ’spose we could camp down ’longside?”
The lean man looked puzzled.
“We don’t own it,” he said. “We on’y stopped here ’cause this goddamn ol’ trap wouldn’ go no further.”
Tom insisted.
“Anyways you’re here an’ we ain’t.
You got a right to say if you wan’ neighbors or not.”
The appeal to hospitality had an instant effect.
The lean face broke into a smile.
“Why, sure, come on off the road.
Proud to have ya.” And he called, “Sairy, there’s some folks goin’ ta stay with us.
Come on out an’ say how d’ya do.