The Grapes of Wrath(231)
When they pushed the planks into the car door, Ma awakened and sat up. “What you doin’?”
“Gonna build up a place to keep outa the wet.”
“Why?” Ma asked. “It’s dry in here.”
“Ain’t gonna be. Water’s comin’ up.”
Ma struggled up to her feet and went to the door. “We got to git outa here.”
“Can’t,” Al said. “All our stuff ’s here. Truck’s here. Ever’thing we got.”
“Where’s Pa?”
“Gone to get stuff for breakfas’.”
Ma looked down at the water. It was only six inches down from the floor by now. She went back to the mattress and looked at Rose of Sharon. The girl stared back at her.
“How you feel?” Ma asked.
“Tar’d. Jus’ tar’d out.”
“Gonna get some breakfas’ into you.”
“I ain’t hungry.”
Mrs. Wainwright moved beside Ma. “She looks all right. Come through it fine.”
Rose of Sharon’s eyes questioned Ma, and Ma tried to avoid the question. Mrs. Wainwright walked to the stove.
“Ma.”
“Yeah? What you want?”
“Is—it—all right?”
Ma gave up the attempt. She kneeled down on the mattress. “You can have more,” she said. “We done ever’thing we knowed.”
Rose of Sharon struggled and pushed herself up. “Ma!” “You couldn’ he’p it.”
The girl lay back again, and covered her eyes with her arms. Ruthie crept close and looked down in awe. She whispered harshly, “She sick, Ma? She gonna die?”
“’Course not. She’s gonna be awright. Awright.”
Pa came in with his armload of packages. “How is she?”
“Awright,” Ma said. “She’s gonna be awright.”
Ruthie reported to Winfield. “She ain’t gonna die. Ma says so.”
And Winfield, picking his teeth with a splinter in a very adult manner, said, “I knowed it all the time.”
“How’d you know?”
“I won’t tell,” said Winfield, and he spat out a piece of the splinter.
Ma built the fire up with the last twigs and cooked the bacon and made gravy. Pa had brought store bread. Ma scowled when she saw it. “We got any money lef’?”
“Nope,” said Pa. “But we was so hungry.”
“An’ you got store bread,” Ma said accusingly.
“Well, we was awful hungry. Worked all night long.”
Ma sighed. “Now what we gonna do?”
As they ate, the water crept up and up. Al gulped his food and he and Pa built the platform. Five feet wide, six feet long, four feet above the floor. And the water crept to the edge of the doorway, seemed to hesitate a long time, and then moved slowly inward over the floor. And outside, the rain began again, as it had before, big heavy drops splashing on the water, pounding hollowly on the roof.
Al said, “Come on now, let’s get the mattresses up. Let’s put the blankets up, so they don’t git wet.” They piled their possessions up on the platform, and the water crept over the floor. Pa and Ma, Al and Uncle John, each at a corner, lifted Rose of Sharon’s mattress, with the girl on it, and put it on top of the pile.
And the girl protested, “I can walk. I’m awright.” And the water crept over the floor, a thin film of it. Rose of Sharon whispered to Ma, and Ma put her hand under the blanket and felt her breast and nodded.
In the other end of the boxcar, the Wainwrights were pounding, building a platform for themselves. The rain thickened, and then passed away.
Ma looked down at her feet. The water was half an inch deep on the car floor by now. “You, Ruthie—Winfiel’!” she called distractedly. “Come get on top of the pile. You’ll get cold.” She saw them safely up, sitting awkwardly beside Rose of Sharon. Ma said suddenly, “We got to git out.”
“We can’t,” Pa said. “Like Al says, all our stuff’s here. We’ll pull off the boxcar door an’ make more room to set on.”
The family huddled on the platforms, silent and fretful. The water was six inches deep in the car before the flood spread evenly over the embankment and moved into the cotton field on the other side. During that day and night the men slept soddenly, side by side on the boxcar door. And Ma lay close to Rose of Sharon. Sometimes Ma whispered to her and sometimes sat up quietly, her face brooding. Under the blanket she hoarded the remains of the store bread.
The rain had become intermittent now—little wet squalls and quiet times. On the morning of the second day Pa splashed through the camp and came back with ten potatoes in his pockets. Ma watched him sullenly while he chopped out part of the inner wall of the car, built a fire, and scooped water into a pan. The family ate the steaming boiled potatoes with their fingers. And when this last food was gone, they stared at the gray water; and in the night they did not lie down for a long time.