The Grapes of Wrath(51)

She looked out into the sunny yard, at the dark figure of a man. Pa stood near by, shaking with excitement. “Come in,” he cried. “Come right in, mister.” And Tom a little shame-facedly stepped over the doorsill.

She looked up pleasantly from the frying pan. And then her hand sank slowly to her side and the fork clattered to the wooden floor. Her eyes opened wide, and the pupils dilated. She breathed heavily through her open mouth. She closed her eyes. “Thank God,” she said. “Oh, thank God!” And suddenly her face was worried. “Tommy, you ain’t wanted? You didn’ bust loose?”

“No, Ma. Parole. I got the papers here.” He touched his breast.

She moved toward him lithely, soundlessly in her bare feet, and her face was full of wonder. Her small hand felt his arm, felt the soundness of his muscles. And then her fingers went up to his cheek as a blind man’s fingers might. And her joy was nearly like sorrow. Tom pulled his underlip between his teeth and bit it. Her eyes went wonderingly to his bitten lip, and she saw the little line of blood against his teeth and the trickle of blood down his lip. Then she knew, and her control came back, and her hand dropped. Her breath came out explosively. “Well!” she cried. “We come mighty near to goin’ without ya. An’ we was wonderin’ how in the worl’ you could ever find us.” She picked up the fork and combed the boiling grease and brought out a dark curl of crisp pork. And she set the pot of tumbling coffee on the back of the stove.

Old Tom giggled, “Fooled ya, huh, Ma? We aimed to fool ya, and we done it. Jus’ stood there like a hammered sheep. Wisht Grampa’d been here to see. Looked like somebody’d beat ya between the eyes with a sledge. Grampa would a whacked ’imself so hard he’d a throwed his hip out—like he done when he seen Al take a shot at that grea’ big airship the army got. Tommy, it come over one day, half a mile big, an’ Al gets the thirty-thirty and blazes away at her. Grampa yells, ‘Don’t shoot no fledglin’s, Al; wait till a growed-up one goes over,’ an’ then he whacked ’imself an’ throwed his hip out.”

Ma chuckled and took down a heap of tin plates from a shelf.

Tom asked, “Where is Grampa? I ain’t seen the ol’ devil.”

Ma stacked the plates on the kitchen table and piled cups beside them. She said confidentially, “Oh, him an’ Granma sleeps in the barn. They got to get up so much in the night. They was stumblin’ over the little fellas.”

Pa broke in, “Yeah, ever’ night Grampa’d get mad. Tumble over Winfield, an’ Winfield’d yell, an’ Grampa’d get mad an’ wet his drawers, an’ that’d make him madder, an’ purty soon ever’body in the house’d be yellin’ their head off.” His words tumbled out between chuckles. “Oh, we had lively times. One night when ever’body was yellin’ an’ a-cussin’, your brother Al, he’s a smart aleck now, he says, ‘Goddamn it, Grampa, why don’t you run off an’ be a pirate?’ Well, that made Grampa so goddamn mad he went for his gun. Al had ta sleep out in the fiel’ that night. But now Granma an’ Grampa both sleeps in the barn.”

Ma said, “They can jus’ get up an’ step outside when they feel like it. Pa, run on out an’ tell ’em Tommy’s home. Grampa’s a favorite of him.”

“A course,” said Pa. “I should of did it before.” He went out the door and crossed the yard, swinging his hands high.

Tom watched him go, and then his mother’s voice called his attention. She was pouring coffee. She did not look at him. “Tommy,” she said hesitantly, timidly.

“Yeah?” His timidity was set off by hers, a curious embarrassment. Each one knew the other was shy, and became more shy in the knowledge.

“Tommy, I got to ask you—you ain’t mad?”

“Mad, Ma?”

“You ain’t poisoned mad? You don’t hate nobody? They didn’ do nothin’ in that jail to rot you out with crazy mad?”

He looked sidewise at her, studied her, and his eyes seemed to ask how she could know such things. “No-o-o,” he said. “I was for a little while. But I ain’t proud like some fellas. I let stuff run off’n me. What’s a matter, Ma?”

Now she was looking at him, her mouth open, as though to hear better, her eyes digging to know better. Her face looked for the answer that is always concealed in language. She said in confusion, “I knowed Purty Boy Floyd. I knowed his ma. They was good folks. He was full a hell, sure, like a good boy oughta be.” She paused and then her words poured out. “I don’ know all like this—but I know it. He done a little bad thing a’ they hurt ’im, caught ’im an’ hurt him so he was mad, an’ the nex’ bad thing he done was mad, an’ they hurt ’im again. An’ purty soon he was meanmad. They shot at him like a varmint, an’ he shot back, an’ then they run him like a coyote, an’ him a-snappin’ an’ a-snarlin’, mean as a lobo. An’ he was mad. He wasn’t no boy or no man no more, he was jus’ a walkin’ chunk a mean-mad. But the folks that knowed him didn’ hurt ’im. He wasn’ mad at them. Finally they run him down an’ killed ’im. No matter how they say it in the paper how he was bad—that’s how it was.” She paused and she licked her dry lips, and her whole face was an aching question. “I got to know, Tommy. Did they hurt you so much? Did they make you mad like that?”