The Grapes of Wrath(54)

“I been thinkin’,” he said. “I been in the hills, thinkin’, almost you might say like Jesus went into the wilderness to think His way out of a mess of troubles.”

“Pu-raise Gawd!” Granma said, and the preacher glanced over at her in surprise.

“Seems like Jesus got all messed up with troubles, and He couldn’t figure nothin’ out, an’ He got to feelin’ what the hell good is it all, an’ what’s the use fightin’ an’figurin’. Got tired, got good an’ tired, an’ His sperit all wore out. Jus’ about come to the conclusion, the hell with it. An’ so He went off into the wilderness.”

“A—men,” Granma bleated. So many years she had timed her responses to the pauses. And it was so many years since she had listened to or wondered at the words used.

“I ain’t sayin’ I’m like Jesus,” the preacher went on. “But I got tired like Him, an’ I got mixed up like Him, an’ I went into the wilderness like Him, without no campin’ stuff. Nighttime I’d lay on my back an’ look up at the stars; morning I’d set an’ watch the sun come up; midday I’d look out from a hill at the rollin’ dry country; evenin’ I’d foller the sun down. Sometimes I’d pray like I always done. On’y I couldn’ figure what I was prayin’ to or for. There was the hills, an’ there was me, an’ we wasn’t separate no more. We was one thing. An’ that one thing was holy.”

“Hallelujah,” said Granma, and she rocked a little, back and forth, trying to catch hold of an ecstasy.

“An’ I got thinkin’, on’y it wasn’t thinkin’, it was deeper down than thinkin’. I got thinkin’ how we was holy when we was one thing, an’ mankin’ was holy when it was one thing. An’ it on’y got unholy when one mis’able little fella got the bit in his teeth an’ run off his own way, kickin’ an’ draggin’ an’fightin’. Fella like that bust the holiness. But when they’re all workin’ together, not one fella for another fella, but one fella kind of harnessed to the whole shebang—that’s right, that’s holy. An’ then I got thinkin’ I don’t even know what I mean by holy.” He paused, but the bowed heads stayed down, for they had been trained like dogs to rise at the “amen” signal. “I can’t say no grace like I use’ ta say. I’m glad of the holiness of breakfast. I’m glad there’s love here. That’s all.” The heads stayed down. The preacher looked around. “I’ve got your breakfast cold,” he said; and then he remembered. “Amen,” he said, and all the heads rose up.

“A—men,” said Granma, and she fell to her breakfast, and broke down the soggy biscuits with her hard old toothless gums. Tom ate quickly, and Pa crammed his mouth. There was no talk until the food was gone, the coffee drunk; only the crunch of chewed food and the slup of coffee cooled in transit to the tongue. Ma watched the preacher as he ate, and her eyes were questioning, probing and understanding. She watched him as though he were suddenly a spirit, not human any more, a voice out of the ground.

The men finished and put down their plates, and drained the last of their coffee; and then the men went out, Pa and the preacher and Noah and Grampa and Tom, and they walked over to the truck, avoiding the litter of furniture, the wooden bedsteads, the windmill machinery, the old plow. They walked to the truck and stood beside it. They touched the new pine side-boards.

Tom opened the hood and looked at the big greasy engine. And Pa came up beside him. He said, “Your brother Al looked her over before we bought her. He says she’s all right.”

“What’s he know? He’s just a squirt,” said Tom.

“He worked for a company. Drove truck last year. He knows quite a little. Smart aleck like he is. He knows. He can tinker an engine, Al can.”

Tom asked, “Where’s he now?”

“Well,” said Pa, “he’s a-billygoatin’ aroun’ the country. Tom-cattin’ hisself to death. Smart-aleck sixteen-year-older, an’ his nuts is just a-eggin’ him on. He don’t think of nothin’ but girls and engines. A plain smart aleck. Ain’t been in nights for a week.”

Grampa, fumbling with his chest, had succeeded in buttoning the buttons of his blue shirt into the buttonholes of his underwear. His fingers felt that something was wrong, but did not care enough to find out. His fingers went down to try to figure out the intricacies of the buttoning of his fly. “I was worse,” he said happily. “I was much worse. I was a heller, you might say. Why, they was a camp meetin’ right in Sallisaw when I was a young fella a little bit older’n Al. He’s just a squirt, an’ punkin-soft. But I was older. An’ we was to this here camp meetin’. Five hunderd folks there, an’ a proper sprinklin’ of young heifers.”