At once Daddy and Grandpa set to work on the Reo. It was an
"orphan" car, no longer made, and its parts were hard to replace;
so the men were always watching the junkyards for other old Reos.
They had learned a great deal about the car in these months, and
they soon had it on the road again.
"Give you long enough," said Grandma, "and you'll cobble new
soles on its tires and patch its innards. Looks like it's held
together with hairpins now."
Daddy drove with one ear cocked for trouble, and when anyone
spoke to him he said, "Shh! Sounds like her pistons--or maybe
it's her vacuum. Anyway, as soon as there's a good stopping
place, we'll. . . ."
But it was the tires that gave out first. Bang! Daddy's muscles
bulged as he held the lurching car steady. One of the back tires
was blown to bits. "Now can we eat?" Dick demanded. Daddy shook
his head as he jumped out to jack up the car. "Got to keep
moving. This is our last spare, and there isn't a single tire we
can count on."
Sure enough, they hadn't gone far before the familiar bumping
stopped them. That last spare was flat.
"Now," Daddy said grimly, "you may as well get lunch while I see
whether I can patch this again."
Grandma had been sitting silent, her hand twisted in Sally's
little skirt to keep her from climbing over the edge. "Well,"
she said, "you better eat before your hands get any blacker.
Dick, you haul that shoe-box from under the seat. Rose-Ellen,
fetch the crackers from the trailer. Sally, do sit still one
minute."
"Crackers?" asked Rose-Ellen, when she had scrambled back. "I
don't see a one, Gramma."
"Land's sakes, child, use your eyes for once!" Rose-Ellen
rummaged in the part that was partitioned off from Carrie. "I
don't see any groceries, Gramma."
Grandpa came back to help her, and stood staring. "Dick!" he
called. "Did you tie that box on like I said?"
Dick dropped a startled lip. "Gee whiz, Grampa! It was wedged
in so tight I never thought."
"No," said Grandpa, "I reckon you never did think." Silently they
ate the scanty lunch in the shoe-box, and as silently the men cut
"boots" from worn-out tires and cemented them under the holes in
the almost worn-out ones. Silently they jogged on again, the
engine stuttering and Daddy driving as if on egg-shells.
"Talk, won't you?" he asked suddenly. "My goodness, everyone is
so still--it gets on my nerves."
Sally said, "Goin' by-by!" and leaned forward from Grandma's
knees to give her father a strangling hug around the neck. Sally
was two and a half now, and lively enough to keep one person
busy. The pale curls all over her head were enchanting, and so
was her talk. She had learned _Buenos dias_, good day, from a
Mexican neighbor; _bambina bella_, pretty baby girl, from the
Serafinis, and _Sayonara_, good-by, from a Japanese boss in the
peas.
Rose-Ellen pulled the baby back and gave her a kiss in the hollow
at the back of her neck. Then she tried to think of something to
say herself. "Maybe they'll have school and church school at
this next place for a change."
"Aw, you're sissy," Dick grumbled in his new, thick-thin voice.
"If church was so much, why wouldn't it keep folks from being
treated like us? Huh?"
Grandma roused herself from her limp stillness. "Maybe you
didn't take notice," she said sharply, "that usually when folks
was kind, and tried to make those dreadful camps a little
decenter, why, it was Christian folks. There wouldn't hardly
anything else make 'em treat that horrid itch and trachoma and
all the catching diseases--hardly anything but being Christians."
"Aw," Dick jeered. "If the church folks got together and put
their foot down they could clear up the whole business in a
jiffy."
"We always been church folks ourselves," Grandma snapped. "It
isn't so easy to get a hold."
"Hush up, Dick," Grandpa ordered with unusual sharpness. "Can't
you see Gramma's clean done out?"
Grandma looked "done out," but Rose-Ellen, glancing soberly from
one to the other, was sorry for Dick, too-his blue eyes frowned
so unhappily.
Rose-Ellen tried to change the subject. "Apples!" she said. "I
love oranges and ripe figs, and those big persimmons that you
sort of drown in-but apples are homiest. I'd like to get my
teeth into a hard red one and work right around."
That wasn't a good subject, either. "I'm hungry!" Jimmie
bellowed.
And just then another tire blew out.
The old Reo had bumped along on its rim for an hour when Grandma
said in a thin voice, "Next time we come to any likely shade, I
guess we best stop. I'm . . . I'm just beat out."
With an anxious backward glance at her, Daddy stopped the car
under a tree.
"I reckon some of you better go on to that town and get some
bread and maybe weenies and potatoes," Grandma said faintly.
Grandpa and Daddy pulled out the tent and set it up under the
tree, so that Grandma could lie down in its shelter. Then they
bumped away, leaving the children to mind Sally and lead Carrie
along the edge of the highway to graze, while Grandma slept.
[Illustration: Waiting at the roadside]
"I never was so hungry in all my days," Jimmie kept saying.
All the children watched that strip of pavement with the hot air
quivering above it, but still the car did not come.
Suddenly Rose-Ellen clutched Dick's arm. "Those two men look
like . . . look like. . . . They _are_ Grampa and Daddy. But what
have they done with the car?"
"Where's the car?" Dick shouted, as the men came up.
"W'ere tar?" Sally echoed, patting her hands against the bulging
gunnysack her father carried.
"Here's the car," Daddy answered, pointing to the sack.
"You . . . sold it, Dad?" Dick demanded. "How much?"
"Five dollars." Daddy's jaw tightened. "They called it junk.
Well, the grub will last a little while. . . ."
"And when Gramma's rested, we can pull the trailer and kind of
hike along toward them apples," Grandpa said stoutly.
But Grandma looked as if she'd never be rested. She lay quite
still except for the breath that blew out her gray lips and drew
them in again, and her closed eyes were hollow. The other six
stood around and gazed at her in terror. Anyone else could be
sick and the earth went on turning, but . . . Grandma!
They were too intent to notice the car stopping beside them until
a man's voice said, "Sorry, folks, but you'll have to move on.
Against regulations, this is."
"We're Americans, ain't we?" Grandpa blustered, shaken with
anxiety and anger. "You can't shove us off the earth."
"Be on your way in twenty-four hours," the man said, pushing back
his coat to show the star on his vest. "I'm sorry, but that's the
way it is."
"Americans?" Daddy said harshly, watching the sheriff go. "We're
folks without a country."
"May as well give the young-ones some of the grub we bought,"
Grandpa said patiently.
It was while they were hungrily munching the dry bread and cheese
that another car came upon them and with it another swift change
in their changing life.
Two young women stepped out of the chirpy Ford sedan. Neither of
them looked like Her, nor even Her No. II--yet Jimmie whispered
excitedly to Rose-Ellen, "I bet you a nickel they're Christian
Centerers!"
And they were. Sent by the churches, like the Center workers in
the cranberries, in the peas and in Cissy's onions, they went out
through the country to help the people who needed them. The
sheriff, it seemed, had told them about the Beechams when he met
them a few minutes ago.
First they looked in at Grandma, still asleep with the Seth
Thomas ticking beside her. "Why, I've heard of you from Miss
Pinkerton," said one young woman. "She said you were the kind of
people who deserved a better chance. Maybe I can help you get
one." Then they talked long and earnestly with Grandpa and
Daddy.
Grandpa had flapped his hands at the children and said,
"Skedaddle, young-ones!" So the children could hear nothing of
the talk except that it was all questions and answers that grew
more and more brisk and eager. It ended in hooking the trailer,
which carried the tent and Carrie, to the sedan, into which was
helped a dazed Grandma. The rest of the family was packed in and
off they all rattled to town.
There the "Centerers" left the Beechams in a restaurant, but only
to come back in a few minutes, beaming.
"We got them on long distance, and it's all right!" they told
Grandpa and Daddy.
"What's all right?" asked Grandma, beginning to be more like her
old self once more.
"A real nice place to stay in the grape country," Grandpa said
quickly. "And Miss Joyce here, she's going to take us down there
tomorrow. Down in the San Joaquin Valley."
Next morning Miss Joyce came to the tourist camp where they had
slept and breakfasted. She looked long at Carrie. Was Carrie
worth taking? Did she give much milk?
Jimmie burst into tears. "Well, even if she doesn't, she does
the best she can," he sobbed. "Isn't she one of the family?"
Miss Joyce patted his frail little shoulder and said "Oh,
well . . . !"
So Carrie was fastened into her trailer again, and the sedan
rattled southward all day, through peach orchards and vineyards
where the grapevines were fastened to short stakes so that they
looked like bushes instead of vines.
"It's . . . real sightly country," said Grandma, who felt much
better after her rest. "If only a body could settle down, I
can't figure any place much nicer. Them trees now, with the sun
slanting through.--We ain't stopping here?"
Yes, the sedan, with the trailer swaying after it, was banging
into a tiny village of brown and white cottages, with green
gardens between them and stately eucalyptus trees shading them,
while behind them stretched evenly spaced young fruit trees.
Before the one empty cottage the sedan stopped. The Beechams and
Miss Joyce went in.
There was little furniture in the clean house, but Grandma,
dropping down on a wooden chair, looked around her with bright
eyes. "A sitting room!" she said. "A sitting room! Seems like
we were real folks again, just for a little while. Grampa, you
fetch in the clock and set it on that shelf, will you?"
Grandpa brought in the old Seth Thomas, its hands pointing to
half-past three. "Tick-tock! Tick-tock!" it said, as contentedly
as if it had always lived there.
[Illustration: Bringing in the clock]
The children went tiptoeing, hobbling, rushing through the clean,
bare rooms, their voices echoing as they called back their news.
"Gramma, there's a real bathroom!" "Gramma, soon's you feel
better you can bake a pie in this gas stove!" "Gramma, here's an
e-_lec_-tric refrigerator! And a washing machine! And a
screened porch with a table to eat at!"
Good California smells of eucalyptus trees and, herbs and flowers
drifted through open doors and windows, together with the
chuckling, scolding, joyous clamor of mocking birds.
"I . . . I wish we didn't have to move on again!" Grandma said.
"It's a pretty good set-up," Grandpa agreed. "Good school over
yonder; and a church--and big enough garden for all our garden
sass and to can some." He was ticking off the points on his
fingers. "And a chicken-house, and then this here cooperative
farm where the folks all work together and share the profits."
Jimmie flung himself down on the floor, sobbing. "I don't want
to go on anywhere," he hiccupped. "I want to stay here."
But Dick was looking from Grandpa to Miss Joyce and then to Daddy
who had come, smiling, in at the back door. "You mean. . . ."
The words choked Dick. "You mean we might settle here? But how?
Who fixed it?"
"The government!" Grandpa said triumphantly. "Mind you, this
place is the government's fixing, to give migrants a chance to
take root again. It's an experiment they are trying, and we are
having the chance to work with them. We can buy this place and
pay for it over a long term of years. We've got the Christian
Center and the government to thank."
"Why, maybe after a while we could even send for the goods we
stored at Mrs. Albi's!" Grandma cried dazedly.
"You mean this is home? Home?" shrieked Rose-Ellen.
"Carrie thinks so," Daddy, said with a smile. "Run along and see
if she doesn't. Run along!"
The children rushed past him into the backyard. There stood
Carrie, still a moth-eaten-looking white goat. But now she had a
new gleam in her amber eyes, and at her feet a tiny, curly kid,
as black as coal.
"Maaaaaaa!" Carrie said proudly. From within the brown and white
cottage Seth Thomas pealed out twelve chimes--eight extra--as if
he, too, were shouting for joy.
[Illustration: Carrie and her kid]