running between swamps of black water, where gray trees stood
veiled in gray moss. Gray cabins sat every-which-way in the
clearing, heavy shutters swinging at their glassless windows.

A pale, thin girl talked to Rose-Ellen. She was Polish, and her
name was Rose, too. When Rose-Ellen asked her if she had ever
heard of such a dreadful trip, she shrugged and said she was used
to going without sleep.

Last year, in asparagus, she and her parents and two brothers
cared for twenty-two acres, and when it grew hot "dat grass,
oooop she go and we work all night for git ahead of her."
Asparagus, even Rose-Ellen knew could grow past using in a day.

The Polish Rose said that they got up at four in the morning and
were in the fields at half-past; and sometimes worked till near
midnight.

"Mornings," she said, "I think I die, so bad I want the sleep.
And then the boss, he no give us half our wages. Now most a year
it has been."

Curiously Rose-Ellen asked her about school.

"No money, no time, no clo'es," said Polish Rose.

The truck-driver shouted to his people to pile in and the truck
went on. By noon the Beechams were seeing their first palm trees
and winter flowers. Grandpa and Daddy tried to tell the children
about the things they were passing, but the children were too