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Across the Fruited Plain by Florence Crannell Means
page 44 of 101 (43%)
It was pleasant in the grapefruit grove, where the rich green
trees made good-smelling aisles of clean earth, and the men
picked the pale round fruit ever so carefully, clipping it gently
so as not to bruise the skin and cause decay. It hardly seemed
to belong to the same world as the ill-smelling pickers' camp of
rags, boards, and tin.

Dick lost his job after the first few days. He had been hired
because he was so tall and strong; but the foreman said he was
bruising too much fruit. At first Grandma said she was glad he
was fired, for he had been making himself sick eating fruit. But
she was soon sorry that he had nothing to do.

"And them young rapscallions you run with teach you words and
ways I never thought to see in a Beecham," Grandma scolded.

But if camp was hard for them all, it was hardest for Grandma and
Jimmie and Sally, who seemed always ailing.

"We've got to grit our teeth and hang on," said Grandma.

Then came the Big Storm.

All day the air had been heavy, still; weatherwise pickers
watched the white sky anxiously. In the middle of the night,
Rose-Ellen woke to the shriek of wind and the crack of canvas.
Then, with a splintering crash, the tent-poles collapsed and she
was buried under a mass of wet canvas.

At first she could hear no voice through the howling wind and
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