Across the Fruited Plain by Florence Crannell Means
page 74 of 101 (73%)
page 74 of 101 (73%)
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telegraph poles!"
"Little white houses and gardens!" crooned Grandma. Soon, too, they saw the familiar posters: PICKERS WANTED; and the Reo followed the signs to the fields. They were pea-fields, this time, but Grandma, peering at the pea-pickers' camp, cried, "My land, if this ain't Floridy all over again!" "Maybe the owner ain't got the cash to put up decent chicken-coops for folks to live in," Grandpa sputtered, "but if I was him I'd dig ditches for a living before I'd put humans into pigpens like these." "Let's go a piece farther," Grandma urged. Grandpa fingered his old wallet. "Five dollars is the least we can keep against the car breaking down. We've got six-fifty now." So for long months they worked in the peas and lived in the "jungle" camp, pitching their tent at the very edge of its dirt and smell. Shacks of scrap tin, shingled with rusty pail covers, stood next to shacks made of burlap and pasteboard cartons. Ragged tents huddled behind the shacks, using the same back wall. Mattresses that looked as if they came from the dump lay on the ground with |
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