THE afternoon sun glanced on the tops of the apple trees and then broke into stripes and layers of slanting light beneath the heavy branches, and threw blots of sunshine on the ground. The wide aisles between the trees stretched away until the rows seemed to meet in a visual infinity. The great orchard crawled with activity. Long ladders leaned among the branches and piles of new yellow boxes stood in the aisles. From far away came the rumble of the sorting machines and the tap of the boxers’ hammers. The men, with their big buckets slung to baldrics, ran up the ladders and twisted the big green pippins free and filled the buckets until they could hold no more, and then they ran down the ladders to empty the buckets into the boxes. Between the rows came the trucks to load the picked apples and take them to the sorting and packing plant. A checker stood beside the boxes and marked with a pencil in his little book as the bucket men came up. The orchard was alive. The branches of the trees shook under the ladders. The overripes dropped with dull plops to the ground underneath the trees. Somewhere, hidden in a tree-top, a whistling virtuoso trilled.
Jim hurried down his ladder and carried his bucket to the box pile and emptied the load. The checker, a blond young man in washed white corduroys, made a mark in his book and nodded his head. “Don’t dump ’em in so hard, buddy,” he warned. “You’ll bruise ’em.”
“O.K.,” said Jim. He walked back to his ladder, drumming on the bucket with his knee as he went. Up the ladder he climbed, and he hooked the wire of the bale-hook over a limb. And then in the tree he saw another man, who had stepped off the ladder and stood on a big limb. He reached high over his head for a cluster of apples. He felt the tree shudder under Jim’s weight and looked down.
“Hello, kid. I didn’t know this was your tree.”
Jim stared up at him, a lean old man with black eyes and a sparse, chewed beard. The veins stood out heavy and blue on his hands. His legs seemed as thin and straight as sticks, too thin for the big feet with great heavy-soled shoes.
Jim said, “I don’t give a damn about the tree. Aren’t you too old to be climbing around like a monkey, Dad?”
The old man spat and watched the big white drop hit the ground. His bleak eyes grew fierce. “That’s what you think,” he said. “Lots of young punks think I’m too old. I can out-work you any day in the week, and don’t you forget it, neither.” He put an artificial springiness in his knees as he spoke. He reached up and picked the whole cluster of apples, twig and all, skinned the apples into his bucket and contemptuously dropped the twig on the ground.
The voice of the checker called, “Careful of those trees, over there.”
The old man grinned maliciously, showing two upper and two lower yellow teeth, long and sloped outward, like a gopher’s teeth. “Busy bastard, ain’t he,” he remarked to Jim.
“College boy,” said Jim. “Every place you go you run into ’em.”
The old man squatted down on his limb. “And what do they know?” he demanded. “They go to them colleges, and they don’t learn a God damn thing. That smart guy with the little book couldn’t keep his ass dry in a barn.” He spat again.
“They get pretty smart, all right,” Jim agreed.
“Now you and me,” the old man went on, “We know—not much, maybe, but what we know we know good.”
Jim was silent for a moment, and then he lanced at the old man’s pride as he had heard Mac do to other men. “You don’t know enough to keep out of a tree when you’re seventy. I don’t know enough to wear white cords and make pencil marks in a little book.”
The old man snarled, “We got no pull, that’s what. You got to have pull to get an easy job. We just get rode over because we got no pull.”
“Well, what you going to do about it?”
The question seemed to let air out of the old man. His anger disappeared. His eyes grew puzzled and a little frightened. “Christ only knows,” he said. “We just take it, that’s all. We move about the country like a bunch of hogs and get beat on the ass by a college boy.”
“It’s not his fault,” said Jim. “He’s just got a job. If he’s going to keep the job, he’s got to do it.”
The old man reached for another cluster of apples, picked them with little twisting lifts and put each one carefully into his bucket. “When I was a young man, I used to think somethin’ could be done,” he said,” but I’m seventy-one.” His voice was tired.
A truck went by, carrying off the filled boxes. The old man continued, “I was in the north woods when the Wobblies was raising hell. I’m a top-faller, a damn good one. Maybe you noticed how I take to a tree at my age. Well, I had hopes then. ’Course the Wobblies done some good, used to be there was no crappers but a hole in the ground, and no place to take a bath. The meat used to spoil. Well, them Wobblies made ’em put in toilets and showers; but, hell, it all went to pieces.” His hand went up automatically for more apples. “I joined unions,” he said. “We’d elect a president and first thing we knowed, he’d be kissing the ass of the superintendent, and then he’d sell us out. We’d pay dues, and the treasurer’d run out on us. I don’ know. Maybe you young squirts can figure something out. We done what we could.”
“You all ready to give up?” Jim asked, glancing at him again.
The old man squatted down on his limb and held himself there with one big skinny hand. “I got feelings in my skin,” he said. “You may think I’m a crazy old coot; them other things was planned; nothing come of ’em; but I got feelings in my skin.”
“What kind of feelings?”
“It’s hard to say, kid. You know quite a bit before water boils, it gets to heavin’ around? That’s the kind of feeling I got. I been with workin’ stiffs all my life. There ain’t a plan in this at all. It’s just like that water heavin’ before it boils.” His eyes were dim, seeing nothing. His head rose up so that two strings of skin tautened between his chin and his throat. “Maybe there’s been too much goin’ hungry; maybe too many bosses’ve kicked hell out of the men. I dunno. I just feel it in my skin.”
“Well, what is it?” Jim asked.
“It’s anger,” the old man cried. “That’s what it is. You know when you’re about to get fightin’, crazy mad, you get a hot, sick, weak feelin’ in your guts? Well, that’s what it is. Only it ain’t just in one man. It’s like the whole bunch, millions and millions was one man, and he’s been beat and starved, and he’s gettin’ that sick feelin’ in his guts. The stiffs don’t know what’s happenin’, but when the big guy gets mad, they’ll all be there; and by Christ, I hate to think of it. They’ll be bitin’ out throats with their teeth, and clawin’ off lips. It’s anger, that’s what it is.” He swayed on his limb, and tightened his arms to steady himself. “I feel it in my skin,” he said. “Ever’ place I go, it’s like water just before it gets to boilin’.”
Jim trembled with excitement. “There’s got to be a plan,” he said. “When the thing busts, there’s got to be a plan all ready to direct it, so it’ll do some good.”
The old man seemed tired after his outburst. “When that big guy busts loose, there won’t be no plan that can hold him. That big guy’ll run like a mad dog, and bite anything that moves. He’s been hungry too long, and he’s been hurt too much; and worst thing of all, he’s had his feelings hurt too much.”
“But if enough men expected it and had a plan——” Jim insisted.
The old man shook his head. “I hope I’m dead before it happens. They’ll be bitin’ out throats with their teeth. They’ll kill each other off an’ after they’re all wore out or dead, it’ll be the same thing over again. I want to die and get shut of it. You young squirts got hopes.” He lifted his full bucket down. “I got no hope. Get out of the way, I’m comin’ down the ladder. We can’t make no money talkin’: that’s for college boys.”
Jim stood aside on a limb and let him down the ladder. The old man emptied his bucket and then went to another tree. Although Jim waited for him, he did not come back. The sorting belt rumbled on its rollers in the packinghouse, and the hammers tapped. Along the highway the big transport trucks roared by. Jim picked his bucket full and took it to the box pile. The checker made a mark in his book.
“You’re going to owe us money if you don’t get off your dime,” the checker said.
Jim’s face went red and his shoulders dropped. “You keep to your God-damn book,” he said.
“Tough guy, huh?”
Then Jim caught himself and grinned in embarrassment. “I’m tired,” he apologized. “It’s a new kind of work to me.”
The blond checker smiled. “I know how it is,” he said. “You get pretty touchy when you’re tired. Why don’t you get up in a tree and have a smoke?”
“I guess I will.” Jim went back to his tree. He hooked his bucket over a limb and went to picking again. He said aloud to himself. “Even me, like a mad dog. Can’t do that. My old man did that.” He did not work quickly, but he reduced his movements to a machine-like perfection. The sun went low, until it left the ground entirely and remained only on the tops of the trees. Far away, in the town, a whistle blew. But Jim worked steadily on. It was growing dusky when the rumble in the packing-house stopped at last and the checkers called out, “Come on in, you men. It’s time to quit.”
Jim climbed down the ladder, emptied his bucket and stacked it up with the others. The checker marked in the buckets and then totaled the picking. The men stood about for a few moments, rolling cigarettes, talking softly in the evening. They walked slowly away down a row, toward the county road, where the orchard bunk houses were.
Jim saw the old man ahead of him and speeded up to catch him. The thin legs moved with jointed stiffness. “It’s you again,” he said as Jim caught up with him.
“Thought I’d walk in with you.”
“Well, who’s stoppin’ you?” Obviously he was pleased.
“You got any folks here?” Jim asked.
“Folks? No.”
Jim said, “Well, if you’re all alone, why don’t you get into some charity racket and make the county take care of you?”
The old man’s tone was chilled with contempt. “I’m a top-faller. Listen, punk, if you never been in the woods, that don’t mean nothing to you. Damn few top-fallers ever get to be my age. I’ve had punks like you damn near die of heart failure just watchin’ me work; and here I’m climbin’ a lousy apple tree. Me take charity! I done work in my life that took guts. I been ninety foot up a pole and had the butt split and snap my safety-belt. I worked with guys that got swatted to pulp with a limb. Me take charity! They’d say, ’Dan, come get your soup,’ and I’d sop my bread in my soup and suck the soup out of it. By Christ, I’d jump out of an apple tree and break my neck before I’d take charity. I’m a top-faller.”
They trudged along between the trees. Jim took off his hat and carried it in his hand. “You didn’t get anything out of it,” he said. “They just kicked you out when you got too old.”
Dan’s big hand found Jim’s arm just above the elbow, and crushed it until it hurt. “I got things out of it while I was at it,” he said. “I’d go up a pole, and I’d know that the boss and the owner of the timber and the president of the company didn’t have the guts to do what I was doing. It was me. I’d look down on ever’thing from up there. And ever’thing looked small, and the men were little, but I was up there. I was my own size. I got things out of it, all right.”
“They took all the profits from your work,” Jim said. “They got rich, an’ when you couldn’t go up any more, they kicked you out.”
“Yes,” said Dan, “they did that, all right. I guess I must be gettin’ pretty old, kid. I don’t give a damn if they did—I just don’t give a damn.”
Ahead they could see the low, whitewashed building the owners set aside for the pickers—a low shed nearly fifty yards long, with a door and a little square window every ten feet. Through some of the open doors lamps and candles could be seen burning. Some men sat in the doorways and looked out at the dusk. In front of the long building stood a faucet where a clot of men and women had gathered. As the turn of each came, he cupped his hands under the stream and threw water on his face and hair and rubbed his hands together for a moment. The women carried cans and cooking pots to fill at the faucet. In and out of the dark doorways children swarmed, restless as rats. A tired, soft conversation arose from the group. Men and women were coming back, men from the orchard, women from the sorting and packing house. So built that it formed a short angle at the north end of the building stood the orchard’s store, brightly lighted now. Here food and work clothes were sold on credit against the working sheets. A line of women and men stood waiting to get in, and another line came out carrying canned goods and loaves of bread.
Jim and old Dan walked up to the building. “There’s the kennel,” Jim said. “It wouldn’t be so bad if you had a woman to cook for you.”
Dan said, “Guess I’ll go over to the store and get me a can of beans. These damn fools pay seventeen cents for a pound of canned beans. Why, they could get four pounds of dried beans for that, and cooked up that’d make nearly eight pounds.”
Jim asked, “Why don’t you do that, Dan?”
“I ain’t got the time. I come in tired an’ I want to eat.”
“Well, what time have the others got? Women work all day, men work all day; and the owner charges three cents extra for a can of beans because the men are too damn tired to go into town for groceries.”
Dan turned his bristly beard to Jim. “You sure worry at the thing, don’t you, kid? Just like a puppy with a knuckle-bone. You chew and chew at it, but you don’t make no marks on it, and maybe pretty soon you break a tooth.”
“If enough guys got to chewing they’d split it.”
“Maybe—but I lived seventy-one years with dogs and men, and mostly I seen ’em try to steal the bone from each other. I never seen two dogs help each other break a bone; but I seen ’em chew hell out of each other tryin’ to steal it.”
Jim said, “You make a guy feel there isn’t much use.”
Old Dan showed his four long, gopher teeth. “I’m seventy-one,” he apologized. “You get on with your bone, and don’t mind me. Maybe dogs and men ain’t the same as they used to be.”
As they drew nearer on the cloddy ground a figure detached itself from the crowd around the faucet and strolled out toward them. “That’s my pardner,” Jim said. “That’s Mac. He’s a swell guy.”
Old Dan replied ungraciously. “Well, I don’t want to talk to nobody. I don’t think I’ll even heat my beans.”
Mac reached them. “Hello, Jim. How’d you make out?”
“Pretty good. This is Dan, Mac. He was in the north woods when the Wobblies were working up there.”
“Glad to meet you.” Mac put a tone of deference in his voice. “I heard about that time. There was some sabotage.”
The tone pleased old Dan. “I wasn’t no Wobbly,” he said. “I’m a top-faller. Them Wobblies was a bunch of double-crossin’ sons-of-bitches, but they done the work. Damn it, they’d burn down a sawmill as quick as they’d look at it.”
The tone of respect remained in Mac’s voice. “Well, if they got the work done, I guess that’s all you can expect.”
“They was a tough bunch,” said Dan. “A man couldn’t take no pleasure talkin’ to ’em. They hated ever’thing. Guess I’ll go over and get my beans.” He turned to the right and walked away from them.
It was almost dark. Jim, looking up at the sky saw a black V flying across. “Mac, look, what’s that?”
“Wild ducks. Flying pretty early this year. Didn’t you ever see ducks before?”
“I guess not,” said Jim. “I guess I’ve read about them.”
“Say, Jim, you won’t mind if we just have some sardines and bread, will you? We’ve got things to do tonight. I don’t want to take time to cook anything.”
Jim had been walking loosely, tired from the new kind of work. Now his muscles tightened and his head came up. “What you got on, Mac?”
“Well, look. I worked alongside London today. That guy doesn’t miss much. He came about two-thirds of the way. Now he says he thinks he can swing this bunch of stiffs. He knows a guy that kind of throws another crowd. They’re on the biggest orchard of the lot, four thousand acres of apples. London’s so damn mad at this wage drop, he’ll do anything. His friend on the Hunter place is called Dakin. We’re going over there and talk to Dakin tonight.”
“You got it really moving, then?” Jim demanded.
“Looks that way.” Mac went into one of the dark doorways and in a moment he emerged with a can of sardines and a loaf of bread. He laid the bread down on the doorstep and turned the key in the sardine can, rolling back the tin. “Did you sound out the men the way I told you, Jim?”
“Didn’t have much chance. I talked some to old Dan, there.”
Mac paused in opening the can. “What in Christ’s name for? What do you want to talk to him for?”
“Well, we were up in the same tree.”
“Well, why didn’t you get in another tree? Listen, Jim, lots of our people waste their time. Joy would try to convert a litter of kittens. Don’t waste your time on old guys like that. He’s no good. You’ll get yourself converted to hopelessness if you talk to old men. They’ve had all the kick blasted right out of ’em.” He turned the can lid off and laid the open tin in front of him. “Here, put some fish on a slice of bread. London’s eating his dinner right now. He’ll be ready pretty soon. We’ll go in his Ford.”
Jim took out his pocket-knife, arranged three sardines on a slice of bread and crushed them down a little. He poured some olive oil from the can over them, and then covered them with another slice of bread. “How’s the girl?” he asked.
“What girl?”
“The girl with the baby.”
“Oh, she’s all right. But you’d think I was God the way London talks. I told him I wasn’t a doctor, but he goes right on calling me ‘Doc.’ London gives me credit for a lot. You know, she’ll be a cute little broad when she gets some clothes and some make-up on. Make yourself another sandwich.”
It was quite dark by now. Many of the doors were closed, and the dim lights within the little rooms threw square patches of light on the ground outside. Mac chewed his sandwich. “I never saw such a bunch of bags as this crowd,” he said. “Only decent one in the camp is thirteen years old. I’ll admit she’s got an eighteen-year-old can, but I’m doing no fifty years.”
Jim said, “You seem to be having trouble keeping your economics out of the bedroom.”
“Who the hell wants to keep it out?” Mac demanded. He chuckled. “Every time the sun shines on my back all afternoon I get hot pants. What’s wrong with that?”
The bright, hard stars were out, not many of them, but sharp and penetrating in the cold night sky. From the rooms nearby came the rise and fall of many voices talking, with now and then a single voice breaking clear.
Jim turned toward the sound. “What’s going on over there, Mac?”
“Crap game. Got it started quick. I don’t know what they’re using for money. Shooting next week’s pay, maybe. Most of ’em aren’t going to have any pay when they settle up with the store. One man tonight in the store got two big jars of mince-meat. Probably eat both jars tonight and be sick tomorrow. They get awful hungry for something nice. Ever notice when you’re hungry, Jim, your mind fastens on just one thing? It’s always mashed potatoes with me, just slimy with melted butter. I s’pose this guy tonight had been thinking about mince-meat for months.”
Along the front of the building a big man moved, and the lights from the windows flashed on him as he passed each one. “Here comes London,” Mac said.
He strode up to them, swinging his shoulders. The tonsure showed white against the black rim of hair. “I finished eatin’,” London said. “Let’s get goin’. My Ford’s around back.” He turned and walked in the direction from which he had come; Mac and Jim followed him. Behind the building a topless model T Ford touring car stood nosed in against the building. The oilcloth seats were frayed and split, so that the coil spring stuck through, and wads of horsehair hung from the holes. London got in and turned the key. The rasp of the points sounded.
“Crank ’er, Jim,” said Mac.
Jim put his weight on the stiff crank. “Spark down? I don’t want my head kicked off.”
“She’s down. Pull out the choke in front there,” said London.
The gas wheezed in. Jim spun the crank. The engine choked and the crank kicked viciously backward. “Nearly got me! Keep that spark down!”
“She always kicks a little,” said London. “Don’t give her no more choke.”
Jim spun the crank again. The engine roared. The little dim lights came on. Jim climbed into the back seat among old tubes and tire-irons and gunny sacks.
“Makes a noise, but she still goes,” London shouted. He backed around and drove out the rough dirt road through the orchard, and turned right on the concrete state highway. The car chattered and rattled over the road; the cold air whistled in through the broken windshield so that Jim crouched down behind the protection of the front seat. Town lights glowed in the sky behind them. On both sides the road was lined with big dark apple trees, and sometimes the lights of houses shone from behind them. The Ford overtook and passed great transport trucks, gasoline tank trucks, silver milk tanks, outlined with little blue lights. From a small ranch house a shepherd dog ran out, and London swerved sharply to avoid hitting him.
“He won’t last long,” Mac shouted.
“I hate to hit a dog,” said London. “Don’t mind cats. I killed three cats on the way here from Radcliffe.”
The car rattled on, going about thirty miles an hour. Sometimes two of the cylinders stopped firing, so that the engine jerked along until the missing two went back to work.
When they had gone about five miles, London slowed down. “Road ought to be somewhere in here,” he said. A little row of silver mail-boxes showed him where to turn into the dirt road. Over the road was a wooden arch bearing the words, “Hunter Bros. Fruit Co. S Brand Apples.” The car stuttered slowly along the road. Suddenly a man stepped into the road and held up his hand. London brought the Ford to a stop.
“You boys working here?” he man asked.
“No, we ain’t.”
“Well, we don’t need any more help. We’re all full up.”
London said, “We just come to see some friends of ours. We’re workin’ on the Talbot place.”
“Not bringing in liquor to sell?”
“Sure not.”
The man flashed a light into the back of the car and looked at the litter of iron and old inner tubes. The light snapped off. “O.K., boys. Don’t stay too long.”
London pushed down the pedal. “That smart son-of-a-bitch,” he growled. “There ain’t no nosey cops like private cops. Busy little rat.” He swung the car savagely around a turn and brought it to a stop behind a building very like the one from which they had come, a long, low, shed-like structure, partitioned into little rooms. London said, “They’re workin’ a hell of a big crew here. They got three bunk houses like this one.” He walked to the first door and knocked. A grunt came from inside, and heavy steps. The door opened a little. A fat woman with stringy hair looked out. London said gruffly, “Where’s Dakin puttin’ up?”
The woman reacted instantly to the authority of his voice. “He’s the third door down, mister, him and his wife and a couple of kids.”
London said, “Thanks,” and turned away, leaving the woman with her mouth open to go on talking. She stuck out her head and watched the three men while London knocked on the third door. She didn’t go inside until Dakin’s door was closed again.
“Who was it?” a man asked from behind her.
“I don’t know,” she said. “A big guy. He wanted Dakin.”
Dakin was a thin-faced man with veiled, watchful eyes and an immobile mouth. His voice was a sharp monotone. “You old son-of-a-bitch,” he said. “Come on in. I ain’t seen you since we left Radcliffe.” He stepped back and let them in.
London said, “This here’s Doc and his friend, Dakin. Doc helped Lisa the other night. Maybe you heard about it.”
Dakin put out a long, pale hand to Mac. “Sure I heard. Couple of guys working right here was there. You’d think Lisa’d dropped an elephant the way they don’t talk about nothing else. This here’s the missus, Doc. You might take a look at them two kids, too, they’re strong.”
His wife stood up, a fine, big-bosomed woman with a full face, with little red spots of rouge on her cheeks, and with a gold upper bridge that flashed in the lamplight. “Glad to meet you boys,” she said in a husky voice. “You boys like a spot of coffee or a little shot?”
Dakin’s eyes warmed a trifle out of pride in her.
“Well, it was pretty cold coming over,” Mac said tentatively.
The gold bridge flashed. “Just what I thought. You’ll do with a snort.” She set out a bottle of whisky and a jigger. “Pour your own, boys. You can’t pour it no higher’n the top.”
The bottle and the glass went around. Mrs. Dakin tossed hers off last. She corked the bottle and stood it in a small cupboard.
Three folding canvas chairs were in the room, and two canvas cots for the children. A big patent camp bed stood against the wall. Mac said, “You do yourself pretty nice, Mr. Dakin.”
“I got a light truck,” said Dakin. “I get some truckin’ to do now and then, and besides I can move my stuff. The missus is quick with her hands; in good times she can make money doin’ piece work.” Mrs. Dakin smiled at the praise.
Suddenly London dropped his social manner. “We want to go somewheres and talk,” he said.
“Well, why not here?”
“We want to talk some kind of private stuff.”
Dakin turned slowly to his wife. His voice was monotonous. “You and the kids better pay a call to Mrs. Schmidt, Alla.”
Her face showed her disappointment. Her lips pouted and closed over the gold. For a moment she looked questioningly at her husband, and he stared back with his cold eyes. His long white hands twitched at his sides. Suddenly Mrs. Dakin smiled widely. “You boys stay right here an’ do your talkin’,” she said. “I ought to been to see Mrs. Schmidt before. Henry, take your brother’s hand.” She put on a short jacket of rabbit’s fur and pushed at her golden hair. “You boys have a good time.” They heard her walk away and knock at a door down the line.
Dakin pulled up his trousers and sat down on the big bed and waved the others to the folding canvas chairs. His eyes were veiled and directionless, like the eyes of a boxer. “What’s on your mind, London?”
London scratched his cheek. “How you feel about that pay cut just when we was here already?”
Dakin’s tight mouth twitched. “How do you think I feel? I ain’t givin’ out no cheers.”
London moved forward on his chair. “Got any idears what to do?”
The veiled eyes sharpened a little bit. “No. You got any idears?”
“Ever think we might organize and get some action?” London glanced quickly sideways at Mac.
Dakin saw the glance. He motioned with his head to Mac and Jim. “Radicals?” he asked.
Mac laughed explosively. “Anybody that wants a living wage is a radical.”
Dakin stared at him for a moment. “I got nothing against radicals,” he said. “But get this straight. I ain’t doin’ no time for no kind of outfit. If you belong to anythin’, I don’t want to know about it. I got a wife and kids and a truck. I ain’t doin’ no stretch because my name’s on somebody’s books. Now, what’s on your mind, London?”
“Apples got to be picked, Dakin. S’pose we organize the men?”
Dakin’s eyes showed nothing except a light-grey threat. His toneless voice said, “All right. You organize the stiffs and get ’em all hopped up with a bunch of bull. They vote to call a strike. In twelve hours a train-load of scabs comes rollin’ in. Then what?”
London scratched his cheek again. “Then I guess we picket.”
Dakin took it up. “So then they pass a supervisors’ ordinance—no congregation, and they put a hundred deputies out with shot-guns.”
London looked around questioningly at Mac. His eyes asked Mac to answer for him. Mac seemed to be thinking hard. He said, “We just thought we’d see what you thought about it, Mr. Dakin. Suppose there’s three thousand men strikin’ from a steel mill and they picket? There’s a wire fence around the mill. The boss gives the wire a jolt of high voltage. They put guards at the gate. That’s soft. But how many deputy sheriffs you think it’ll take to guard a whole damn valley?”
Dakin’s eyes lighted for a moment, and veiled. “Shotguns,” he said. “S’pose we kick hell out of the scabs, and they start shootin’? This bunch of bindle-stiffs won’t stand no fire, and don’t think they will. Soon’s somebody sounds off with a ten-gauge, they go for the brush like rabbits. How about this picketin’?”
Jim’s eyes leaped from speaker to speaker. He broke in, “Most scabs’ll come off the job if you just talk to ’em.”
“And how about the rest?”
“Well,” said Mac, “a bunch of quick-movin’ men could fix that. I’m out in the trees pickin’, myself. The guys are sore as hell about this cut. And don’t forget, apples got to be picked. You can’t close down no orchard the way you do a steel mill.”
Dakin got up and went to the box-cupboard and poured himself a short drink. He motioned to the others with the bottle, but all three shook their heads. Dakin said, “They say we got a right to strike in this country, and then they make laws against picketin’. All it amounts to is that we got a right to quit. I don’t like to get mixed up in nothing like this. I got a light truck.”
Jim said, “Where——,” found that his throat was dry, and coughed to clear it. “Where you going when we get the apples picked, Mr. Dakin?”
“Cotton,” said Dakin.
“Well, the ranches over there are bigger, even. If we take a cut here, the cotton people will cut deeper.”
Mac smiled encouragement and praise. “You know damn well they will,” he seconded. “They’ll do it every time; cut and cut until the men finally fight.”
Dakin set the whisky bottle gently down and walked to the big bed and seated himself. He looked at his long white hands, kept soft with gloves. He looked at the floor between his hands. “I don’t want no trouble,” he said. “The missus, the kids and me got along fine so far; but damn it, you’re right, we’ll get a cotton cut sure as hell. Why can’t they let things alone?”
Mac said, “I don’t see we got anything to do but organize.”
Dakin shook himself nervously. “I guess we got to. I don’t want to much. What you guys want me to do?”
London said, “Dakin, you can swing this bunch, and I can swing my bunch, maybe.”
Mac broke in, “You can’t swing nobody that doesn’t want to be swung. Dakin and London got to start talkin’, that’s all. Get the men talkin’. They’re mad already, but they ain’t talked it out. We got to get talk goin’ on all the other places, too. Let ’em talk tomorrow and the next day. Then we’ll call a meetin’. It’ll spread quick enough, with the guys this mad.”
Dakin said, “I just thought of somethin’. S’pose we go out on strike? We can’t camp here. They won’t let us camp on the county or the state roads. Where we goin’ to go?”
“I thought of that,” said Mac. “I got an idear, too. If there was a nice piece of private land, it’d be all right.”
“Maybe. But you know what they done in Washington. They kicked ’em out because they said it was a danger to public health. An’ then they burned down the shacks and tents.”
“I know all about that, Mr. Dakin. But s’pose there was a doctor takin’ care of all that? They couldn’t do much then.”
“You a real doctor?” Dakin said suspiciously.
“No, but I got a friend that is, and he’d prob’ly do it. I been thinkin’ about it, Mr. Dakin. I’ve read quite a bit about strikes.”
Dakin smiled frostily. “You done a hell of a lot more’n read about ’em,” he said. “You know too much. I don’t want to hear nothin’ about you. I don’t know nothin’.”
London turned to Mac. “Do you honest think we can lick this bunch, Doc?”
Mac said, “Listen, London, even if we lose we can maybe kick up enough hell so they won’t go cuttin’ the cotton wages. It’ll do that much good even if we lose.”
Dakin nodded his head slowly in agreement. “Well, I’ll start talkin’ the first thing in the morning. You’re right about the guys bein’ mad; they’re sore as hell, but they don’t know what to do about it.”
“We’ll give ’em an idear,” said Mac. “Try to contact the other ranches all you can, Mr. Dakin, won’t you?” He stood up. “I guess we better move along.” He held out his hand. “Glad I met you, Mr. Dakin.”
Dakin’s stiff lips parted, showing even, white false teeth. He said, “If I owned three thousand acres of apples, d’ you know what I’d do? I’d get behind a bush an’ when you went by, I’d blow your God damn head off. It’d save lots of trouble. But I don’t own nothing but a light truck and some camp stuff.”
“Good night, Mr. Dakin. Be seein’ you,” said Mac.
Jim and Mac went out. They heard London talking to Dakin. “These guys are O.K. They may be reds, but they’re good guys.” London came out and closed the door. A door down the building a bit opened and let out a square of light. Mrs. Dakin and the two kids walked toward them. “G’night, boys,” she said. “I was watchin’ to see when you come out.”
The Ford rattled and chuckled homeward, and pushed its nose up against the bunk house. Mac and Jim parted from London and went to their dark little room. Jim lay on the floor wrapped in a piece of carpet and a comforter. Mac leaned against the wall, smoking a cigarette. After a while he crushed out the spark. “Jim, you awake?”
“Sure.”
“That was a smart thing, Jim. She was beginning to drag when you brought in that thing about that cotton. That was a smart thing.”
“I want to help,” Jim cried. “God, Mac, this thing is singing all over me. I don’t want to sleep. I want to go right on helping.”
“You better go to sleep,” Mac said. “We’re going to do a lot of night work.”