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Updated: July 1, 2025
Those Garcias and Martinezes of yours . . . !" "The Garcias maybe, but not the Martinezes," Rose-Ellen objected. "Gramma, you go to their houses sometime and see." One evening Grandma did. Jimmie had come excitedly leading home the quaintest of all the babies of the Mexican village, Vicente Garcia's little sister. He had found her balancing on her stomach on the bank of the ditch.
"They have stories and games at night," Jimmie said, changing the subject. "She said to bring Dick and Rose-Ellen." Dick and Rose-Ellen were too tired for stories and games that night. They tumbled into bed as soon as supper was done, and had to be dragged awake for breakfast. Not till a week's picking had hardened their muscles did they go to the Center.
On and on they went, toppling sleepily against each other, aching so hard that the ache wakened them, hearing dimly the same angry man arguing with the driver. "When we stop to sleep, hah? I ask you, when we stop to sleep?" They didn't stop at all. Rose-Ellen was forever wishing she could wake up enough to pull up the extra quilt which always used to be neatly rolled at the foot of her bed.
"When we get-it the grub?" roared the man, pounding the driver's shoulder. "If we stop once an hour, we don't get there in time for your jobs," the driver growled, and drove on. Not till dark did they stop to eat. Grandpa, clambering down stiffly, had to lift Grandma and Sally out. Daddy took Jimmie, sobbing with weariness. Dick and Rose-Ellen tumbled out, feet asleep and bodies aching.
"The little babies were so sweet, with their shiny black eyes. But, my gracious, they don't get any sun or air at all!" Rose-Ellen squeezed Sally thankfully. Even though the baby was underweight and had violet shadows under her blue eyes, she looked healthier than most babies they saw. The hops were queer and interesting, unlike any other crops Rose-Ellen had met with.
"Well, it takes money to give the kids the vittles they ought to have." "I won't go away from my own house!" howled Jimmie. Rose-Ellen and Dick blinked at each other. It was one thing to scrap a little and quite another to be entirely apart. And the baby. . . . "Would Miss Piper take . . . Sally?" Rose-Ellen quavered. Grandma nodded, lips tight. "They shan't!" Rose-Ellen whispered. "Nonsense!"
When they stumbled into the roadside hamburger stand, the lights blurred before their eyes, and the hot steamy air with its cooking smells made Rose-Ellen so dizzy that she could hardly eat the hamburger and potato chips and coffee slammed down before her on the sloppy counter. Jimmie went to sleep with his head in his plate and had to be wakened to finish.
"But I like it here!" Jimmie burst out eagerly. "Do you know something? I'm going to learn to read! I colored my pictures the neatest of anyone in the class, and She put them all on the wall. So then I didn't mind telling her how I never learned to read and write and how Rose-Ellen wrote my letter to Jimmie Brown in Cleveland."
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."
From the rumbling truck, Rose-Ellen and Dick focused sleep-blurred eyes with a mighty effort and saw the great dome and spreading wings, flooded with light. "Puts me in mind of a mother eagle brooding her young," Grandpa muttered. "Land of love, enough sight of them eaglets is out from under her wings, finding slim pickin's," Grandma snapped. "Looks like white wax candles."
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