THEY DROVE OVER FROM Moore Haven the next morning. The road was filled with cars, trucks and trailers, many of them loaded down and piled high with furniture.
“Where’s everybody goin’?” asked Mama.
“To Bean Town, I reckon,” said Papa. “All the people in them cars will be lookin’ for jobs in beans, like me.”
They stopped at a garage to have air put in the tires. “This Bean Town?” Papa asked.
“Shore is,” said the garage man, who had a nice face and a friendly smile. “All round here is beans and up the east shore of the lake too. Black muck soil ten to twenty feet deep. We shore can grow string beans, cabbage and other garden truck. We send all the stuff up north for them Yankees to eat. Where you folks from?”
“Alabama,” said Papa.
“Some come from clear across the continent. We’ve got people from every state in the Union right here. Looks like you’ve come to stay!” laughed the man.
“Can I git me a job?” asked Papa.
“Shore can,” replied the man. “They couldn’t harvest that bean crop without you. You can get a job here if you can anywhere.”
The cheerful way the man talked made Papa feel good. “Ary place to live in this-here town?” he inquired.
“What you want?” asked the man. “House? Hotel room? Boarding house? Tourist cabin? The town’s crowded—all full up. There hasn’t been an empty room since last November—all grabbed up quick before the fall crops began. Of course some growers have houses or barracks for their own workers to live in, and over to Belle Glade, the government’s put up a camp for white people. Camp Osceola they call it, but I hear they’re turnin’ folks away every day. Hit’s plumb full.”
Papa looked disappointed. “Just what would you advise?”
“Well, you migrants will have to find your own housing,” said the man. “That’s the only way.”
“What’s that you’re callin’ us?”
“‘Mi-grants’—hit means people that migrate, follow the season, on the go all the time. Migratory people—like migratory birds, you know.”
“Never heard of ’em,” said Papa.
“Never heard o’ them bluebirds and redbirds and robins that go up north in summer and come south in winter?” laughed the man.
“Oh, shore!” said Papa. “Migratory! Migrants! So that’s us, on the go all the time. What did you say we should do?”
“You’ll have to git your own quarters,” said the man, “and don’t expect nothing fancy. I tell you what you do—go down to the next corner, turn right and keep going till you get out on the south side of town. There’s a drainage canal there, and a bunch o’ white folks—migrants like you—livin’ on the bank. They’ll help you get fixed up.”
Papa thanked the man and followed his directions.
The town was full of large warehouses and loading platforms. Along the main streets were two-story business buildings, restaurants, general stores and recreation places. Then came residences, boarding houses and good and bad cottages of every description. At last they found the drainage canal.
It was like a little town in itself, all stretched in a line on the high canal bank. The houses were jammed close together, and they were all kinds—tents, trailers, tar-paper shacks, hovels of galvanized tin, and packing-box houses—all out in the bright, broiling sun. The only shade came from scattered clumps of banana trees and rank-growing castor-bean plants.
Papa got permission to camp on the canal bank at a dollar a week ground rent. He found an empty place between two other shacks, where he set up the tent and unpacked the trailer. Then he went off to town to inquire about a job.
“Not much green stuff for Missy to eat,” said Judy, unloading the goat and staking her on the slope. She looked at the water hyacinths and cattails choking the canal.
“Good place to fish,” said Joe Bob. He lost no time in rigging up a fish line and digging worms for bait.
“Oh, you got a sewing-machine!” said a strange voice. A woman put her head out of a small window in the tar-paper shack next door. “Where you folks from anyway?”
“Alabama,” said Judy. Mama came out of the tent.
“My name’s Harmon, Edie Harmon,” said the neighbor.
“I’m Calla Drummond,” said Mama, and she told her children’s names.
“We’re from California and from Michigan before that,” laughed Mrs. Harmon. “But they’re all alike—these dumps. After a while you get so you don’t feel you’re human any more. You get so dirty——”
“Where’s the water?” asked Mama.
Mrs. Harmon pointed. “Down in the canal—it’s water drained off from the lake.”
“You use that to wash with?” asked Mama.
“Sure, and to drink too.”
“That dirty water?”
“Drinkin’ canal water hasn’t killed nobody yet that I know of,” said Mrs. Harmon. “I was squeamish, too, just like you, when I first started out. But after a while you get used to it and it ain’t so bad. The kids like it—my kids has a mighty good time here. There’s rabbits to run and plenty o’ catfish in the canals, and there’s always dried beans to scrape out from under the plants if you know what fields ain’t been picked over but once or twice.”
“Here, Judy,” called Mama. “Go down and dip us up some o’ that water.”
“My land! I’m sure glad you got a sewin’ machine,” said Mrs. Harmon. “I been needin’ to mend my old man’s overalls for a long time, and I can do it so much faster on the machine. You folks’ll like it here.”
Judy took the water bucket and went down the canal bank to fill it. It was good to get out of the sound of the woman’s voice. She sat down and sunk her head in her hands.
It wasn’t what she had been expecting at all. There was no farm, no house, no yard with a fence.
There was only the second-hand tent they had camped in on the trip. The tent was their home, and they were still camping out. The farm and the house and yard were fading away into the dim and unknown future, just as the house in the cotton field had faded away into the past.
The tent and the canal bank and the canal—these were real. This was the present. This was all they had.
“Ju-dy! Ju-dy!” Suddenly she heard Mama calling. She dipped the bucket down, among the cattails and brought it up full of water. She hurried up the bank.
“Don’t know why you have to take all day,” said Mama.
Mrs. Harmon had come over and brought her own rocking-chair. She sat talking with Mama as if they had always known each other. She was holding Lonnie on her lap.
“I thought there was a lake,” said Judy, “the biggest lake in Florida, Okeechobee. Where’s the lake, Miz Harmon?”
“Right over beyond Bean Town,” replied the woman, “but you don’t never see it. It’s on the other side of the dike, and the dike’s forty feet high, I guess. You got to look up at it and then there’s nothing to see. They built the dike after that big hurricane in 1928.”
“What’s a dike?” asked Judy.
“A big pile o’ gravel to hold the water back—about two hundred feet wide at the bottom and thirty feet wide on top. It goes around the south and east sides of the lake, to stop the floods. When a hurricane comes, it can blow so strong across the lake, it makes a regular tidal wave and splashes right over on all sides. But that don’t happen often, of course.”
“You been comin’ here long?” asked Mama.
“This is our third winter,” said Mrs. Harmon. “We like Florida for winters, even if it don’t pay so good. We go back to Michigan summers. I like Florida, I like to sit in the sun.”
“You don’t work?”
“Yes, we all work, my big kids and my husband and me, when the packin’ plants git goin’. There’s only one opened up so far. I sit in the sun till the rush season starts. My youngest is a girl, Bessie—she’s twelve and in school.”
“In school?” asked Judy. “Where’s a school?”
“Over on the other side of town,” said the woman.
“Oh Mama, can I go?” begged Judy.
“Bessie will take you,” said Mrs. Harmon. “The school would be jammed if all the workers’ kids went. But most of the migrants don’t bother to send ’em, they’re here for such a short time anyway.”
“Oh Mama, can me and Joe Bob and Cora Jane go?” asked Judy.
“We’ll have to ask Papa,” said Mama.
Papa looked pretty blue when he came back from town. He was no longer gay and happy as he had been on the trip. Judy decided not to mention school.
“The packing houses where you make all that cash money ain’t open yet,” he said. “It’s been cold and the beans been held back. They’re not ready for picking.”
“No other crops ready?” asked Mama.
“No, beans will be first. They use Negroes outside and whites inside,” said Papa. “The colored folks do all the picking. There’s a big colored quarter in town and several camps for them. Cars are bringin’ ’em in from every direction.”
“What’ll we do?” asked Mama. “Move on again?”
“No, I reckon we better stay right here till beans come in,” said Papa. “Likely I can find a small grower to give me day work.” He turned to Judy. “They got a nice school, honey.”
“Miz Harmon told us,” answered Judy. “Said Bessie would take me. Can I go?”
“Shore can,” said Papa. “My young uns ain’t goin’ to work in beans. They’re goin’ to school to learn a few things.”
Mama got ready to do a big washing. Judy carried water to fill the washtub and Joe Bob found scraps of kindling and built a fire under it. When all the clothes were washed, Mama spread them out on the canal bank to dry.
Nobody knew how Missy got loose, but she did.
Judy came out of the tent and found her there, chewing on Papa’s overalls. Other clothes were torn into shreds and scattered about. Missy was taking a taste of everything. Judy stared at the sight.
“‘Mischief’ is your name for shore,” she said. She grabbed a stick from the pile by the tub, went after the goat, and whacked her soundly on the back. After a few blows, Missy turned her head and gave one look at the girl with her sad eyes. Judy dropped the stick and put her arms around the goat’s neck.
“Oh, did I hurt you?” she cried. “You’ve had no goat-chop to eat, that’s why you ate our clothes. You’re hungry … I must find a feed store.” She took the goat farther down the canal and staked her.
One of Judy’s dresses was ruined, the other, the patched one, still held together. She spread it out carefully, trying to smooth the wrinkles. There was no iron to iron it, but at least it was clean.
“Hey, Judy! You ready?” sang out Bessie Harmon next morning.
“Shore am,” answered Judy. Judy was to go alone the first day, without Joe Bob and Cora Jane, to see what the school was like.
Bessie Harmon was a large girl with plain features and straight hair worn in two braids. She had a blunt, rough way of talking and Judy did not know what to make of her.
“Ain’t you even combed your hair?” she demanded.
“I … we … we lost the comb …” stammered Judy.
Bessie jerked her by the arm. “Wait here.” She disappeared inside the tar-paper shack and came out with a comb. She dipped it into water in a basin on the bench and combed Judy’s hair. She kept on wetting and wetting the comb until Judy’s hair was plastered down flat. “Don’t you ever braid it or curl it or do somethin’ with it?”
“No,” said Judy. “I just leave it be.”
“You gotta comb your hair every day before you go to school,” scolded Bessie. “Did you wash your face? Our teacher won’t take dirty kids in her class. She sends ’em home to wash up.”
“I took a bath,” said Judy. “I’m clean.”
“In the washtub?” asked Bessie, looking her up and down as if she didn’t believe it.
“Washtub takes too much water,” said Judy. “I can get clean in a molasses bucket, one arm and one leg at a time.” She hoped Bessie wouldn’t notice that her dress was unironed.
Bessie grunted and walked on. Other children from the shanties came along behind them. When they reached the school yard, they all went in together. A group of children already there sang out a greeting: “Here come the shanty kids! Here come the bean-pickers!”
Bessie took charge. To Judy and the children behind her, she said: “Don’t none of you say a word.” To the accusers, she replied calmly: “We don’t pick beans and you know it.”
“If you don’t pick beans, you live on the drainage canal then.”
“What of it?” answered Bessie. “What’s the matter with that?”
“You live in shanties!” “You drink dirty water!” “You’re hillbillies.” “You wash your clothes in dirty water!” “You never been inside a house!” The teasing retorts came thick and fast.
Bessie marched over to the group and shook her fist in their faces. “Now, you Crackers, you can shut up for today. Hear me?” She turned to Judy. “Every day I got to shut these kids up. Just ’cause they live in real houses, they think they’re better’n we are. We’ll show ’em!”
The children stopped calling names and began to play games, with Bessie their leader. Bessie had more ideas and more initiative than all the others put together.
Judy stood off on one side and watched. Then she slipped over to the gate. She didn’t like this school, after all. She decided to go home. Suddenly she turned and ran. Hearing footsteps behind her, she ran harder than ever. Then she felt a jerk on her arm and there was Bessie.
“Where you think you’re goin’?” panted Bessie.
“Home,” said Judy, frowning. “Don’t like your ole school.”
“Yes, you do,” replied Bessie. “Them kids don’t mean a thing. You gotta get used to ’em. You gotta talk back to ’em, to shut ’em up.”
“What did you call ’em?” asked Judy.
“Crackers—they’re mostly Crackers, born in Georgia or Florida. There’s other kids from all over everywhere, too. They all shut up when I call ’em Crackers. You come on back with me.”
Judy’s heart sank. For the first time she was homesick for Alabama and the cotton fields and the little country school on Plumtree Creek. But Bessie marched her back to the school-ground. When the bell rang, Judy stayed close behind Bessie. Bessie took her in her own room, the Fifth Grade, and put her down beside her in her own seat. There were no empty seats.
The teacher, Miss Garvin, gave her one look and said: “Another new girl. From a crop family, I suppose. She won’t know a thing.”
She asked Judy her name and where she came from. Judy told her.
“If this class gets any larger,” said Miss Garvin, “I don’t know where we’ll put the children. Where do you live?”
“On the … drainage … right next to Bessie Harmon,” said Judy.
“Dirty bean-picker! Lives in a dirty ditch,” whispered a boy behind her, loud enough for everybody to hear.
His taunts made Judy angry, and her shyness left her. She jumped up and faced the boy. “If you had to carry all your water, you’d be dirty yourself,” she cried. “Plenty people in the United States don’t have bathtubs with a million gallons of hot water to wash in.” The words of the fortune-teller at the Alabama carnival came back to her. “Circus and carnival people don’t have bathtubs. They travel around like folks who harvest the crops. They wash in buckets and keep clean, and so do we.”
The boy in the seat behind her was scared now. He hid his face in a book. Judy sat down. She was trembling all over.
“That’s tellin’ ’em!” whispered Bessie.
“Hot temper—no self-control,” said Miss Garvin in a low voice. “Chip on her shoulder like all the rest.”
Bessie handed Judy a Fifth Reader. “Study it,” she said.
A shadow fell on the book and Miss Garvin was pointing to a sentence at the top of the page. “Well, let’s see if you can read,” she said.
Judy rose unsteadily to her feet. The words on the page danced up and down. She could hardly see them. It had been so long since she had looked at words in a book. Bessie jerked her dress and said, “Read it out loud.”
The word refused to stand still. Judy’s hands shook so she nearly dropped the book. Miss Garvin lost patience and turned back to the first page. “Read that,” she said, pointing.
When no response came from Judy’s lips, Miss Garvin stared at her coldly. “How old did you say you are?”
“Ten,” whispered Judy.
“Just as I thought. About ready for Third Grade,” said Miss Garvin.
“But I finished the Third Reader at home and read part of the Fourth,” Judy burst out.
“Down the hall, last door on your left, Third Grade, Miss Norris, teacher.” Miss Garvin opened the door, a smile of relief on her face.
“But I wanted to stay with Bessie,” gulped Judy.
“Bessie’s in Fifth Grade, you’re in Third.”
Judy stepped out and the classroom door closed behind her.
But she did not go to Miss Norris’s room. Instead, she tiptoed out of the building and ran home as fast as she could go. I’ll never go back to that school again! Never! I’ll never go back! The words echoed and re-echoed through her mind.