Migrant agricultural laborers -- United States -- Juvenile fiction; Poor families -- Juvenile fiction
Rose-Ellen tucked her hand into Grandma's as they looked at the
few boxes and pieces of furniture they were leaving behind,
standing on stilts in Mrs. Albi's basement to keep dry.
"It's so funny," Rose-Ellen stammered; "almost as if that was all
that was left of our home."
"Funny as a tombstone," said Grandma. Then she went and grabbed
the old Seth Thomas clock and hugged it to her. "This seems the
livingest thing. It goes where I go."
At last, everything was disposed of, and the padrone's agent's
big truck pulled up to their curb. Two feather beds, a trunk,
pots, pans, dishes and the Beechams were piled into the space
left by some twenty-five other people. The truck roared away,
with the neighbors shouting good-by from steps and windows.
Grandma kept her eyes straight ahead so as not to see her house
again. Grandpa shifted Jimmie around to make his lame leg more
comfortable, just as they passed the cobbler's shop with "TO LET"
in the window. Grandpa did not lift his eyes.
"I hope Mrs. Albi will sprinkle them Bronze Beauty chrysanthemums
so they won't all die off," Grandma said in a choked voice.
2: THE CRANBERRY BOG
The truck rumbled through clustering cities, green country and
white villages. All the children stared in fascination until
Jimmie grew too tired and huddled down against Grandma's knees,
whining because he ached and the sun was hot and the truck was
crowded.
Grandpa kept pointing out new things-holly trees; muskrat houses
rising in small stick-stacks from the ponds; farms that made
their own rain, with rows and rows of pipes running along six
feet in air, to shower water on the vegetables below.
It was late afternoon, and dark because of the clouds, when the
truck reached the bogs. These bogs weren't at all what Rose-Ellen
and Dick had expected, but only wet-looking fields of low bushes.
There was no chance to look at them now, for everyone was
hurrying to get settled.
The _padrone_ led them to a one-room shed built of rough boards
and helped dump their belongings inside. Grandma stood at the
door, hands on hips, and said, "Well, good land of love! If
anybody'd told me I'd live in a shack!"
Rose-Ellen danced around her, shrieking joyously, "Peekaneeka,
Gramma! Peekaneeka!"
Grandma's face creased in an unwilling smile and she said,
"You'll get enough peekaneeka before you're done, or I miss my
guess."
"Got here just in time, just in time!" chanted Dick and
Rose-Ellen, as a sudden storm pounded the roof with rain and
split the air with thunder and lightning.
"My land!" cried Grandma. "S'pose this roof will leak on the
baby and Seth Thomas?"
For an hour the Beechams dashed around setting up campkeeping.
For supper they finished the enormous lunch Grandma had brought.
After that came bedtime.
Rose-Ellen lay across the foot of Grandpa and Grandma's
goosefeather bed, spread on the floor. After the rain stopped,
fresh air flowed through the light walls.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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