The Grapes of Wrath Page #45

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The TRACTOR stops. The driver takes off his goggles and dust

mask. Like the others he's a country boy. His face is sullen.

Muley is lowering his shotgun. There is a surprise in his

face as he recognizes the driver.

MULEY:

Why, you're Joe Davis's boy!

He moves forward, followed by his son and son-in-law in the

TRACTOR. Davis is wiping his face as they walk toward him.

DAVIS:

I don't like nobody drawin' a bead

on me.

MULEY:

Then what are you doin' this kind a

thing for--against your own people?

DAVIS:

For three dollars a day, that's what

I'm doin' it for. I got two little

kids. I got a wife and my wife's

mother. Them people got to eat. Fust

and on'y thing I got to think about

is my own folks. What happens to

other folks is their lookout.

MULEY:

But this is *my land*, son. Don't

you understand?

DAVIS:

(putting his goggles

back on)

*Used* to be your land. B'longs to

the comp'ny now.

We see THE WOMENFOLKS. A small girl pulls her mother's dress.

GIRL:

What's he fixin' to do, ma?

MA:

Hush!

Back to the TRACTOR AND THE MEN:

MULEY:

(grimly)

Have it your own way, son, but just

as sure as you touch my house with

that cat I'm gonna blow you plumb to

kingdom come.

DAVIS:

(contemptuously)

You ain't gonna blow nobody nowhere.

First place, you'd get hung and you

know it. For another, it wouldn't be

two days before they'd have another

guy here to take my place.

And the tractor roars into slow motion again...

We see the HOUSE AND TRACTOR. The womenfolks scamper out of

the way as the tractor heads for a corner of the house. It

goes over a ramshackle fence and then a feeble little flower

bed. Muley and the two younger men walk along. Breathing

hard, frightened and desperate, Muley is shouting warnings

at Davis, but the roar of the tractor drowns his voice. The

dog barks excitedly, snarling at the tractor. THE WOMENFOLKS

stand watching, terrified but dead pan, until a cry bursts

from Muley's wife.

WIFE:

Don't! Please don't!

The little girl begins to whimper.

MULEY:

I'm tellin' you!

The TRACTOR moves across the yard, nosing a chair out of the

way, and with a rending of boards hits a corner of the house,

knocking a part of the foundation away. The corner of the

house sinks. MULEY lifts his shotgun, aims it, holds it, and

then slowly lowers it. As he stands looking at what has

happened his shoulders sag. He seems almost to shrink.

The scene dissolves to MULEY, once more in the back room of

Tom's old home, as the sound of the storm continues.

MULEY:

(dully)

What was the use. He was right. There

wasn't a thing in the world I could

do about it.

TOM:

(bewildered)

But it don't seem possible--kicked

off like that!

MULEY:

The rest of my fambly set out for

the west--there wasn't nothin' to

eat--but I couldn't leave. Somepin'

wouldn't let me. So now I just wander

around. Sleep wherever I am. I used

to tell myself I was lookin' out for

things, so when they come back

ever'thing would be all right. But I

knowed that wan't true. There ain't

nothin' to look out for. And ain't

nobody comin' back. They're gone--

and me, I'm just an 'ol graveyard

ghost--that's all in the world I am.

Tom rises in his agitation and bewilderment.

MULEY:

You think I'm touched.

CASY:

(sympathetically)

No. You're lonely--but you ain't

touched.

MULEY:

It don't matter. If I'm touched, I'm

touched, and that's all there is to

it.

TOM:

(still unable to grasp

it all)

What I can't understand is my folks

takin' it! Like ma! I seen her nearly

beat a peddler to death with a live

chicken. She aimed to go for him

with an ax she had in the other hand

but she got mixed up and forgot which

hand was which and when she got

through with that peddler all she

had left was two chicken legs.

He looks down at Muley.

MULEY:

Just a plain 'ol graveyard ghost,

that's all.

His eyes are dull on the floor. The sound of the dust storm

continues strongly.

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