Daddy said that was one
way to get around the Child Labor Law.
So the Beechams were to thin the beets and hoe them and top them,
beginning the last of May and finishing in October, and the pay
would be twenty-six dollars an acre. The government made the
farmers pay that price, no matter how poor the crop was.
"Five hundred and twenty dollars sounds like real money!" Daddy
rejoiced.
"Near five months, though," Grandma reckoned, "and with prices
like they are, we're lucky to feed seven hungry folks on sixty
dollars a month. And we're walking ragbags, with our feet on the
ground. And them brakebands--and new tires."
"Five times sixty is three hundred," Rose-Ellen figured.
"You'll find it won't leave more than enough to get us on to the
next work place," Grandpa muttered.
It was lucky the chicken-coop was in sight of their acres.
Before she left home in the early morning, Grandma saw to it that
there was no fire in the old-new washtub stove, and that Sally's
knitted string harness was on, so that she could not reach the
irrigation ditch, and that Carrie was tethered.
The beets, planted two months ago, had come up in even green
rows. Now they must be thinned. With short-handled hoes the
grown people chopped out foot-long strips of plants. Dick and
Rose-Ellen followed on hands and knees, and pulled the extra
plants from the clumps so that a single strong plant was left
every twelve inches.
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