One clear, frosty night Grandpa said, "Hark!
the ducks are flying south. Maybe we best follow."
7: THE BOY WHO DIDN'T KNOW GOD
Handbills blew around the adobe village, announcing that five
hundred cotton-pickers were wanted at once in Arizona. The Reo,
full of Beechams and trailing Carrie, headed south.
The surprisingly large grocery bill had been paid, a few clothes
bought, Daddy's ulcerated tooth pulled, and the Reo's patched
tires replaced with better used ones. The result was that the
Beecham pocketbooks were as flat as pancakes.
"Yet we've worked like horses," Daddy said heavily. "And, worse
than that, we've let Gramma and the kids work as I never thought
Beechams would."
"But we can't blame Farmer Lukes," said Grandpa. "With all the
planting and digging and hauling he's done, he says he hasn't a
cent to show for it, once he's paid for his seed. It's too deep
for me."
Down across Colorado, where the names were Spanish, Daddy said,
because it used to be part of Mexico. Down across New Mexico,
where the air smelled of cedar; where scattered adobe houses had
bright blue doors and strings of scarlet chili peppers fringing
their roofs; where Indians sat under brush shelters by the
highway and held up pottery for sale. Down into Arizona, where
Grandma had to admit that the colors she'd seen on the picture
postcards of it were not too bright.
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