Even in the fine camp, money leaked out steadily
for food. At last the Beechams gave up hope of finding work.
They set out for California, the fairyland of plenty, as they
thought.
At first California looked like any other state, but soon the
children began naming their discoveries aloud. "Lookit! Oranges
on trees!" "Roses! And those red Christmas flowers growing high
as the garage!" "Palm trees--like feather dusters stuck on
telegraph poles!"
"Little white houses and gardens!" crooned Grandma.
Soon, too, they saw the familiar posters: PICKERS WANTED; and
the Reo followed the signs to the fields.
They were pea-fields, this time, but Grandma, peering at the
pea-pickers' camp, cried, "My land, if this ain't Floridy all
over again!"
"Maybe the owner ain't got the cash to put up decent
chicken-coops for folks to live in," Grandpa sputtered, "but if I
was him I'd dig ditches for a living before I'd put humans into
pigpens like these."
"Let's go a piece farther," Grandma urged.
Grandpa fingered his old wallet. "Five dollars is the least we
can keep against the car breaking down. We've got six-fifty
now."
So for long months they worked in the peas and lived in the
"jungle" camp, pitching their tent at the very edge of its dirt
and smell.
Shacks of scrap tin, shingled with rusty pail covers, stood next
to shacks made of burlap and pasteboard cartons.
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