Judy's Journey by Lois Lenski Page B

you?”
    â€œThankless ingratitude,” said her companion.
    Papa stopped at a filling station and talked for a long time to some men there. When he came back to the car, he had a new map and he pointed out the route the man had showed him. Judy read off the names of the towns: Lake Wales, Frostproof, Avon Park, Sebring, Childs, Hicoria and Moore Haven.
    â€œOh, see all the lakes on the map!” cried Judy. “This one, where we’re goin’, is the biggest of all. O—kee—cho—bee! What a funny name.”
    â€œIndian name for ‘big water,’ the man told me,” said Papa. “Advised me to go down around the southeast corner of the lake, near Belle Glade. He said a family can make twenty to thirty dollars a week in beans.”
    â€œWhat kind o’ work?” asked Mama.
    â€œGradin’ beans,” said Papa. “It’s light work that women folks can do—just watchin’ the stuff go by on the belt and pickin’ out the culls.”
    â€œGo by on a belt? What you mean, Papa?” asked Judy.
    â€œIt’s in a packing house, where they pack beans and green stuff to ship up north,” explained Papa. “There’s machinery that keeps a wide belt movin’, and the beans come along on the belt, and you pick out the bad ones and toss ’em in a basket. That’s all there is to it.”
    â€œSounds easy,” said Mama. “But will you like workin’ indoors, Jim?”
    â€œI can stand it for a while, jest to make a little cash money,” said Papa thoughtfully.
    It was dark by the time they reached Moore Haven, and everybody was tired and sleepy, so Papa lost no time making camp in a vacant lot on the edge of town. Soon the Drummonds were all fast asleep.

CHAPTER V
The Big Lake
    T HEY DROVE OVER FROM Moore Haven the next morning. The road was filled with cars, trucks and trailers, many of them loaded down and piled high with furniture.
    â€œWhere’s everybody goin’?” asked Mama.
    â€œTo Bean Town, I reckon,” said Papa. “All the people in them cars will be lookin’ for jobs in beans, like me.”
    They stopped at a garage to have air put in the tires. “This Bean Town?” Papa asked.
    â€œShore is,” said the garage man, who had a nice face and a friendly smile. “All round here is beans and up the east shore of the lake too. Black muck soil ten to twenty feet deep. We shore can grow string beans, cabbage and other garden truck. We send all the stuff up north for them Yankees to eat. Where you folks from?”
    â€œAlabama,” said Papa.
    â€œSome come from clear across the continent. We’ve got people from every state in the Union right here. Looks like you’ve come to stay!” laughed the man.
    â€œCan I git me a job?” asked Papa.
    â€œShore can,” replied the man. “They couldn’t harvest that bean crop without you. You can get a job here if you can anywhere.”
    The cheerful way the man talked made Papa feel good. “Ary place to live in this-here town?” he inquired.
    â€œWhat you want?” asked the man. “House? Hotel room? Boarding house? Tourist cabin? The town’s crowded—all full up. There hasn’t been an empty room since last November—all grabbed up quick before the fall crops began. Of course some growers have houses or barracks for their own workers to live in, and over to Belle Glade, the government’s put up a camp for white people. Camp Osceola they call it, but I hear they’re turnin’ folks away every day. Hit’s plumb full.”
    Papa looked disappointed. “Just what would you advise?”
    â€œWell, you migrants will have to find your own housing,” said the man. “That’s the only way.”
    â€œWhat’s that you’re callin’ us?”
    â€œâ€˜Mi-grants’—hit means people that migrate, follow the season, on the go