The grapes of wrath by John Steinbeck

didn't speak to the driver. They watched his hand as it carried food to his mouth. They did not watch him chewing; their eyes followed the hand that held the sandwich. After a while the tenant who could not leave the place came out and squatted in the shade beside the tractor.
    "Why, you're Joe Davis's boy!"
    "Sure," the driver said.
    "Well, what you doing this kind of work for- against your own people?"
    "Three dollars a day. I got damn sick of creeping for my dinner- and not getting it. I got a wife and kids. We got to eat. Three dollars a day, and it comes every day."
    "That's right," the tenant said. "But for your three dollars a day fifteen or twenty families can't eat at all. Nearly a hundred people have to go out and wander on the roads for your three dollars a day. Is that right?"
    And the driver said, "Can't think of that. Got to think of my own kids. Three dollars a day, and it comes every day. Times are changing, mister, don't you know? Can't make a living on the land unless you've got two, five, ten thousand acres and a tractor. Crop land isn't for little guys like us any more. You don't kick up a howl because you can't make Fords, or because you're not the telephone company. Well, crops are like that now. Nothing to do about it. You try to get three dollars a day someplace. That's the only way."
    The tenant pondered. "Funny thing how it is. If a man owns a little property, that property is him, it's part of him, and it's like him. If he owns property only so he can walk on it and handle it and be sad when it isn't doing well, and feel fine when the rain falls on it, that property is him, and some way he's bigger because he owns it. Even if he isn't successful he's big with his property. That is so."
    And the tenant pondered more. "But let a man get property he doesn't see, or can't take time to get his fingers in, or can't be there to walk on it- why, then the property is the man. He can't do what he wants, he can't think what he wants. The property is the man, stronger than he is. And he is small, not big. Only his possessions are big- and he's the servant of his property. That is so, too."
    The driver munched the branded pie and threw the crust away. "Times are changed, don't you know? Thinking about stuff like that don't feed the kids. Get your three dollars a day, feed your kids. You got no call to worry about anybody's kids but your own. You get a reputation for talking like that, and you'll never get three dollars a day. Big shots won't give you three dollars a day if you worry about anything but your three dollars a day."
    "Nearly a hundred people on the road for your three dollars. Where will we go?"
    "And that reminds me," the driver said, "you better get out soon. I'm going through the dooryard after dinner."
    "You filled in the well this morning."
    "I know. Had to keep the line straight. But I'm going through the dooryard after dinner. Got to keep the lines straight. And- well, you know Joe Davis, my old man, so I'll tell you this. I got orders wherever there's a family not moved out- if I have an accident- you know, get too close and cave the house in a little- well, I might get a couple of dollars. And my youngest kid never had no shoes yet."
    "I built it with my hands. Straightened old nails to put the sheathing on. Rafters are wired to the stringers with baling wire. It's mine. I built it. You bump it down- I'll be in the window with a rifle. You even come too close and I'll pot you like a rabbit."
    "It's not me. There's nothing I can do. I'll lose my job if I don't do it. And look- suppose you kill me? They'll just hang you, but long before you're hung there'll be another guy on the tractor, and he'll bump the house down. You're not killing the right guy."
    "That's so," the tenant said. "Who gave you orders? I'll go after him. He's the one to kill."
    "You're wrong. He got his orders from the bank. The bank told him, 'Clear those people out or it's your job.'"
    "Well, there's a president of the