mmmmm he's my saviour. mmmmm my saviour, mmmmmmmmmm my saviour now. howdy, friend.
say, ain't you young tom joad--ol' tom's boy?
well, i do declare! i baptized you, son.
*used* to be. not no more. i lost the call. but boy, i sure *used* to have it! i'd get an irrigation ditch so squirmin' full of repented sinners i pretty near *drowned* half of 'em! but not no more. i lost the sperit.
i got nothin' to preach about no more--that's all. i ain't so sure o' things.
at my meetin's i used to get the girls glory-shoutin' till they about passed out. then, i'd go to comfort 'em--and always end up by lovin' 'em. i'd feel bad, an' pray, an' pray, but it didn't do no good. next time, do it again. i figgered there just wasn't no hope for me.
but you wasn't a preacher. a girl was just a girl to you. but to me they was holy vessels. i was savin' their souls. i ast myself--what *is* this call, the holy sperit? maybe *that's* love. why, i love everybody so much i'm fit to bust sometimes! so maybe there ain't no sin an' there ain't no virtue. there's just what people do. some things folks do is nice, and some ain't so nice. but that's as far as any man's got a right to say.
course i'll say grace if somebody sets out the food-- --but my heart ain't in it. nice drinkin' liquor.
been out travelin' around?
no, i never. what?
excuse me for asking.
and you ain't ashamed?
ain't you seen your folks since then?
it don't matter. ever since i lost the sperit it looks like i just as soon go one way as the other. i'll go your way.
i'll be glad to see you pa. last time i seen him was at a baptizin', an' he had one a the bigges' doses of the holy sperit i ever seen. he go to jumpin' over bushes, howlin' like a dog-wolf in moon-time. fin'ly he picks hisself out a bush big as a piana an' he let out a squawk an' took a run at that bush. well, sir, he cleared her but he bust his leg snap in two. they was a travellin' dentist there and he set her, an' i give her a prayin' over, but they wasn't no more holy sperit in your pa after that.
shore it is. it always is, this time a year.
is it fur?
your granma was a great one, too. the third time she got religion she go it so powerful she knocked down a full-growed deacon with her fist.
and it ain't any too close, either! we better run!
they never wrote you nothing?
i never heard nothin' about it.
i ain't no preacher anymore.
no. you're lonely--but you ain't touched.
what you figger to do?
come on, tom. you're on parole.
if she does it'll be a miracle outa scripture.
good-by, an' good luck.
i'd like to. there's somethin' happenin' out there in the wes' an' i'd like to try to learn what it is. if you feel you got the room.
i ain't no more a preacher, you know.
i'll say 'em--an' make it short. this here ol' man jus' lived a life an' jus' died out of it. i don't know whether he was good or bad, an' it don't matter much. heard a fella say a poem once, an' he says, "all that lives is holy." but i wouldn't pray for jus' a ol' man that's dead, because he's awright. if i was to pray i'd pray for the folks that's alive an' don't know which way to turn. grampa here, he ain't got no more trouble like that. he's got his job all cut out for 'im--so cover 'im up and let 'im get to it.
he's tellin' the truth awright. the truth for him. he wasn't makin' nothin' up.
i don't know.
gimme that gun. now git outa here. go down in them willows an' wait.
he seen you, tom! you wanta be fingerprinted? you wanta get sent back for breakin' parole?
hide in the willows. if it's awright to come back i'll give you four high whistles.
go on. get in your tent. you don't know nothin'.
*some*body got to take the blame. they just *got* to hang it on somebody, you know. an' i ain't doin' nothin' but set around.
lissen. i don't care nothin' about you, but if you mess in this, your whole fambly li'ble to get in trouble, an' tom get sent back to the penitentiary.
sure. why not?
this man a yours, he got tough an' i hit him. then he started shootin'-- hit a woman down the line--so i hit him again.
i talked back.
they's a woman down there like to bleed to death from his bad shootin'.
it was me, all right. you just got smart with the wrong fella.
what's the matter?
well, if it ain't tom joad. how ya, boy?
no, i done my time an' got out. come on in.
this is him. what you doin' here, tommy?
lookie, tom. we come to work here. they tell us it's gonna be fi' cents. but they was a whole lot of us, so the man says two an' a half cents. well, a fella can't even eat on that, an' if he got kids.  so we says we won't take it. so they druv us off. now they're payin' you five--but when they bust this strike ya think they'll pay five?
i don't expeck we can las' much longer-- some a the folks ain't et for two days. you goin' back tonight?
well--tell the folks inside how it is, tom. tell 'em they're starvin' us and stabbin' theirself in the back. an' as sure as god made little apples it's goin' back to two an' a half jus' as soon as they clear us out.
try an' tell 'em, tom. they'll get two an' a half, jus' the minute we're gone. an' you know what that is? that's one ton a peaches picked an' carried for a dollar. that way you can't even buy food enough to keep you alive! tell 'em to come out with us, tom! them peaches is *ripe*. two days out an' they'll pay *all* of us five!
but jus' the minute they ain't strike- breakin' they won't get no five!
i guess that's right. have to take a beatin' before he'll know.
got to learn, like i'm a-learnin'. don't know it right yet myself, but i'm tryin' to fin' out. that's why i can't ever be a preacher again. preacher got to *know*. i don't. i got to *ask*.
what's the matter?
all of us a little itchy. cops been tellin' us how they gonna beat us up an' run us outa the country. not them reg'lar deppities, but them tin- star fellas they got for guards. they figger i'm the leader because i talk so much.
what is it?
can't tell if you hear it or not. you hear it, tom?
listen, you fellas. you don't know what you're doin'. you're helpin' to stave kids.