Across the Fruited Plain Read online

  E-text prepared by Meredith Minter Dixon

  ACROSS THE FRUITED PLAIN

  by

  FLORENCE CRANNELL MEANS

  With Illustrations by Janet Smalley

  [Cover Illustration: Cars][Cover Illustration: Hoeing][Cover Illustration: Picking][Cover Illustration: Weeding]

  New York : Friendship Press, c1940

  Plans and procedures for using _Across The Fruited Plain_ will befound in "A Junior Teacher's Guide on the Migrants," by E. MaeYoung. Photographs of migrant homes and migrant Centers will befound in the picture story book _Jack Of The Bean Fields_, by NinaMillen.

  This book is dedicated to a whole troop of children "across thefruited plain": Tomoko, Willie May, Fei-Kin, Nawamana, Candelariaand Isabell, and to the newest child of all--our little MaryMargaret.

  Cissy and Tommy at the Center]

  CONTENTS

  Foreword1: The House Of Beecham2: The Cranberry Bog3: Shucking Oysters4: Peekaneeka?5: Cissy From The Onion Marshes6: At The Edge Of A Mexican Village7: The Boy Who Didn't Know God8: The Hopyards9: Seth Thomas Strikes Twelve

  FOREWORD

  Dear Mary and Bonnie and Jack and the rest of my readers:

  Maybe you've heard about the migrants lately, or have seenpictures of them in the magazines. But have you thought that manyof them are families much like yours and mine, travelinguncomfortably in rattly old jalopies while they go from one cropto another, and living crowded in rickety shacks when they stopfor work?

  There have always been wandering farm laborers because so manycrops need but a few workers part of the year and a great many atharvest. A two-thousand-acre peach orchard needs only thirtyworkers most of the year, and one thousand seven hundred atpicking time. Lately, though, there have been more migrants thanever. One reason is that while in the past we used to eat freshpeas, beans, strawberries, and the like only in summer, now wewant fresh fruits and vegetables all year round. To supply ourwants, great quantities of fresh fruit and vegetables must beraised in the warm climates where they will grow.

  Another reason is that more farm machinery is used now, and onetractor will do as much work as several families of farmlaborers. So the extra families have taken to migrating orwandering about the country wherever they hope to find work.

  A further cause of the wandering is the long drought which turnedpart of our Southwestern country where there had been goodfarming into a dry desert that wouldn't grow crops any more. Thepeople from the Dust Bowl, as the district is called, had tomigrate, or starve. A great many of them went to the near-bystate Of California, which grows much fruit and vegetables. Thereare perhaps two hundred thousand people migrating to Californiaalone each year.

  Of course there isn't nearly enough work for them all, and therearen't good living places for those who have work. That meansthat the children--like you--don't have the rights of youngAmerican citizens--like you. A great many of them can't go toschool, and are growing up ignorant; and they don't have church,with all it means to us. They don't have proper homes or food, sothey haven't good health; and because they are not in their homestate or county, they cannot get medical and hospital care.

  You may think we have nothing to do with them when you sometimespass a jalopy packed inside with a whole family, from grandma tobaby, and outside with bedding and what-not.

  But we have something to do with them many times a day. Everytime we sit down at our table we have something to do with them.Our sugar may come from these children's work; our oranges, too,and our peas, lettuce, melons, berries, cranberries, walnuts . . . !Every time we put on a cotton dress, we accept something fromthem.

  For years no one thought much of trying to help these wanderers.No one seemed to notice the unfairness of letting some childrenhave all the blessings of our country and others have none. Byand by, the counties and states and Federal government tried tohelp the migrant families. In a few places the government has setup comfortable camps and part-time farms such as this storydescribes. The church has tried to do something, also.

  About twenty years ago, the Council of Women for Home Missions,made up of groups of women from the different churches, began tomake plans for helping. They opened some friendly rooms wherethey took care of the children who were left alone while theirparents worked. The rooms were often no more than a made-overbarn, but in these "Christian Centers," as they were called, thechildren were given cleanliness, food, happiness and the care ofa nurse, and were taught something about a loving Father God. Thechildren who worked in the fields and the older people were alsohelped. From the seven with which a beginning was made, thenumber of Centers has grown to nearly sixty.

  There is a great deal more to do in starting more Centers, and inequipping those we have, and we can do part of it. With ourchurch school classes, we can give CleanUp and Kindergarten Kitslike Cissy's and Jimmie's and our leaders will tell us otherthings we can do, such as collecting bedding and clothing andtoys and money. Best of all, we can give our friendship to thesehomeless people.

  For they're just children like you. When you grow up, perhaps youmay help our country become a place where no single child need behomeless.

  Florence Crannell MeansDenver, Colorado