Read Online Judy's Journey by Lois Lenski - Free Book Online

all the time. Migratory people—like migratory birds, you know.”
    â€œNever heard of ’em,” said Papa.
    â€œNever heard o’ them bluebirds and redbirds and robins that go up north in summer and come south in winter?” laughed the man.
    â€œOh, shore!” said Papa. “Migratory! Migrants! So that’s us, on the go all the time. What did you say we should do?”
    â€œYou’ll have to git your own quarters,” said the man, “and don’t expect nothing fancy. I tell you what you do—go down to the next corner, turn right and keep going till you get out on the south side of town. There’s a drainage canal there, and a bunch o’ white folks—migrants like you—livin’ on the bank. They’ll help you get fixed up.”
    Papa thanked the man and followed his directions.
    The town was full of large warehouses and loading platforms. Along the main streets were two-story business buildings, restaurants, general stores and recreation places. Then came residences, boarding houses and good and bad cottages of every description. At last they found the drainage canal.
    It was like a little town in itself, all stretched in a line on the high canal bank. The houses were jammed close together, and they were all kinds—tents, trailers, tar-paper shacks, hovels of galvanized tin, and packing-box houses—all out in the bright, broiling sun. The only shade came from scattered clumps of banana trees and rank-growing castor-bean plants.
    Papa got permission to camp on the canal bank at a dollar a week ground rent. He found an empty place between two other shacks, where he set up the tent and unpacked the trailer. Then he went off to town to inquire about a job.
    â€œNot much green stuff for Missy to eat,” said Judy, unloading the goat and staking her on the slope. She looked at the water hyacinths and cattails choking the canal.
    â€œGood place to fish,” said Joe Bob. He lost no time in rigging up a fish line and digging worms for bait.
    â€œOh, you got a sewing-machine!” said a strange voice. A woman put her head out of a small window in the tar-paper shack next door. “Where you folks from anyway?”
    â€œAlabama,” said Judy. Mama came out of the tent.
    â€œMy name’s Harmon, Edie Harmon,” said the neighbor.
    â€œI’m Calla Drummond,” said Mama, and she told her children’s names.

    â€œWe’re from California and from Michigan before that,” laughed Mrs. Harmon. “But they’re all alike—these dumps. After a while you get so you don’t feel you’re human any more. You get so dirty——”
    â€œWhere’s the water?” asked Mama.
    Mrs. Harmon pointed. “Down in the canal—it’s water drained off from the lake.”
    â€œYou use that to wash with?” asked Mama.
    â€œSure, and to drink too.”
    â€œThat dirty water?”
    â€œDrinkin’ canal water hasn’t killed nobody yet that I know of,” said Mrs. Harmon. “I was squeamish, too, just like you, when I first started out. But after a while you get used to it and it ain’t so bad. The kids like it—my kids has a mighty good time here. There’s rabbits to run and plenty o’ catfish in the canals, and there’s always dried beans to scrape out from under the plants if you know what fields ain’t been picked over but once or twice.”
    â€œHere, Judy,” called Mama. “Go down and dip us up some o’ that water.”
    â€œMy land! I’m sure glad you got a sewin’ machine,” said Mrs. Harmon. “I been needin’ to mend my old man’s overalls for a long time, and I can do it so much faster on the machine. You folks’ll like it here.”
    Judy took the water bucket and went down the canal bank to fill it. It was good to get out of the sound of the woman’s voice. She sat down and sunk her