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

head in her hands.
    It wasn’t what she had been expecting at all. There was no farm, no house, no yard with a fence.
    There was only the second-hand tent they had camped in on the trip. The tent was their home, and they were still camping out. The farm and the house and yard were fading away into the dim and unknown future, just as the house in the cotton field had faded away into the past.
    The tent and the canal bank and the canal—these were real. This was the present. This was all they had.
    â€œ Ju-dy! Ju-dy !” Suddenly she heard Mama calling. She dipped the bucket down, among the cattails and brought it up full of water. She hurried up the bank.
    â€œDon’t know why you have to take all day,” said Mama.
    Mrs. Harmon had come over and brought her own rocking-chair. She sat talking with Mama as if they had always known each other. She was holding Lonnie on her lap.
    â€œI thought there was a lake,” said Judy, “the biggest lake in Florida, Okeechobee. Where’s the lake, Miz Harmon?”
    â€œRight over beyond Bean Town,” replied the woman, “but you don’t never see it. It’s on the other side of the dike, and the dike’s forty feet high, I guess. You got to look up at it and then there’s nothing to see. They built the dike after that big hurricane in 1928.”
    â€œWhat’s a dike?” asked Judy.
    â€œA big pile o’ gravel to hold the water back—about two hundred feet wide at the bottom and thirty feet wide on top. It goes around the south and east sides of the lake, to stop the floods. When a hurricane comes, it can blow so strong across the lake, it makes a regular tidal wave and splashes right over on all sides. But that don’t happen often, of course.”
    â€œYou been comin’ here long?” asked Mama.
    â€œThis is our third winter,” said Mrs. Harmon. “We like Florida for winters, even if it don’t pay so good. We go back to Michigan summers. I like Florida, I like to sit in the sun.”
    â€œYou don’t work?”
    â€œYes, we all work, my big kids and my husband and me, when the packin’ plants git goin’. There’s only one opened up so far. I sit in the sun till the rush season starts. My youngest is a girl, Bessie—she’s twelve and in school.”
    â€œIn school?” asked Judy. “Where’s a school?”
    â€œOver on the other side of town,” said the woman.
    â€œOh Mama, can I go?” begged Judy.
    â€œBessie will take you,” said Mrs. Harmon. “The school would be jammed if all the workers’ kids went. But most of the migrants don’t bother to send ’em, they’re here for such a short time anyway.”
    â€œOh Mama, can me and Joe Bob and Cora Jane go?” asked Judy.
    â€œWe’ll have to ask Papa,” said Mama.
    Papa looked pretty blue when he came back from town. He was no longer gay and happy as he had been on the trip. Judy decided not to mention school.
    â€œThe packing houses where you make all that cash money ain’t open yet,” he said. “It’s been cold and the beans been held back. They’re not ready for picking.”
    â€œNo other crops ready?” asked Mama.
    â€œNo, beans will be first. They use Negroes outside and whites inside,” said Papa. “The colored folks do all the picking. There’s a big colored quarter in town and several camps for them. Cars are bringin’ ’em in from every direction.”
    â€œWhat’ll we do?” asked Mama. “Move on again?”
    â€œNo, I reckon we better stay right here till beans come in,” said Papa. “Likely I can find a small grower to give me day work.” He turned to Judy. “They got a nice school, honey.”
    â€œMiz Harmon told us,” answered Judy. “Said Bessie would take me. Can I go?”
    â€œShore can,” said Papa. “My young uns ain’t