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Chapter 6

The empty house, and Muley

Summary

Tom and Casy find the Joad house shoved off its foundations, the tools gone, cotton planted to the door, and Ma's worn-out button shoe in the bedroom. Tom works out that the wrong thing is the untouched lumber: no neighbours are left to scavenge it. Muley Graves appears and explains — the bank tractored everyone off, and the family has moved to Uncle John's, chopping cotton for money to go west. Muley's own wife and children left for California; he stayed, wandering the abandoned places like "a graveyard ghos'". He shares his snared rabbits, and Casy, hearing how men at desks cut folk in two for a margin of profit, decides his place is on the road with them. A superintendent's spotlight sweeps the field and the three lie down in the cotton rather than be caught trespassing. Muley, once mean as a wolf and now mean as a weasel, leads them to a cave to sleep.

Plates

Illustration style

The Joad place from the hill
00 The Joad place from the hill
The empty tool shed
01 The empty tool shed
Listening at the dead well
02 Listening at the dead well
Ma's shoe in the empty bedroom
03 Ma's shoe in the empty bedroom
The grey cat on the porch
04 The grey cat on the porch
The turtle goes on southwest
05 The turtle goes on southwest
Muley Graves comes across the field
06 Muley Graves comes across the field
Rabbits on the wire
07 Rabbits on the wire
Down in the cotton, under the spotlight
08 Down in the cotton, under the spotlight
The water-cut
09 The water-cut
The Joad place from the hill
00 The Joad place from the hill
The empty tool shed
01 The empty tool shed
Listening at the dead well
02 Listening at the dead well
Ma's shoe in the empty bedroom
03 Ma's shoe in the empty bedroom
The grey cat on the porch
04 The grey cat on the porch
The turtle goes on southwest
05 The turtle goes on southwest
Muley Graves comes across the field
06 Muley Graves comes across the field
Rabbits on the wire
07 Rabbits on the wire
Down in the cotton, under the spotlight
08 Down in the cotton, under the spotlight
The water-cut
09 The water-cut

Composition

Written: 8 June 1938 to 11 June 1938 Journal entries: #9, #10, #11, #12 Dating: from DeMott's editorial markers in Working Days

From the journal

8 June 1938, Wednesday, 10:45 — Entry #9

[…] general [Ed.—Chapter 7] of the old cars, of the equipment, of the moving technique, and then the Joad family enters and the book really gets moving. Well, that’s done but only a little into this chapter. I think maybe two or three more days on this chapter [Ed.—Chapter 6] I think. And tomorrow will be

9 June 1938, Thursday, 11:45 — Entry #10

[…] to be anything but dull. This single track mind seems to be a narrow gauge as well. Now to the day’s work and now Muley comes in and the reason for the desertion becomes apparent. Also the night comes with sleeping in the darkening plain and stars [Ed.—Chapter 6]. And after that I think a small inter chapter or maybe […]

10 June 1938, Friday, 11:30 — Entry #11

[…] do it. I feel very strong to do it. Today for instance into the picture is the evening and the cooking of the rabbits and the discussion of prison and punishment. And the owls and the cat catches a mouse and they sit on the sloping porch [Ed.—Chapter 6]. And tomorrow the beginning of the used car yard if I […]

11 June 1938, Saturday, 10:30 — Entry #12

[…] first time I am working on a real book that is not limited and that will take every bit of experience and thought and feeling that I have. And so to work. The page is done now but not the chapter. This is a very long chapter [Ed.—Chapter 6]. And now I have an afternoon and a day to rest […]

Source: Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath, 1938–1941, ed. Robert DeMott (Viking, 1989).