Chapter 24
The dance and the planned fight
Summary
Saturday night at Weedpatch. Forewarned, Ezra Huston's Central Committee plans to stop the planned fight without drawing blood, since bleeding would give the waiting deputies their pretext. Willie Eaton quietly expands his entertainment committee to twenty-five men and posts watchers at the gate and along the fence. Tom, on the gate with Jule Vitela, spots three young men who gave the name of a camper who never invited them. Round the office Pa argues with a man in a black hat about taking twenty cents an hour: Pa cannot starve so another can keep two bits, and the man knows he will then have to bid down to fifteen. When the three provocateurs pick a quarrel, twenty men close around them silently, the band plays on, and the deputies are told there is no riot and no warrant. Huston questions them and puts them over the back fence unhurt. Black Hat suggests a turkey-shooting club that meets every Sunday.
Plates
Illustration style
Composition
Written: 16 September 1938 to 21 September 1938 Journal entries: #73, #74, #76 Ledger pages: 125–131 Dating: from DeMott's editorial markers in Working Days
From the journal
16 September 1938, Friday, 11:00 — Entry #73
[…] And this one is all the amusements of the people [Ed.—Chapter 23]. The things they do for pleasure. It is a short general. Not over four thousand words. I want all of the things they do. I want this to precede the long chapter of the dance [Ed.—Chapter 24]. Beginning a review of Long Valley—lyrical and without much meaning. However […]
19 September 1938, Monday, 11:00 — Entry #74
127 the departure of Noah This seems to be the usual time of getting to work. War seems closer than ever. France and England are either selling out or being very clever. If the Czechs fight they won’t be able to stay out. I think that there is probably skullduggery but I can’t tell. To Jacksons’ for the week end. […]
21 September 1938, Wednesday, 10:30 — Entry #76
[…] today. I have an early start. Letter from Beth—letter from [Ed.—actress Paulette] Goddard. Today it is likely that Steve will arrive. Wish we were free. It would make everything easy. But we are not free. I still can’t see the end of this book. Today the dance [Ed.—Chapter 24]. And I think that will end the chapter—then south, then north. […]
Source: Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath, 1938–1941, ed. Robert DeMott (Viking, 1989).