The winter rains begin

An intercalary chapter on the winter rains. The clouds come in from the ocean, the earth drinks for two days, and then the fields become lakes and the streams break their banks. Tents flood, cars will not start, and families wade away carrying children to whatever barn stands on high ground. Relief requires a year's residence, and there will be no work at all for three months. Pneumonia and measles come; the coroners' wagons back up through the mud. Men beg and then steal, and in the towns pity turns to hatred while sheriffs swear in deputies and order rifles. When the rain stops the men look at the flooded land: a man would not turn a team of horses out to starve between jobs, but these are men. The women watch to see whether they will break, and are relieved when fear turns to anger. Then the grass comes through.