All were overage. None dared protest.
At seventy a poor man without relatives willing to care for him was supposed to let himself be permanently retired to a Home for Seniles. If he wasn't senile and didn't want a home with barred windows and a barbed wire fence, he had to lie low and keep his mouth shut.
Anyone could charge an overage person with incompetence. The charge was not a crime and so had no defence.
All of which was old stuff to Ollie Hollveg. He'd been dodging the geriatricians for sixteen years. He considered himself used to the setup.
Yet something about the rancher, Rost—maybe his excessive weight, in contrast with the pickers' under-fed gauntness, or maybe his cardboard cowboy boots and imitation sombrero—made Ollie boil in spite of himself.
He tried not to show his feelings. But when he was called to the tally table the rancher scowled up at him defensively and said, "Don't glare at me, Hollveg! If you moved as fast picking tomatoes as you do collecting your pay, you'd have earned more than this."
He pushed out a little pile of coins that came to four dollars eighty-seven cents.
"Odd pennies?" Ollie's voice broke as he fought to keep it under control. "Odd pennies, when picking's at the rate of two bits a lug? That can't be right. Just because we're old, you're stealing from us!"
Rost's fat face turned livid. "Call me a thief?" he sputtered. "Get off my land!"
Rost jumped clumsily to his feet, upsetting the tally table. Ollie bent to retrieve the coins scattered in the dust.