“A cent and a half a box for strawberries,—that is, if you will stay the season. If not, I will only pay one cent a box.” The reason for this I found was that at the last gathering of a crop the fruit is light and the pickers cannot make nearly as much as in the beginning, and becoming discouraged, will quit. No matter if the farmer receives ten or thirty cents a box for his fruit, the picker receives no better wage.
“You will board me, I suppose?”
“Oh, no, you board yourself. We have a good bunkhouse where you can sleep.”
“But I have no money. How will I get me something to eat?”
“I will pay you every night at the rate of one cent if you want it.”
“But I have no money at all. What will I do for supper and breakfast?”
“Tell any of the grocers in Middlehope that you are going to work for me and they will trust you. You can come to my place and sleep to-night, so that you can begin work in the morning.”
Passing on to the village, I asked one of the merchants if he would trust me for a bill of edibles until the following evening. He looked at me hesitatingly. He had been deceived and that made him cautious. When saying that I only wanted a little, he consented and gave me the following bill: bacon, five cents, bread, five cents, coffee, five cents, can of corn, ten cents, total twenty-five cents.
I found later that there have been (and are still) thousands of instances when these willing workers have been denied this confidence and have worked all day in the burning sun without supper, breakfast and dinner.
Reaching the farm I was not shown where to go to sleep. I was told to go to the bunkhouse. I found a number of men already there with an improvised stove of rock and available sticks for fuel. With the aid of my willing contemporaries I managed to prepare and eat my supper. There was a promiscuous pile of filthy blankets to choose from for a bed. I went to the stable for straw on which to spread them, and as I picked up one pair of blankets, a man who had been there for some time said,