Across the Fruited Plain

by Florence Crannell Means

This picnic way of living had one advantage; it made moving easy. One day the Beechams were picking; the next day they had joined with two other families and hired a truck to take them and their belongings to Oystershell, on the inlet of the bay near by.

Pauline Isabel's family were going to a Negro oystershucking village almost in sight of Oystershell. "It's sure nice there!" Pauline assured them happily. "I belong to a girls' club that meets every day after school; in the Meth'dis' church. We got a sure good school, too, good as any white school, up the road a piece."

The Beechams said good-by to Pauline's family, who had become their friends. Then they said good-by to Miss Abbott. That was hard for Jimmie. He butted his shaven little head against Her and then limped away as fast as he could.

The ride to Oystershell was exciting. Autumn had changed the look of the land. "God has taken all the red and yellow he's got, and just splashed it on in gobs," said Rose-Ellen as they traveled toward the seashore.

"What I like," Dick broke in, "is to see the men getting in the salt hay with their horses on sleds."

The marshes were too soft to hold up anything so small as a hoof, so when farmers used horses there, they fastened broad wooden shoes on the horses' feet. Nowadays, though, horses were giving place to tractors.

The air had an increasingly queer smell, like iodized salt in boiling potatoes. The Beechams were nearing the salt-water inlets of the bay, where the tides rose and fell like the ocean-of which the inlets were part.

The tide was high when they drove down from Phillipsville to the settlement of Oystershell. The rows of wooden houses, the oyster-sheds and the company store seemed to be wading on stilts, and most people wore rubber boots.

Grandma said, "If the bog was bad for my rheumatiz, what's this going to be?"

A man showed the Beechams a vacant house in the long rows. "Not much to look at," he acknowledged, "but the rent ain't much, either. The roofs are tight and a few have running water, case you want it bad enough to pay extra."