That ain’t so, ’cause Pa, he’s foun’ lots a gold an’ he tol’ me how to look.
How’d you like to pick up a big ol’ piece a gold?
Sa-a-ay! I’d git the bigges’ old son-a-bitchin’ piece a candy you ever seen.
I ain’t let to swear, but I do, anyways.
Me too. Le’s go to the spring.
And young girls found each other and boasted shyly of their popularity and their prospects. The women worked over the fire, hurrying to get food to the stomachs of the family—pork if there was money in plenty, pork and potatoes and onions. Dutch-oven biscuits or cornbread, and plenty of gravy to go over it. Side-meat or chops and a can of boiled tea, black and bitter. Fried dough in drippings if money was slim, dough fried crisp and brown and the drippings poured over it.
Those families which were very rich or very foolish with their money ate canned beans and canned peaches and packaged bread and bakery cake; but they ate secretly, in their tents, for it would not have been good to eat such fine things openly. Even so, children eating their fried dough smelled the warming beans and were unhappy about it.
When supper was over and the dishes dipped and wiped, the dark had come, and then the men squatted down to talk.
And they talked of the land behind them. I don’t know what it’s coming to, they said. The country’s spoilt.
It’ll come back though, on’y we won’t be there.