The light morning traffic buzzed by on the highway, and the sun grew warm and bright. A wind, gentle and sighing, blew in puffs from the southwest, and the mountains on both sides of the great valley were indistinct in a pearly mist.
Tom was pumping at the tire when a roadster, coming from the north, stopped on the other side of the road. A brown-faced man dressed in a light gray business suit got out and walked across to the truck. He was bareheaded. He smiled, and his teeth were very white against his brown skin. He wore a massive gold wedding ring on the third finger of his left hand. A little gold football hung on a slender chain across his vest.
“Morning,” he said pleasantly. Tom stopped pumping and looked up. “Mornin’.” The man ran his fingers through his coarse, short, graying hair.
“You people looking for work?”
“We sure are, mister. Lookin’ even under boards.”
“Can you pick peaches?”
“We never done it,” Pa said. “We can do anything,” Tom said hurriedly. “We can pick anything there is.” The man fingered his gold football. “Well, there’s plenty of work for you about forty miles north.”
“We’d sure admire to get it,” said Tom. “You tell us how to get there, an’ we’ll go a-lopin’.”
“Well, you go north to Pixley, that’s thirty-five or six miles, and you turn east. Go about six miles. Ask anybody where the Hooper ranch is. You’ll find plenty of work there.”
“We sure will.”