People streamed toward the boxcar camp. The tents were lighted. Smoke poured from the stovepipes. The Joads climbed up their cat-walk and into their end of the boxcar. Rose of Sharon sat on a box beside the stove. She had a fire started, and the tin stove was wine-colored with heat. “Did ya get milk?” she demanded.
“Yeah. Right here.”
“Give it to me. I ain’t had any sence noon.”
“She thinks it’s like medicine.”
“That nurse-lady says so.”
“You got potatoes ready?”
“Right there—peeled.”
“We’ll fry ’em,” said Ma. “Got pork chops. Cut up them potatoes in the new fry pan. And th’ow in a onion. You fellas go out an’ wash, an’ bring in a bucket a water. Where’s Ruthie an’ Winfiel’? They oughta wash. They each got Cracker Jack,” Ma told Rose of Sharon. “Each got a whole box.”
The men went out to wash in the stream. Rose of Sharon sliced the potatoes into the frying pan and stirred them about with the knife point.
Suddenly the tarpaulin was thrust aside. A stout perspiring face looked in from the other end of the car. “How’d you all make out, Mis’ Joad?”