ABOUT the first of July, after nine months of searching for a job in New York, I took to the road with two dollars in my pocket on the chance of getting summer work in the country. In the middle of July I reached Newburgh. The National Reemployment Service in that town had nothing to offer me, but an advertisement in the local newspaper said that berry pickers were wanted at a place seven miles up the river. I arrived at dusk and the farmer said: "A cent and a half a quart. You feed yourself. Come up to the shack and I'll see if I can find a cot for you."
We climbed a hill to a small four-room house. An extra cot was there. The boss dug up a bulging straw-filled mattress and left me. Outside about seven men were cleaning up after supper. Two of the men were middle-aged, two were definitely old. There was a pair of young Negroes. Floating labor, just a step above hobos. The few dollars to be made here would keep them from begging hand-outs for a while, maybe get their shoes resoled. This short interlude from the road would give them a chance to clean and mend their few belongings and rest their feet; berry-picking is easy on the feet. We sat around the dying fire, rolled cigarettes, and talked. A young Dane named Paul said to me: "Get into the field early in the morning, about 6:30 or 7. Don't bother laying in any grub till tomorrow night. You can share mine till then and we'll go fifty-fifty after."
All the cooking was done over two small camp fires in a frying pan and two empty half-gallon cans, which served also as dishes. Tea was drunk from a well-washed bean can. I took off a layer of clothes when I went to bed but woke at midnight half frozen in the cold air that comes down from the mountains. so I got into my clothes again and finished the night well doubled up on the mattress. The other men, I found later, had either slept in their clothes or lain under a couple of fertilizer bags. I stole four empty bags from the barn that day and thereafter slept warmly and awoke scented. The farmer had once provided blankets and cooking utensils, but they were invariably pilfered by the transient pickers. Cooking breakfast outdoors is not unpleasant; the appetite in that bracing air is formidable. Beans, bacon, potatoes, bread, and tea is practically the standing menu-they are easy to prepare, nourishing, and above all cheap.
This farm is planted entirely in fruit-apples, pears, and grapes. In the young orchards currant bushes are planted in the rows, raspberry bushes between the rows. Each picker has a "carrier"-a tray with a handle which holds eight quart boxes. In the forenoon we pick currants. This is nice. You can sit down to the low bush, which hangs thick with fruit in small clusters. It should go quickly, yet it was more than an hour before the eight boxes were filled. Paul was picking the next row and came over to look at my carrier. "That ain't enough, you got to top them." My quarts seemed full but his looked as if each one held a quart and a half. "Unless you bring 'em in that way they'll only punch your ticket for seven." I took his advice and it was some time later when I fetched my heaping carrier to the packing shed. Eight baskets, twelve cents.
At about eight o'clock the "families" began to arrive from Newburgh and the surrounding country-a father and mother and perhaps five or six children in a Ford car. They rapidly picked the best rows. Close to me four children moved up and down the row with nimble fingers. The parents scolded or cajoled as the hot day wore on and the kids whined or sulked under the monotonous work. Their ages ranged from six to twelve or thirteen. In the same family two little girls even younger tended a baby on a blanket under a tree and dutifully fed it the bottle when it cried. A few days later I happened to be present when this family was cashing its ticket. For one day's work of nearly ten hours the father collected for himself, his wife, and four children $2.44.
In the afternoon we picked raspberries. This is much slower work. The berries are few and scattered, because they are picked every day or two as the berries ripen and before they fall off. The sun scorches as you walk slowly along the row, stooping, picking, straightening up, and resting a minute at the end. Raise your head and enjoy that superb vista. The Hudson Valley falls away at your feet. Across the river the rolling fields of Dutchess County mount to the distant Berkshires.
I quit at five and went downtown to buy food. It is a two-mile walk to the village and afterward there is kindling wood to chop and supper to get. Bread and beans, a cigarette-and then add up the punches on the ticket. First day twenty-three quarts, thirty-four and a half cents. "What the hell?" I asked Paul. "How am I going to eat on those wages?" "You'll do better," he said. "I made forty-eight cents today." Another lad remarked, "I been here a week now and I haven't made a dollar any day yet." Sixty and seventy-five cents were the top earnings for the day. Luckily, food was cheap. About a quarter a day would feed a man, with a few cents extra for cigarette tobacco. The wage scale is fixed among the local fruit growers. None of them paid more than a cent and a half a quart. They said the price of berries was low, only seven and eight cents from the New York commission merchants. But the farmers hereabouts have a prosperous air-good automobiles and trucks, substantial houses with all modern conveniences.
There are no lights in the shack, so we go to bed early. A rising half-moon silvers the quiet vineyards. Whip-poor-wills call from the hill orchard. A lovely country-I'd like to make a living here.
I worked seven days and then took to the road again, with a net profit of ninety-eight cents.
