Chapter 13

Chapter 13 was important to me in today's reading because it described the family's first night camping out on their trip to California. It discusses how they had to find wood and go get water so they could start cooking. They also found that Grampa was very sick and not doing well. They took him to their new neighbor’s, the Wilsons, tent that had pulled of the road beside to camp with. Rev. Casy went in to look at Grampa. He saw that he was having a stoke and would not make it. They ended up burying Grampa right there in the field beside where they were camping, because they knew they could not afford a funeral. A theme that I found in this chapter was that it’s not so have help when you’re in need, even if it comes from a couple you just met on the side of the road. Just like the Wilsons said, “There’s no beholden in a time of dying.” This was meaning that you shouldn’t feel obligated, you should just be glad to help.

            I like the passage in chapter 10 when Grampa  told everyone that he was not going with them.

Grampa’s eyes had dulled, and there was none of the old meanness in them. “Ain’t nothin’ the matter with me,” he said. “I jus’ ain’t a-goin’.”

“Not goin’?” Pa demanded. “What you mean you ain’t a-goin’? Why, here we’re all packed up, ready. We got to go. We got no place to stay.”

“I ain’t sayin’ for you to stay,” said Grampa. “You go right on along. Me—I’m stayin’. I give her a goin’-over all night mos’ly. This here’s my country. I b’long here. An’ I don’t give a goddamn if they’s oranges an’ grapes crowdin’ a fella outa bed even. I ain’t a-goin’. This country ain’t no good, but it’s my country. No, you all go ahead. I’ll jus’ stay right here where I b’long.”