CHAPTER 6. LIFE AT HARD LABOR—THE HOPI 105
Cauliflower
"Have a cigarette?" said the young driver of the cauliflower cart, as I, was loading the heads chopped off by the men in boots, amid the tall, wet deep green foliage.
"No thanks, I don't smoke," I replied.
"I noticed you didn't shoot craps with us as we were waiting for the frost to get off this cauliflower. You must be that guy I heard the boss tell about that don't get drunk, eat meat, pay taxes for the war, or even go to church." "Say," said he laughing, "just what the hell do you do to get any fun out of life?"
"I'm that guy alright. What the hell else do you do? I replied.
"Oh, I like to read stories," he said, as we reached the end of the row.
"Did you ever think that the one who writes get as much fun out of writing as the one does who reads it? I do writing for my enjoyment. Here's a CW with an article of mine."
Coming to the end of the next row I saw a hat propped up, in the damp irrigation ditch and upon looking closer found that it rested on the tousled head of Big Tony. Then I remembered how he came to a group of Anglos that noon and said "Here's a dollar that you 'can't throw sixes.'" After about half an hour with his own loaded dice—he had every cent from his opponents, so he mockingly tipped his hat and said:
"Thank you gentlemen. Now I'll go to Tolleson and get a bottle."
The good natured Mexican foreman had done Tony's work for him that afternoon.
The next day I was told to work in the dry packing stand at the other end of the field. Here the cart loads were dumped and sorters quickly discarded the small, broken, and discolored heads. They threw the good ones on the table where four packers put them in crates and slid them to the cutter-the crates going over rollers—who with an enormous knife, cut off the tops even with the crate. The man at the end of the slide put on the tops, and several fellows loaded the boxes on the truck. An inspector looked at a crate once in a while and if he found culls he would take them back to the sorters and admonish them to be more careful. My job was to fork the culls away so new cart loads could be emptied. Farmers came and got these culls for their cattle. The mystery which I never did get explained, by boss or workman, was why the packers, who had the easiest job of all with no stooping or even skill of sorting out culls, were paid from $18 to $40 a day and the rest of us got 85 cents an hour. It was a custom for the packer to get more was all the answer I could get. I worked here for three weeks, and as the Indian lives off the country wherever he may be, this vegetarian had the one dish of cauliflower every night for supper. A one-track mind and a one-track stomach. I found a combination of cheese and jelly made good sandwiches for dinner.
