My ears felt all funny and hot, with her looking right into my face like she was. But I couldn’t just stand there, so I kind of coughed a little and bent down and picked up the duffel.
I said, “No, ma’am.”
“I’m Mrs. Jensen. Is there something I can do for you?”
“Well, I heard you needed pickers.”
“Yes, we do,” she said. “The hot weather came on before we expected it. We have to harvest before the heat ruins the crop and we’re awfully shorthanded.”
I started to say something about being glad to help out, but just then this big good-looking fellow in a blue work shirt that had the sleeves rolled up and was unbuttoned down the front so you could see all the hair he had on his chest, he come out of the door. The woman turned and saw him and said, “Oh, this is Mr. Carbante. He’s our foreman.”
I said, “How are you, Mr. Carbante?”
“Okay,” he said. “You looking for work?”
“Sure.”
“Ever picked lettuce before?”
“No, sir. But I picked plenty of other things.”
“Such as?”
“Well, citrus.”
“Where?”
“Down in the Imperial Valley.”
“What else?”
“Tomatoes. Grapes and apples and celery, too.”
“All right,” Mr. Carbante said. “You’re on.”
“I sure do thank you.”
This Mrs. Jensen was still standing there with her hands on her hips. She looked at me. “I’m sorry again about that bump.”
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll see you later, Gino,” she said to Mr. Carbante.
“Okay, Mrs. Jensen.”
When she was gone, around to the side, Mr. Carbante took me into the warehouse. They had a criss-cross of conveyer belts in there, and packing bins lining one wall, and there was a lot of Mex women that was sorting out the lettuce heads and putting the good ones off on one belt to where they was trimmed and graded and packed, and putting the ones that wasn’t any good off on another belt.
We went into a little office they had there, and Mr. Carbante give me a little book to keep track of how many crates I was to pick, and told me what they paid for each crate. Then he said what bunkhouse I was to sleep in and the bunk number and what time they give you supper and what time you had to be up and ready for work in the morning.
He just finished telling me all that when this old bird come into the office. He had a nice head of white hair and pink cheeks, and he stopped where we was and give me a smile. He must’ve been close to seventy, sure enough, but his eyes was bright and he looked to get around pretty good.
Mr. Carbante said, “This is Mr. Jensen. He’s the owner.”
“How do you do, Mr. Jensen?”
“Glad to know you, son. You going to work for us?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, that’s fine.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you want to see me, Mr. Jensen?” Mr. Carbante asked.
“Have you seen Mrs. Jensen?”
“Not since breakfast.”
“All right, Gino,” Mr. Jensen said, and he went on out.
I said, “Mrs. Jensen was right here with you, Mr. Carbante.”
“Never mind, boy.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “Is that Mrs. Jensen’s husband?”
Mr. Carbante’s eyes got all narrow. “That’s right. Why?”
“Well, nothing,” I said, but I was wondering how come old Mr. Jensen was to have such a young wife. People sure do funny things sometimes, specially when they get old.
Mr. Carbante said, “You just mind your own business and pick your quota every day, and you’ll get along fine here. You understand that, boy?”
“Sure, Mr. Carbante.”
“Okay, then. You’ll be down on the south side. There’s a couple of Mex’s out there who’ll give you the hang of it.”
Do you know how they pick lettuce?
The way you do it is, you have this long knife, real sharp, and you walk in along the rows, which are about two feet apart, and you clip off the heads in close to the ground and put them in these field crates you drag along with you. When you get a crate filled, you leave it in there between the rows and then a truck comes along and picks up the crates and takes them up to the warehouse.
Now, it don’t sound like much, me telling it like that, but there’s plenty of little tricks to it, all right.
These two men that Mr. Carbante had told me about give me some tips on how to tell which heads was to be cut, and how to tell which ones had been chewed up by the aphids, and which ones had got the mildew or been burnt by the sun. I took to watching this one big fellow, whose name was Haysoos. He was pretty near pure black from the sun, and had tiny little eyes and thick, bushy eyebrows. But he sure knew what he was doing in that lettuce, clipping away like nobody you ever saw.
After I watched him for a while, I got onto the knack of it and started right in myself. I had my shirt off out there, and it was plenty hot. I was burnt up pretty good from being down in the Imperial Valley, but down there you was working citrus and didn’t have to pick right in under the sun like that.
Just as I got my first field crate filled up, who should come down the road but Mrs. Jensen and Mr. Carbante. They was just strolling along, side by side, her with this big floppy straw hat stuck up on her head. She was smiling, and every now and then she would wave to one of the pickers out in the lettuce. Every one of them was looking at her, sure enough.
She got up to where me and Haysoos was working and stopped and give me a nice smile. “Hello, there.”
“Hello, Mrs. Jensen.”
“How are you doing?”
“Just fine.”
This Haysoos smiled at her with teeth that was all yellow and said something in Mex, but I guess she didn’t hear him. She started off down the road again. Haysoos watched her. “Muy bonita, hey? Such a beautiful woman, a man’s blood boils at the sight of such a beautiful woman.”
“She sure is beautiful, all right,” I said.
“She likes you, hey, amigo?”
“She’s real nice and friendly.”
“Haysoos she does not like. Not big ugly Haysoos.”
“Oh, sure she likes you, Haysoos.”
“Carbante is who she likes, hey? Carbante and a thousand others.”
He turned away and started in to pick again. I didn’t know what he’d meant, but I didn’t want to say nothing so I just turned away too and went to work in my own row.
The next day I was pretty sore from the stooping over, but I’d had a nice sleep the night before and it didn’t bother me too much. I’d got the hang of picking the lettuce now, and I was clipping along at a nice pace.
One of the trucks come around with sandwiches and milk for us at noontime, and we sat there on the side of the road to eat. Well, while we was eating, here come Mrs. Jensen down the road again.
She come right up there to where we was, smiling at everybody, and asked us if we all had enough to eat. Some of the college boys called out some things I didn’t understand, and most everybody laughed, and Mrs. Jensen laughed right with them.
This Haysoos was sitting right near where I was. He kept watching Mrs. Jensen. “Everyone but Haysoos, hey?” he said.
“How was that?”
“A man’s blood boils.”
He sure said a lot of funny things, that Haysoos.
Saturday come around before you knew it and that was when we was to get paid. After supper we all went to the office in the big warehouse with the little books we had and old Mr. Jensen and Mr. Carbante totaled up the number of crates we had picked and give us our pay, all in cash money.