Use’ to be them growers is beggin’ us tramps to pick their apples. They’d come right down to the jungles ‘n ask if we wanted to go to work. Now, the wetbacks come up here ‘n take a lotta that work. Seems like lately there’s a picker fer ev’ry apple, too damn many of ‘em. ‘N some a these growers ain’t so happy to have us ‘roun’ no more. There’s growers won’t hire a wet, stickin’ to hirin’ tramps ‘n the like, but there’s them that’ll hire on nothin’ but wets. Hell, ya c’n almost fergive them people fer comin’ up here if they’s no jobs down where they come from, but goddamn it, jobs is scarce here, ‘n the only thing I know is one of ‘em’s got mine. Some wet’s in an orchard, pickin’ ‘n makin’ himself some money, ‘n I’m sittin’ on my ass underneath a bridge, flat broke ‘n waitin’ on work. It’s like I tol’ the fella at the labor office. I come in there lookin’ fer work, ‘n the fella b’hind the counter sez there’s no work; the Mexicans have it all. He tells me they gotta eat too. I sez to him, “They ain’t applied fer yer job, have they?”  He sez, “No.” ‘N I sez, “I figgered as much. It’s easy to be sympathetic that-a-way.”

Lotta guys count on these apples ev’ry year, ‘n when they cain’t find work, they ain’t so obligin’ to whether a wetback eats er not. ‘N when they go to the labor office ‘n the guy there tells ‘em there ain’t no work ‘n they goes by an orchard ‘n sees nothin’ but wets pickin’, they right away figger they got a raw deal. Things are changin’ in this apple country, ‘n if it keeps up this-a-way, goddamn, I don’t know how some guys are gonna make it.

78.