Summary

Chapter 27. Signs asking for cotton pickers are everywhere. The owners sell bags for a dollar, but most workers never work enough to pay for their own bag. Too many need work, and there isn’t enough for one man to earn much. The owners rig the scales to cheat the workers, and the workers fill their bags with stones. The cotton will disappear quickly.

Chapter 28. At the cotton picking camp, the Joads stay in a boxcar that they share with another family, the Wainwrights. They are earning a little money, and Ma treats Ruthie and Winfield to Cracker Jack. Another kid in the camp tries to take Ruthie’s Cracker Jack, and Ruthie threatens to sic Tom on her, and Ruthie tells Tom is in hiding because he killed a man. Ma gets scared and goes out along the creek to Tom and tells him...