The Grapes of Wrath1940

Ma:
Tommy, ain't ya gonna tell me goodbye?

Tom:
I didn't know, Ma. I didn't know if I ought to...Come outside. There was some cops here tonight. They was takin' down license numbers. I guess somebody knows somethin'.

Ma:
I guess it had to come, sooner or later. Sit down for a minute.

Tom:
I'd like to stay, Ma. I'd like to be with ya and see your face when Pa gets settled in some nice place. I'd sure like to see ya then. But I won't never get that chance, I guess, now.

Ma:
I would hide ya, Tommy.

Tom:
I know you would, Ma, but I ain't gonna let ya. Ya hide somebody that's killed a guy and you're in trouble too.

Ma:
All right, Tommy, but what do ya figur you're gonna do?

Tom:
You know what I've been thinkin' about? About Casy, about what he said, about what he done, about how he died. I remember all of it.

Ma:
He was a good man.

Tom:
I been thinking about us, too, about our people living like pigs and good rich land layin' fallow. Or maybe one guy with a million acres and a hundred thousand farmers starvin'. And I been wonderin' if all our folks got together and yelled...

Ma:
Oh, Tommy, they'd drag you out and cut you down just like they done to Casy.

Tom:
They'd drag me anyways. Sooner or later they'd get me for one thing if not for another. Until then...

Ma:
Tommy, you're not aimin' to kill nobody?

Tom:
No, Ma, not that. That ain't it. It's just, well as long as I'm an outlaw anyways... maybe I can do somethin'... maybe I can just find out somethin', just scrounge around and maybe find out what it is that's wrong and see if they ain't somethin' that can be done about it. I ain't thought it out all clear, Ma. I can't. I don't know enough.

Ma:
How am I gonna know about ya, Tommy? Why they could kill ya and I'd never know. They could hurt ya. How am I gonna know?

Tom:
Well, maybe it's like Casy says. A fellow ain't got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then...

Ma:
Then what, Tom?

Tom:
Then it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be ever'-where - wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad - I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise, and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too.

Ma:
I don't understand it, Tom.

Tom:
Me, neither, Ma, but just somethin' I been thinkin' about.