he Imperial Valley.

"Peas!" Rose-Ellen exploded the word on their last night in the
"jungle" camp. "I don't believe there are enough folks in the
world to cat all the peas we've picked."

"And they aren't done with when they're picked, even," added
Daddy. "Most of them will be canned; and other folks have to
shell and sort them and put them into cans and then cook them and
seal and label the cans."

"What an awful lot of work everything makes," Dick exclaimed.

"It was different in my Gramma's time." Grandma pursed her lips
as she set a white patch in a blue overall knee. "Then each
family grew and canned and made almost everything it used."

"Now everybody's linked up with everybody else," agreed Grandpa,
cobbling a shoe with his little kit. "We use' to get along in
winter with turnips and cabbage and such, and fruit the
womenfolks canned. Of course it's pretty nice to have garden
vegetables and fruit fresh the year round, but. . . ."

Grandma squinted suddenly over her spectacles. "For the land's
sakes! I never thought of it, but it's turned the country upside
down and made a million people into 'rubber tramps'--this having
to have fresh green stuff in winter."

"The owners couldn't handle their crops without the million
workers coming in just when they're ready to harvest," Daddy
continued the tale. . . .

"But they haven't anything for us to do the rest of the time; and
how they do hate the sight of us 'rubber tramps,' the minute
we've finished doing their work for them," Dick ended.

Next morning they started up the coast to pick lettuce. The
country was beautiful. Rounded hills, soft looking and of the
brightest green, ran down toward the sea, with really white sheep
pastured on them. Grandpa said it put him in mind of heaven.
Grandma said it would be heaven-on-earth to live there, if only
you had a decent little house and a garden. The desert places
were as beautiful, abloom with many-colored wildflowers; and
there were fields of artichokes and other vegetables, with
Chinese and Japanese tending them. Those clean green rows
stretched on endlessly.

"They make me feel funny," Rose-Ellen complained, "like seeing
too many folks and too many stars."

"They've got so many vegetables they dump them into the sea,
because if they put them all on the market, the price would go
down. But there's not enough so that those that pick them get
what they need to eat," said Grandpa. "Sometimes too much is