Chapter 37 — Teaching Companion

This chapter's big question

Abra says that if the lettuce had reached New York fresh, “everybody’d been bowing to him.” Was Adam’s idea foolish, or only unlucky?

The tension Before the train leaves, businessmen call Adam “farseeing, forward-looking, progress-minded” and the Chamber of Commerce sees the cars off; after the telegram, “Adam was a fool. These know-it-all dreamers always got into trouble,” and even Sam Hamilton is recalled as “a fool too,” while Adam sits with “a strange enduring smile.”

Today's focus

Notice how Lee and Adam each wake into a new kind of life in Salinas, and what each spends his money on.

The shape at a glance

The chapter has three sections. In the first, set in the wet February of 1915, Lee gives up his dream of a bookstore and makes a home for the first time: a room of his own with books, a Morris chair and a typewriter. He remakes the Trask house with a gas stove, a telephone, electric wires and a large icebox, and Adam buys a victrola, joins the Masons and grows fascinated by the icebox. Adam needs work. He fills the icebox with little cups of food and cannot stop thinking of a mastodon dug out of the Siberian ice with its meat still good. He begins visiting the ice plant. One rainy afternoon he asks Will Hamilton to supper, and Will, who has remembered that Adam is rich, comes by afterward. Will notices that Lee no longer talks pidgin, and Lee calls it vanity and tells Will the mastodon story. Adam explains his idea: ship lettuce packed in ice to the East in winter, and buy the Salinas ice plant to do it. Will loses his temper. He comes from a family of inventors who had ideas instead of breakfast, he says, and he tells Adam to let the idea die. Then he is ashamed of running down his father. Over whisky he advises beans, which keep without ice, and goes home sure his advice was sound. Adam decides to buy the ice plant. In the second section, late in the year, Adam ships six carloads of lettuce east. The town praises him and the Chamber of Commerce sees the train off, but no one invests. A snow slide holds the cars on a siding in the Sierras, a warm spell meets them in the Middle West, and a mix-up of orders holds them in Chicago. The lettuce reaches New York as slop. Adam reads the telegram with a strange, lasting smile. The town calls him a fool, and Will recalls that he foretold it all. Lee finds that Adam still has about nine thousand dollars and the ranch; when he suggests selling the ice plant, Adam says he still believes the idea will work and will keep the plant. In the third section the twins, now fifteen, are mocked at school as Lettuce-head. Aron fears they are poor and that Abra’s mother and father will turn against him; Abra has noticed her father change. She has him kiss her in the street and offers to help him through college. In Bell’s candy store Aron says he hates his father and wonders whether his father lied about his mother. Abra frees him from a promise so that he can ask; he does not know if he will. Overheard and laughed at, he runs out and hides in his room. Abra searches the streets for him. Cal, shut out by the two of them, learns loneliness and goes out restless at night.

A way in

Read the chapter yourself before the lesson. A few things it takes for granted. The year is 1915, the war in Europe has begun, and Will does not trust President Wilson to keep the country out of it. A Morris chair is a deep reclining armchair; a victrola is a wind-up record player. An icebox was cooled by blocks of ice from the ice wagon. A mastodon is an extinct relative of the elephant. A siding is a short stretch of track where cars wait off the main line. Commission merchants sell goods for a grower and keep a share; the lettuce was consigned to them, sent for them to sell. Celery tonic is a soda. Abra and Aron call themselves engaged. Abra once told Aron something about his mother that he promised not to repeat, and the chapter gives no more than that. A teacher who has read on knows more about Aron’s mother, about the ice plant and about Will’s beans; keep all of it out of the talk, along with what refrigerated shipping later became. The question is what this chapter shows. Keep Will from becoming a villain: he is ashamed, worried for a friend’s family, and sure he gave sound advice. Do not read Adam’s smile as madness or as calm without Lee’s fear of the old “sleepwalker light.” Give the third section its full time, since the failure lands hardest on the twins and Abra. Slow down three times: at Will’s evening visit, at the train’s journey and the town’s verdict, and in Bell’s candy store.

Lesson plan

Retell The student tells the chapter back, from Lee unpacking his books to Cal going out at night. Look for the three sections in order: Lee’s new room and the remade house, Adam’s little cups and the mastodon, and Will’s evening visit with his warning, his shame and his beans; the train’s departure, the snow slide, the warm spell and Chicago, the telegram, the town’s verdict, and Lee’s count of what is left; the twins mocked at school, Abra and Aron in the street and in Bell’s, Aron running out, Abra searching, and Cal alone. Look for nothing added about whether the idea would later work. Then ask which one sentence the whole chapter turns on, and why.

Imitate the author After copying, the student writes a short paragraph in the manner of the first passage, about someone settling somewhere for the first time: one sentence whose subject is held apart from its verb by what the person gave up, one that says how they used to live and why, and one that begins with “Here” and ends on an image. Then a paragraph in the manner of the second, about someone left out: open with the object before the verb, set two people side by side with one long sentence for the first and three words for the second, and end on an image. Read them aloud beside Steinbeck’s and ask which sentence carries the weight.

Debate Take sides on the last written question. One side argues that the idea was only unlucky. It gathers the little cups and the three weeks in fine ice; “at a fine price”; the snow slide, the warm spell and “no one’s fault”; the omnipotent enemy; the town’s swing from “farseeing” to “a fool”; and Abra’s “everybody’d been bowing to him.” The other side argues that it was foolish. It gathers Will’s warning about the siding; “Everything had to be improvised”; “no one wanted to invest in the project”; Adam’s “Well, I don’t care much” about profit; and the narrator’s “obsessed.” Each side must answer the other’s strongest piece. Neither may say whether the idea would later work or whether Will’s beans will pay, and neither may call Adam ruined.

Purpose Close on the chapter’s design. It opens with two men waking: Lee unpacks for the first time and spends on comfort; Adam comes out of his long sleep and spends on an idea. It ends with three young people apart: Aron shut in his room, Abra walking the streets, Cal going out at night. Between them stands the town, which praises before the train and judges after it. Ask what Lee’s joke about leaving his gas stove says about what he now has to lose. Name the habit it practices: weighing what a person did apart from how it turned out.

Three levels

Easier Read aloud together Adam’s talk with Will, from “I was thinking about your father” to “Let refrigeration alone”; the train’s journey and the town’s verdict, from “If the series of events” to “he had been just crazy”; and the candy store, from “They went into Bell’s candy store” to Aron running out. Talk through the third, fourth and sixth discussion questions, then answer the last written question aloud before writing it.

On level Talk through all six discussion questions in order, then write both written questions as a thesis, the strongest objection and a revised thesis, each with lines from the chapter.

Harder Ask for one argued essay on how this chapter judges people by results. Set the town’s verdict on Adam beside Aron’s verdict on himself and on his father, and beside Lee, who measures Adam by whether he will crawl back into his hole. Judge whose measure the chapter trusts, by its evidence alone. Meet the strongest objection: before any of it, Lee himself told Adam he did not think he would be “very good at business,” and the narrator says a man of one idea becomes obsessed.

Discussion

1. Before Adam can get to his idea, Lee tells Will the mastodon story himself. Why does Lee tell Adam’s story for him?Character

What it asks It asks the student to read Lee’s part in Adam’s talk with Will. Lee has his doubts. When Adam first says he will go into business, Lee answers, “I don’t think you’d be very good at business,” and gives no reason but “Just a thought.” When Adam brings up the mastodon, Lee teases him: “Let’s not have any mastodon meat in our icebox.” That evening Will waits “for Adam to open the game,” and Adam talks about the weather, Will’s mother and the boys. Lee looks up from his darning to say, “Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk.” A moment later he calls his old pidgin “vanity,” smiles at Adam, and tells Will the story himself. His telling is bigger than Adam’s: “a hundred thousand years” in the ice, where Adam’s article said “thousands of years,” and meat “Sweet as a pork chop.” Will says only that it is “very interesting.” Adam laughs, “Lee hasn’t wiped my nose yet, but that will come,” and gets to his idea. The question touches the hinge from the side: before the town judges the idea, Lee, who doubts Adam’s head for business, is the first to set it before someone else.

A strong answer A strong response says what Lee is doing for Adam and grounds it in the evening’s talk. One reader says he is helping Adam talk: he has just praised “the man who helps others to talk,” Adam is circling while Will grows restless, and Adam laughs that Lee will be wiping his nose next. Another says Lee, who doubts Adam’s head for business, tells the idea as a tall tale so that Adam can hear how it sounds to a businessman, who finds it only “very interesting.” The best answers notice how much bigger Lee’s telling is than Adam’s, and keep Lee’s doubt and his care for Adam together.

2. Will tells Adam he has a deal to put through, but the narrator says the deal does not exist. Adam, who needs no job, says, “I’m looking for work.” Which of the two men is really at work?Moral reasoning

What it asks It asks the student to say what counts as work in this chapter. Will tells Adam, “I’ve got a deal I’m trying to put through,” but the narrator says, “His business deal had been non-existent. It was a part of his policy always to be busy and occupied.” Will is “a very substantial businessman.” Nearly every business proposition in the county comes to him, and while he waits for Adam he works out in his head how much he would lend on the ranch and how much he could borrow on it. He is, he says, the only Hamilton “who ever made a dime.” Adam “came out of his long sleep needing to do something.” He tells Will, “I’m tired of just sitting around. I want to get something to take up my time,” and, “I’m not like a man looking for a job. I’m looking for work. I don’t need a job.” Asked about profit, he says, “Well, I don’t care much.” In the second section he “untapped energy he did not suspect he had.” The question touches the hinge: afterward Will counts himself “a sound businessman” whose advice was not taken, and the town calls Adam a fool.

A strong answer A strong response says what counts as work and grounds it in both men. One reader says Adam: Will’s deal is “non-existent,” kept up as a show of being busy, while Adam “untapped energy he did not suspect he had” loading the lettuce with no equipment. Another says Will: looking busy brings every deal in the county to him and he makes a living, while Adam, who wants “something to take up my time” and does not care much about profit, is filling his days. The best answers say what they mean by work, and notice that afterward Will counts himself “a sound businessman” while the town calls Adam a fool.

3. Will says a man who asks for advice about an idea only wants to be agreed with. What did Adam want from a Hamilton that night?Inference

What it asks It asks the student to judge why Adam brought his idea to Will. On the walk back from the ice plant Adam “wished with all his heart that Sam Hamilton were alive to discuss cold with him.” Then he sees Will and asks him to supper, saying, “I’d like to ask your advice.” When Will presses him, Adam says, “I was thinking about your father and I thought I’d like to talk to a Hamilton,” and “Somehow he made a man better than he was.” He tells Will, “you might give me an opinion. You’re a businessman,” and says of the idea, “Maybe it’s full of holes.” Will answers with his rule about advice, his family of inventors who “had ideas instead of breakfast,” and “let your damned idea die.” Adam’s answer is, “You make Sam Hamilton sound like a criminal.” Will sees amazement in Adam’s eyes and is ashamed. Adam buys the ice plant anyway. The question touches the hinge: the narrator says that if Adam had had thousands of ideas, like Sam, they might all have drifted away, and after the failure Sam is recalled as “a fool too.”

A strong answer A strong response says what Adam was after and grounds it in his own words to Will. One reader says he wanted Sam, or the nearest thing: he wished Sam were alive “to discuss cold with him,” and Sam “made a man better than he was,” but he found the one Hamilton who never had ideas. Another says Will is right and Adam wanted a businessman’s yes: the idea would not let him go, and when the yes did not come he changed the subject and bought the ice plant. The best answers test Will’s rule against what Adam does next, and keep Will a worried friend, not a villain.

4. After the failure, the town’s talk about Adam ends with this line: “And he had doubled the output of the ice company.” Who is saying that line, and why?Author's choice

What it asks It asks the student to hear whose voice the last line of the town’s judgment is in, and what it is there to do. Before the train leaves, “businessmen spoke of him as farseeing, forward-looking, progress-minded,” and “The Chamber of Commerce attended the departure.” Yet “no one wanted to invest in the project.” After the telegram the narrator gives the town’s voice, sentence by sentence: “Adam was a fool. These know-it-all dreamers always got into trouble.” It took experience to be a businessman; people who inherited money got into trouble; “A fool and his money were soon parted. Maybe that would teach him a lesson.” Then the last sentence: “And he had doubled the output of the ice company.” It is the only sentence in the paragraph that is a fact about Adam’s work rather than a saying about him. Adam himself later says, “Besides, the plant makes some money.”

A strong answer A strong response says whose line it is and what it does to the verdict, and grounds both in the paragraph’s sayings. One reader says the narrator is answering the town: after a run of ready-made judgments, a single fact shows Adam built something while the businessmen kept out. Another says the line is still the town’s, a punch line: the only one who profited from the dream was the ice company. The best answers notice the shift from sayings to fact, hear whose voice is speaking, and set the verdict beside the praise that came before.

5. Adam’s “strange enduring smile” lasts through the telegram and the talk of money. It goes only when Lee says he might sell the ice plant. What does the plant mean to Adam that the money does not?Character

What it asks It asks the student to read Adam’s face after the failure, and what the ice plant means to him. When he reads the telegram, “he settled back in his chair and a strange enduring smile came on his face and did not go away.” Lee waits, then sits “directly in front of Adam” and asks, “You aren’t going to crawl back in your hole, are you?” He names what he sees: “you have the look on your face you used to wear. And you’ve got that sleepwalker light in your eyes.” Adam’s only worry is “whether I’m wiped out.” They go through the bills, and Lee says, “Maybe you can sell the ice plant.” Then “Adam’s face tightened up and lost the dazed smile.” He says, “I still believe it will work,” and gives reasons: “It was a whole lot of accidents,” “Cold does preserve things,” and “the plant makes some money.” The smile is not simply madness or calm; Lee fears it as the return of an old sleep.

A strong answer A strong response says what the ice plant means to Adam and why the thought of selling it ends the smile, and grounds it in the talk between Lee and Adam. One reader says the plant is the idea: selling it would let the idea die, and Adam, a man of one idea who “became obsessed,” comes back fighting for it. Another says the plant is his work, and losing it would send him back to the hole Lee fears; he answers with plans, “Maybe I can figure something out.” The best answers take Lee’s “sleepwalker light” seriously, notice that money talk does not move Adam, and say nothing about whether the idea will later work.

6. At school the twins are now laughed at over the lettuce. In the candy store Aron says to Abra, “How do I know he didn’t lie about my mother?” What does a spoiled load of lettuce have to do with his mother?Inference

What it asks It asks the student to follow Aron’s leap from his father’s failure to his father’s word. At school the twins become “Aron and Cal Lettuce,” or simply “Lettuce-head.” Aron tells Abra, “I think we’re poor,” though when she asks if his father lost all his money he says, “I don’t know. That’s what they say.” In Bell’s candy store Abra says, “Don’t you blame your father.” Aron answers, “Well, it didn’t work. He sure fixed me. I can’t hold up my head. By God! I hate him.” Then: “How do I know he didn’t lie about my mother?” Abra tells him to ask his father, and when he says, “I can’t, I promised you,” she cries, “I let you out of your promise.” The chapter shows only that she once told him something he promised not to repeat. He answers, “I don’t know if I will or not.” The chapter does not say whether he will ask.

A strong answer A strong response explains the leap from lettuce to mother and grounds it in the candy-store talk. One reader says Aron has taken in the town’s reasoning: a man shown a fool in one thing is doubted in all, so his father’s word about his mother falls with the lettuce. Another says the lettuce has little to do with it; the doubt was already there, the shame only gives it a voice, and Aron still says “I don’t know if I will or not.” The best answers hear the anger and the hurt together, and claim nothing about what Aron will do.

Critical thinking

1. Aron offers to call off the engagement, saying, “I’m not good enough for you now.” By whose standard is he not good enough?

What it asks It asks the student to judge where Aron gets his sense of what he is worth. The twins “had known so long that they were sons of a wealthy man that the feeling was hard to lose.” Aron tells Abra, “I think we’re poor,” though he does not know whether his father lost all his money: “That’s what they say.” Asked who “they” are, he says, “Why, everybody.” He fears her mother and father “won’t want you to marry me.” Then he says, “Maybe I ought to call it off myself,” and “Well, I’m not good enough for you now,” and “You think I haven’t seen the difference in your father?” Abra calls him crazy, but “she had seen the difference in her father too.” He turns down her plan to run the ranch, and Abra answers, “I’m going to be Aron’s wife, no matter what he is.” He says, “I’m not going to give up college.”

A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis about whose standard Aron uses, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says it is the town’s: Aron knows only “what they say,” and he judges himself by money and standing, just as Salinas judged his father by one shipment. The strongest objection is that no one says it to him; he says it himself, out of a feeling of wealth that was “hard to lose,” and that he is right about Abra’s father. A good revision might say the standard was his all along and the town only made it loud, or that he takes the town’s word because it fits what he already feared. The best answers set his standard beside Abra’s “no matter what he is.”

2. Abra says that if the lettuce had reached New York fresh, “everybody’d been bowing to him.” Was Adam’s idea foolish, or only unlucky?

What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. Adam’s idea began with an article about a mastodon “in the ice thousands of years,” and with little cups in the icebox: “you can keep things if you get them cold enough.” He tested lettuce in fine ice and waxed paper, and found “it will keep three weeks and come out fresh and good.” He went to look at the railroad’s fruit cars. Will warned him off: “You get your cars stuck on a siding and you’ll lose the shipment.” The narrator says that a man of one idea becomes obsessed. As Adam got ready, businessmen called him “farseeing, forward-looking, progress-minded,” but no one invested. The lettuce was consigned “at a fine price,” and while the train was out, “Even Will Hamilton wondered whether he had not been wrong with his advice.” Then a snow slide, a warm spell and “a confusion of orders—no one’s fault” turned it to “horrible slop.” Afterward, in the town’s voice, “Adam was a fool,” and Will “recalled that he had not only argued against it but had foretold in detail what would happen.” Even Sam Hamilton is recalled as “a fool too.” Adam says, “It was a whole lot of accidents.” In the candy store Abra says, “If it had worked everybody’d been bowing to him.” The chapter shows one failed shipment. It does not say whether the idea would ever work, and Lee says Adam still has about nine thousand dollars and the ranch.

A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the idea was only unlucky: Adam tested it patiently, the lettuce was sold “at a fine price,” and snow, heat and a mix-up that was “no one’s fault” ruined it; the town’s swing from “farseeing” to “a fool” proves Abra’s point. The strongest objection is that Adam bet a fortune on one try with no plan for delay, after Will named the siding, and the narrator calls him “obsessed.” A good revision might say the idea was sound and the venture rash, or that luck decided the verdict but not the risk. The best answers say what would make an idea foolish, keep the town’s judgment apart from their own, and claim nothing from later history or later chapters.

Vocabulary definitions