The thin dough sizzles in the pan of oil that has been re-used a thousand times. Ma pulls each piece out as it browns. She is so tard-- tard of waiting for Pa to find a job, tard of watching the young’uns starve, tard of life. She carefully sets the fried dough on flat rocks to give the pretense of the plates they left behind in Oklahoma. She doesn’t want plates, though.

What she desires is a dependable life. She would wake in the morning and go out to the chicken coop, and get some eggs, and fry ‘em sunny side up. She would wake her children sweetly, serve ‘em their breakfast, send ‘em out to do their chores on the farm. These are faint memories she holds of her own early years-- faint, because today’s hardships have all but blotted out yesterday’s happiness.

Instead, she carefully sets the fried dough on flat rocks to give the pretense of the plates they left behind. Hunger had awakened her children earlier than right; in fact, nothing seems right anymore. They ravenously gobble down their breakfast, what little there is, but their eyes plead for more.

The mother of five looks into the dulled faces of her children. Although they are streaked with dirt and mud, she has long since stopped trying to clean them up. The appearance of cleanliness means less water, and they need clean water more than clean faces.

The men in the camp are surveying their tents, looking for holes that could let in rain, hoping they won’t find any. The women are watching the men, daydreaming of the future that would give them a cute little house with a white picket fence. The children are watching their mothers, but they have long forgotten what it was like to have a roof over their heads.

Many of the littl’uns want to play in the open desert, but their parents know better. They’s dogs out there; wild and rabid, abandoned at the start of the Depression. If ya listen hard, you can just hear ‘em howling in their hunger, not much different from a pack of wolves.

Don’ go out there, ya hear? Stay where they’s people.

But, Ma!

I ain’t kidding ya, Roger, ya won’t be a’going out there in them boonies.

Yes, ma’am.

That’s a good boy.

When a boy listens to his mother, and treats her right-- that’s the boy that grows up to be the strong, compassionate leader. The perfect mother will teach her son to be a gentleman above all else, and that’s what this here mother has gone and done.

‘Course, there ain’t no such thing as a perfect mother.

From the other side of the camp, a crying wail floats through a dirty tent wall, a wail filled with hunger and sorrow-- feelings that a new baby should never have. And the mother can’t give her nothing to ease the pain because she hasn’t had any sustenance, herself. She’s sick, and maybe it’s a cold, and maybe it’s pneumonia, but she just can’t tell. She swaddles the baby in her arms and tries to comfort her, but her attempts are futile. The embarrassment of it all is just killing her slowly. Mayhap it’s the hunger in her belly, too.

Another mother-- well, soon to be, that is-- sits in her tent, worrying about her husband, who’s out a’looking for work. She wonders where her next meal will come from, because now she’s eating for two. Would it be so bad to sneak into one o’ them orchards and grab a peach or two? One for her, one for the baby. They wouldn’t miss two peaches, now, would they?

A small boy is taking care of his younger brother, feeling the strain of parenthood before having reached the age of ten. The small lean-to they call home is a bird’s nest of sticks an’ bedsheets, not nearly enough cover to keep ‘em dry in the heavy downpours his father was always a’wishin’ for in Oklahoma. They sleep on a bed of straw, dirty and foul-- no doubt stolen from a horse’s stall. Nobody ‘round here knows that they don’t have no parents anymore, that they’re scavengin’. He always tells ‘em that his ma’s out a’ visiting, and his pa’s a’ looking for a job. In that little, uneducated mind o’ his, he’s a’ thinking that this here depression is all life’s about.

The camp reeks of death, an unforgettable scent that cannot be described. Loss of life is not an uncommon thing, here in Hooverville. People die every day, but still the number of residents steadily increases.

The rocks in the surrounding desert are silent witnesses that watch the starving families surrounded by the fed and watered groves and orchards that punctuate the barren landscape. It rains frequently, but when it doesn’t, the sun beats down on the necks of every man workin’ in the fields and every woman carin’ for her babies.

A father comes back to his home that night, bearing good news. Life’s not over, he says. He’s gotten him a job-- at least for the next couple o’ days. When Pa takes the 16-year old son and goes off to work in them big white cotton fields, Ma stays to take care of her other four chillun. They eat good tonight. Pork chops and mashed taters, and for the next few days, it’ll be a good life.

Pa, Roger’s always wanted a dog. Just a little pup. An’ he’s been so good.

We got mouths to feed, he says, a dog’ll just be one more.

You’re right, save the money for food.

The 16-year old boy had just been to work for the first time in the new country. His eyes were opened to the cruelty of the world, and as he walked through the camp that night, the new knowledge was reflected in his countenance. Down in them cotton fields, all the men were a’ lying and a’ cheating to get ahead. An’ he asks his father why, an’ he said a little sayin’ the boy would never never forget.

He said, Son, life ain’t fair, ya’ jus’ gotta live it.

An’ here’s this boy, that’s got a good mind and an honest heart. How ya gonna live, he thinks, if ya can’t even support your own fambly?

He sees a woman sitting in her tent, two children clinging to her. Her husband is not in sight, and the children appear to be hers, but they’re not. Her sister had died weeks before, and left her children with the widow, without food or comfort of any kind. Her skin is shiny and pink, burned from the blazing sun, illuminated in the dying light and fading glow. Her fingernails are dirty, and her hands are scarred from the cotton she has picked, but nothing she does seems to help.

Ma’am? The boy calls out to her.

I can’t give ya nothing, she says. I don’t have nothing for myself.

But, Ma’am? My father an’ I, well, we jus’ got jobs. I got a nickel here. Please take it for the littl’uns.

The widow looks up at the boy, an he’s jus’ the nicest young man she seen in a long time. She reaches up her hand and the boy gives her the coin. She rubs its face with her thumb and returns her gaze to the boy. She takes his hand with tears in her eyes.

God bless ya’, son.

Late that night, a toddler cries in her sleep, waking up after a wretched nightmare. Ma’s so tired that she don’t even hear her baby fussing.

Ma, Georgia’s wakin’ the camp. Ma?

The teenage daughter goes to comfort Georgia herself. She’s seen her Ma hold the baby, and she mimics the cradling motion. The baby girl feels awkward in her frail arms. The girl sets on the floor and rocks the baby back and forth. She tests her luck by singing a song her Mama used to sing.



Have I done any good in the world today?


Have I helped anyone in need?


Have I cheered up the sad, and made someone feel glad?


If not, I have failed indeed.


So wake up, and do something more


Than dream of your mansion above.


Doin’ good is a pleasure, a joy beyond measure,


A blessing of duty and love.


The baby quiets down and begins to fall asleep, lulled by her sister’s singing. The girl holds the sleeping baby in her arms and thinks about the words to the song. And she thinks, if I do good every day, what’s to stop others from doin’ likewise? If ever’body did good, why, we’d all have jobs and nobody’d be starvin’.

Then she got to thinkin’, it’s the people that do bad that’s gone and done this to us. An’ if it be that ever’body’s done that to ever’body, it must be that doin’ bad is more natural. Not for me, though.

I’m a’ gonna do good ‘til it kills me.

Before the sun rises from its bed beyond the horizon, Pa gets up with his son to get back to the fields. He’s got an idea that he’s itching to tell. His employers have some pups, and he wants to buy one for his youngest son. He’s figured that his son needs a childhood, and a pup can give it to him. He works harder and faster in that field than he ever has in his lifetime, and somehow, by some miracle, he gathers up enough money to buy a childhood.

The men come back to the camp, smiles fit to burst on their faces. Roger races to the dog and gets a faceful of a wet tongue. Ma comes out o’ the tent and kisses her man-- he has given his son what he needs, and she loves him. The family sets down while Ma prepares a dinner like no other, and the dog jumps up to lay on Pa’s lap.

A middle-aged woman limps over to the happy family, a camera in hand. She has a child on either side of her, but they don’t look hungry—something this family hasn’t seen in what feels like ages.

Can I take a picture of you all?

‘Course.

Ma tries to round up the whole family, but the woman stops her.

No, just of the man, the dog, and your sons.

She kneels down, and the dog goes to lick Pa’s face just before she takes the picture.

It will be a beautiful picture. Thank you.

She goes to leave, but just as soon as she turns, the teenage girl remembers the promise she had made to herself the previous night.

Will ya stay for supper?

I can’t, you’ve already given me so much.

The girl doesn’t understand, but she doesn’t question it either.

I’m Caroline Gordon, and this here’s my Ma, Helen.

Dorothea Lange. It’s a pleasure to meet you.