Summary
Chapter 6
Bud wakes up late and hurries over to the mission. There is a long line and he runs down to the end. A man tells him it is closed and the people at the end are the last ones. Bud tries to reason with him, but the man angrily tells him everyone has a sob story and there are rules.
Suddenly a hand clamps down on his shoulder. A man in overalls calls him “Clarence” and asks what took him so long. Bud is confused. The man points to a woman with two children and tells him to get in line with his family. Bud catches on and joins them. Others in line aren’t happy but they see how big his pretend father is and say nothing.
Bud is very grateful but cannot say anything or he will give it away. They all stand and wait and finally make it to the front of the building. Many people are pointing and looking at a billboard with a white family in a car wearing nice clothes and smiling. The words say “There’s no place like America today!” Everyone scoffs at this.
Inside it is quiet and people are scraping and eating seriously. They get in line, receive food, and sit down. Bud is delighted with his oatmeal, and even more so when his pretend mother takes out a packet of brown sugar and sprinkles some on top.
Bud says goodbye to them, and one of the kids sticks his tongue out. Bud doesn’t blame him.
Chapter 7
Bud pushes open the library’s heavy door and inhales deeply. Libraries have special smells, smells that make people fall asleep. Sometimes people even drool, which is what makes librarians very angry.
Bud wanders around looking for Miss Hill but cannot find her. Finally he asks another woman and she asks if he has heard the news—Miss Hill got married and lives in Chicago now! Bud does not know where that is so the woman pulls out an atlas to show him. They figure out how long it would take to walk there, and she concludes it would be fifty-four hours. Bud thanks her but is very disappointed, because now he does not know who to turn to for help.
As he leaves the library he thinks to himself that this may be one of the doors Momma was talking about.
Chapter 8
Bud is sleeping when he hears a crack. He grasps his pocketknife and just when he is about to attack he hears a familiar voice—it is Bugs! Bud calms down and catches his breath and asks what he is doing.
Bugs is also on the lam and says he is riding the rails and had heard Bud left the Amoses’ house and would probably be at the library. He wants to know if Bud wants to come with him out West to pick fruit. Bud asks what riding the rails is like, while the curious Bugs asks after his beating of Todd. Bud decides to go, and they both spit in their hands and shake, making a pact that they are brothers. Bugs suggests going to the mission to see if anyone knows where they can hop a train.
The boys learn they will have to go to “Hooperville” outside of Flint, but no one knows exactly where that is. They walk and walk and finally start to smell food and hear music. They then hear talking and see a fire. The Hooperville is many shacks and huts thrown together and there is a huge fire. There are white and black people there. Bugs whispers to him that this is a cardboard jungle. They flip a coin to see who will go talk to someone.
Bud loses so he walks up to the fire and asks a man if this is Hooperville. The men laugh and say it is a Hooverville—the Flint version. The towns are named after President Herbert Hoover. The man asks Bud if he is hungry and scared about what will happen tomorrow, and when Bud assents, the man welcomes him here. Bugs joins him and they look around at the vast city. There are lots of people, all orange with the fire’s glow. The man explains that all of the Hoovervilles around the country look like this and nothing is any better elsewhere.
Another man says they will give the boys food but have to do Kitchen Police duty later. The boys eagerly agree and scarf down the delicious muskrat stew. They begin doing the dishes and a little girl who is helping them begins to talk to Bud.
She introduces herself as Deza Malone and says she is going to Chicago but is from Pennsylvania. Bud says he is going there too. She asks where his father is and he says he does not know but thinks the man is in Grand Rapids. She says she is sorry to hear that and he says that it is okay, but to his surprise she says it is not okay because families are the most important things there are. He says his Momma told him the same thing. Bud realizes Deza has got him running his mouth, but that he doesn't mind, and adds that before he went to sleep his Momma would tell him that there was never a little boy anywhere, any time, who was as loved as he was. Deza comments thoughtfully that he carries his family inside him and he agrees.
She asks about the orphanage and he explains that he is on the lam. She is a bit skeptical but teases him that he is a “hero” to some folks, after a comment that he’d made earlier. A few minutes later she asks if he ever kissed a girl at the orphanage and he says no. She leans in and he worries that if he does not she would think he is scared of girls but if he does then she might blab. He smooshes his lips to hers. After a moment she smiles and says this is romantic, and points out the song “Shenandoah” playing somewhere. It is a sad song and Bud doesn’t much like it.
Deza looks at him and says she will never forget this night, and Bud thinks to himself he will not either.
Later Bud and Bugs ask Deza why the white family is sitting off on their own. Deza replies that they were invited to join the big fire, but even though they are extremely poor, they say they are white and do not take handouts.
The train will be leaving early in the morning so Bud and Bugs retire. Bud cannot sleep and wonders if going to California is the right thing to do. He looks in his suitcase at the rocks, all labeled with dates and places. Perhaps his father is somewhere around Flint. He looks at the picture of Herman Calloway and feels convinced that man is his father. He breathes deeply the smell of the blanket, which reminds him of Momma, and falls asleep.
Bud is woken by a yell saying the train is leaving early. Bud and Bugs scramble up and grab their stuff; Bud almost forgets his flier but another boy hands it to him. It seems like millions of boys and men are running toward the train.
When Bud sees the train it looks like a massive black genie with sparks flying around it. No one is getting on, though, and he sees four cop cars and eight cops with billy clubs standing near it. The cops warn the men and one says they sound like Commies and he has his own kids to feed. One, though, tosses down his club and says Pinkerton doesn't pay enough for this.
The train whistle blows and it stirs the Hooverville men, who all break for the train. Bugs gets on and Bud tosses him the suitcase. Bud cannot make it, and Bugs has to throw his suitcase back to him. Bud and a few others who didn’t make the train walk back and encounter one of the cops, who warns them that the Flint police are coming to break up the shantytown. Sure enough, they see it going up in flames.
Bud is disappointed but wonders if it was the right thing for him to stay in Flint. He looks at his flier again and is struck by how close “Calloway” is to “Caldwell”. This must mean something!
Chapter 9
Bud returns to the library after getting breakfast at the mission and asks to see the city book so he can figure out how far Flint is from Grand Rapids. He devises a plan to walk there. While he is doing that the librarian brings him a pictorial history of the Civil War for him to look at. He is utterly immersed in it and time flies by quickly.
The librarian gently tells him the library is closing, and gives him some food because she can tell he is hungry. Bud thanks her and leaves.
He grabs his hidden suitcase and thinks to himself that very soon he’ll be looking at his own father’s face.
That night he starts his walk toward Grand Rapids. The idea of Herman Calloway being his father had started off small like a seed that grows into a tree. It started when he saw the flier, then grew when he talked to other boys at the Home and burst out that his father was Calloway without exactly knowing why he said it. The idea grew when he thought of why Momma had those fliers and those rocks. The idea grew and grew until it was as tall as a maple.
Bud feels a sense of excitement—he is going West!
Chapter 10
Now, the narrative shifts, and we see that Bud has already left Flint and is in the country. It is very dark and the journey will be 120 miles. He is surprised at how the sounds are different out here. There are no people yelling or honking horns, but instead there are bugs and mice and cats yowling.
He walks and walks and walks and only makes it through three small towns. Suddenly a car bounces by over the hill, sees him, and stops and reverses. Bud ducks into the bushes. The man, who has dark skin and whom Bud assumes to be a soldier, whistles and calls out to him. Bud says nothing. The man continues and says that a young brown-skinned boy walking along the road outside of Ossowo, Michigan is not a normal sight. He calls out that the boy must be a long way from home, and since Bud does not answer, finally tells him he has a sandwich and an apple in the car, and maybe even some pop.
Bud cannot help himself and blurts out that he does not like mustard. The man replies that they can scrape it off. Bud hides his suitcase deeper and says to leave the food. The man says he has to show his face. He gets the food and pop and Bud cannot help himself but walk toward it.
The man is not a soldier but is wearing a cap. He holds the food back and tells Bud he feels uncomfortable with Bud being out here and he needs to know why. Bud is too tired to think of a lie but he tells him his name is Bud, not Buddy. The man gives him the pop.
The man asks about home but Bud knows he cannot say anything about the Home or the Amoses, so he blurts out that he ran away from Grand Rapids. The man thinks to himself, and comments that he just left there.
Bud asks to get his suitcase and the man walks him over to the bushes. Bud gets in the car but is horrified to see a cardboard box with the words “URGENT: CONTAINS HUMAN BLOOD!!!” on it. He realizes the man must be a vampire, so he locks the door, slides over to the driver’s side, and floors the car.
Analysis
Bud’s decision never to return to the Home brings him to the mission as well as the Hooverville, both places that offer a small reprieve from the distresses of the Depression. At both places Curtis limns characters who are poor, homeless, and technically lawless in some cases. Rather than depict them as ne’er-do-wells or lazy folk, he shows them as honest, hardworking Americans who have fallen on hard times but retain their dignity and moral codes. These people use humor and kindness to make the best of their situation and to help others who fall into straitened circumstances. The depth and breadth of the Depression has necessitated such behavior, but it is clear that Curtis sees the bulk of people as generally good and simply trying to get by. In an interview with Center for the Collaborative Classroom, Curtis spoke of his interest in the Hooverville: “[I] saw these places as great representations of what can be the best of human nature. People recognized the need to care for one another, to work toward maintaining peace, and to understand the sense of a shared destiny.”
Bud’s brief time at the Hooverville also gives Curtis a chance to demonstrate that the Depression touched all people regardless of race. Certainly African Americans were the “last hired, first fired” and their unemployment rate was double that of the nation as a whole—25%—but the economic disaster was remarkably widespread. In an interview with "Art Works" host Josephine Reed, Curtis explained, “families are torn apart by poverty and by the fact that one member cannot work. It's a tragedy that was taking place back during the Great Depression. And it's probably even a bigger tragedy now. Because we've had so much time go by. And it seems as though we could've done something in the meantime to protect people from having this happen.”
The white family at the Hooverville is curious to Bud because they sit apart from the others. Bud asks Deza about this and she replies that “my daddy said you got to feel sorry for them….when someone took them some food and blankets, the man said, ‘Thank you very much, but we’re white people. We ain’t in need of a handout” (77). This is an absurd and ironic thing for the man to say, as he and his family are clearly suffering, but Deza’s father’s pity is perhaps a more appropriate response because the white family is victimized by the racism of the era as well (obviously to a much lesser and different extent). They have irrationally internalized the assumption that white people do not fail and white people do not need help from the government or from black people; they would rather stubbornly hold on to these beliefs than accept assistance from people whom they’ve always considered beneath them. Just as Frederick Douglass detailed in his Autobiography with racism and slavery’s corrupting influence on the previously kind and compassionate Sophia Auld, Curtis shows that the ingrained adherence to white supremacy ends up hurting those who in most cases benefit from it. Another significant aspect of Curtis’s engagement with race is that though all of the main characters are black, they are not victims. Many depictions of African Americans in films or literature show them as poor or illiterate or “thugs” or druggies or listless children. Sure, Bud is an orphan, but during the Depression many, many children of all races and classes were. Lefty Lewis is an intelligent family man with a solid job. The Amoses have the resources to take in indigent children. And perhaps most conspicuously, the band members are financially stable and have a good standard or living. Young readers are thus exposed to black characters who do not conform to stereotypes.
Finally, one of the most powerful images in the text is that which Bud conjures for himself: a door opening and a door closing. This derives from a metaphor Bud’s Momma uses to explain to her son how sometimes things that seem bad are actually good because they are opening up a new opportunity or initiating a new phase of life. A door is, of course, a symbol of passage, with an open door symbolizing freedom of movement/opportunity and a closed door symbolizing frustration of efforts or finality. Bud understands what she is saying and uses this metaphor to orient himself in his life’s journey. The metaphor also allows readers to connect to the larger theme of Bud’s coming-of-age and to see very clearly the stages of young adulthood and self-awareness that he is traveling.
