Summary

Chapter 17 is told from Charley’s point of view in the third person limited. At lunch, Denton proposed another creative plan for getting more help on the farm. He knew they needed to hire laborers later in the season and knew if they offered the same hourly wage as other farms, the black and Mexican laborers would end up working for the white farmers. He said even if they offered an hour for lunch and the white farmers offered only 15 minutes, somehow the white farms ended up with the labor. Alison, a white farmer himself, realized what Denton said was true but admitted he had never thought about it. Denton proposed they hire labor at $8 an hour instead of the local rate of $7.25. He added some caveats to his plan to make sure they got the most out of the laborers. Initially, they...