Dust has taken over. There’s no rain. There’s no sun. There’s no hope. His family, has been living on the little money and food that can be scraped up from their desolate town. The father of twin girls is hard-working and owns a small family farm on the plains of Texas. With the dust blowing out any form of income, he works part-time at a nearby auto repair shop with his brother. Every morning is a blessing to see his family alive. His baby girl is sick with pneumonia and her time is running out. The dust has gotten into her petite body and has eaten it up. His other little girl feels the tragedy to come and although her parents try to keep hopes high she can’t help but feel gloom with her twin and closest friend slowly dying. The coughing keeps everyone awake at night but they’d rather be awake hearing her coughs than asleep with silence. Her sister spends her days by the bed reading to her, playing cards, and reminiscing of holidays with all of their favorite relatives and favorite holiday treats. They day dream about the most delectable ham hock from one of the fattest pigs; creamy, sweet potato pies, fresh, buttered ears of corn, tart, pickled beets and cabbage, and the very best of all, spiced carrot cake.
As his family starves from giving most of their minuscule amounts of food to try to save his daughter, the farm is slowly blowing away. The once prominent food source is dying. The large red barn in the yard is left with one cow and one horse that are both starving to death. Now too weak to ride, his kind-hearted horse of 3 years, lays in her stable nibbling at a special treat of dandelion weed that crept through the broken slats of the decrepit barn. His cow now too feeble and her utter too dry to produce any sort of milk, tries desperately to find some sort of grazing. The man checks in daily and tries to ignore the obvious signs of starvation and thirst; but he is mainly checking to see if they have survived another night.
The dust and poor cropping has killed all native grasses and crops, making grazing and living impossible. As the exhausted, weakened man walks a few miles into town everyday he keeps an eye out for any sort of grass to shove in his pockets of his scraggly overalls and save for his livestock. At work, he spends his days fixing cars of the rich folks in the east. When his boss is not looking the desperate man looks under seats, or in glove compartments for any money, food, or anything to be sold to the junkyard. One afternoon, he plans to work late and walk home in the dark. When his boss is long gone and asks the man to lock up, he decides to go into the back garage where only the boss works. He uncovers his latest project and it’s no wonder why only his boss works back there. Underneath is a 1931 Cadillac 452A Roadster, a car only owned by the highest, wealthiest class and definitely not by anyone in Texas. As he carefully digs through the glove box, he feels something from under the seat. He looks down to find two dollars, enough to buy a loaf of bread, some milk, other groceries and a beer. With hope and happiness in his eyes, he lightly walks home with a skip in between.
After sharing his news with his wife and the girls, everyone seems to share a shimmer of hope and joy. After kissing his wife goodbye early the next morning, the excited man walks down to the store, which seems about as quiet and deserted as his farm. With the small amount of money he found and some of his earnings from the shop, Saul buys only the necessities: one loaf of bread, a half-gallon of milk, a jar of strawberry jam, a head of cabbage, a bottle of his favorite beer and two jelly pastries for the twins’ eighth birthday. As he leaves the store, he hears some strange banging out by the dumpster. He turns the corner to see a cashier dumping out rotten produce. Cherry and Mabel are his first thought and when the cashier leaves, he grabs a small crate by the dumpster and fills it with what he has discovered. With luck on his side, the once distressed man has sprouted new hope to revitalize his animals and his family.
When he gets home and shares his treats, even his ailing daughter looks brighter. After feeding the animals small portions of the rotten vegetables, he leaves the crate just outside the barn. With just one small serving, the two animals’ strength is already noticeable. The man closes the gates of the horse and cow’s pens but because he was so eager to finally drink a beer, he forgets to lock the gates for the night. The night goes on and the family, including his sick one, sleeps soundly and peacefully.
Late the next morning as he recovers, from the enjoyable feast of last night, the refreshed man wonders out to the barn to find it wide open and the crate that held the fermenting produce kicked over and emptied. A wave of panic reaches him as he knows that there might not ever be anything more to feed his livestock. Any hopes of rejuvenating his work horse and his dairy cow quickly diminish. Assuming that raccoons are the culprit, he becomes even more distressed to find his two barn animals lying on their sides with swollen bellies, groaning in misery because of obvious gluttony. He becomes furious at their stupidity, but soon calms to realize that they are animals with no reason and is heart broken to know that their imminent, painful death is destined. All of his efforts to restore his beloved livestock have proven to become a far-fetched idea.
Within the next week his poor, old cow reaches her fate; surprisingly, his frail horse manages to withstand her ailment and carry on scrounging around for her favorite dandelion weeds. Although for a time his delicate baby girl seemed brighter, the dark, gloomy disease of the dust catches up to her and sweeps her away in her sleep. Her gentle sister and companion is somber and broken and as the feeble horse drags the small coffin to the family’s nearby grave site, the hopeless man holds his remaining child in his arms healing her with compassion and hoping that she will find the strength to live on without her best friend. As his family mourns the loss of his beautiful child, he holds his sweet daughter close as his anchor of desire for a better future and end to his family’s despair. The dust bowl has taken everything from his family even the most important feeling, hope.