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This morning they were here for the melons: about sixty of them waiting patiently by the two stake trucks and the old blue-painted school bus. Most of them, including the few women here, were Chicano migrants, who had arrived in their old junk cars that were parked in a line behind the trucks. Others, the Valley Agricultural Workers Association had brought out from Phoenix, dropping them off at 5:30 A. M. on the outskirts of Edna, where the state road came out of the desert to cross the U. S. highway. The growers and the farm workers called it Junction. There was an Enco gas station on the corner, then a storefront with a big V. A. W. A. sign in the window that was the farm labor hiring hall-closed until next season-and then a cafe-bar with a red neon sign that said beer-wine. The rest of the storefronts in the block were empty-dark, gutted structures that were gradually being destroyed by the desert wind.

The farm workers stood around on the sidewalk waiting to be hired, waiting for the labor contractors to finish their coffee, finish talking to the foremen and the waitresses, and come out and point to them and motion them toward the stake trucks and the blue-painted school bus.

The dozen or so whites were easy to spot. Most of them were worn-out looking men in dirty, worn-out clothes that had once been their own or someone else's good clothes.

The Chicanos, in their straw hats and baseball caps, plaid shirts, and Levis or khakis, with their lunch in paper bags, felt the chill. They would look at the sky knowing it was near the end of the season and soon most of them would be heading for California, to the Imperial and San Joaquin valleys. Some of them-once in a while for something to do-would shield their faces from the light and look in the window of the hiring hall, at the rows of folding chairs, at the display of old V. A. W. A. strike posters and yellowed newspaper pages with columns marked in red. They would stare at the photograph of Emiliano Zapata on the wall behind the counter, at the statue of the Virgin Mary on a stand, and try to read the hand-lettered announcements: Todo el mundo esta invitado que venga a la resada- Larry Mendoza came out of the cafe-bar with a carry-out cup of coffee in each hand-one black, one cream and sugar-and walked over to the curb, beyond the front of the old blue-painted school bus. Some of the farm workers stared at him-a thin, bony-shouldered, weathered-looking Chicano in clean Levis and high-heeled work boots, a Texas straw funneled low over his eyes-and one of them, also a Chicano, said, "Hey, Larry, tell Julio you want me. Tell him write my name down at the top. " Larry Mendoza glanced over at the man and nodded, but didn't say anything.