"If I’d of knowed it would be like this I wouldn’ of came. I’d a studied nights ’bout tractors back home an’ got me a three-dollar job. Fella can live awful nice on three dollars a day, an’ go to the pitcher show ever’ night, too."
Rose of Sharon looked apprehensive. "You’re gonna study nights ’bout radios," she said. He was long in answering. "Ain’t you?" she demanded.
"Yeah, sure. Soon’s I get on my feet. Get a little money."
She rolled up on her elbow. "You ain’t givin’ it up!"
"No – no – ‘course not. But – I didn’ know they was places like this we got to live in."
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 20. Connie’s American Dream is not what he imagined it to be. In an argument with Rose of Sharon he says that if he had known that things would be as bad as they are in their quest for a better life in California, he would have taken a job as a tractor man for three dollars a day. This foreshadows Connie’s later departure.