So Carrie was fastened into her trailer again, and the sedan rattled southward all day, through peach orchards and vineyards where the grapevines were fastened to short stakes so that they looked like bushes instead of vines.
"It's . . . real sightly country," said Grandma, who felt much better after her rest. "If only a body could settle down, I can't figure any place much nicer. Them trees now, with the sun slanting through.--We ain't stopping here?"
Yes, the sedan, with the trailer swaying after it, was banging into a tiny village of brown and white cottages, with green gardens between them and stately eucalyptus trees shading them, while behind them stretched evenly spaced young fruit trees. Before the one empty cottage the sedan stopped. The Beechams and Miss Joyce went in.
There was little furniture in the clean house, but Grandma, dropping down on a wooden chair, looked around her with bright eyes. "A sitting room!" she said. "A sitting room! Seems like we were real folks again, just for a little while. Grampa, you fetch in the clock and set it on that shelf, will you?"
Grandpa brought in the old Seth Thomas, its hands pointing to half-past three. "Tick-tock! Tick-tock!" it said, as contentedly as if it had always lived there.
The children went tiptoeing, hobbling, rushing through the clean, bare rooms, their voices echoing as they called back their news. "Gramma, there's a real bathroom!" "Gramma, soon's you feel better you can bake a pie in this gas stove!" "Gramma, here's an e-_lec_-tric refrigerator! And a washing machine! And a screened porch with a table to eat at!"
Good California smells of eucalyptus trees and, herbs and flowers drifted through open doors and windows, together with the chuckling, scolding, joyous clamor of mocking birds.
"I . . . I wish we didn't have to move on again!" Grandma said.
"It's a pretty good set-up," Grandpa agreed. "Good school over yonder; and a church--and big enough garden for all our garden sass and to can some." He was ticking off the points on his fingers. "And a chicken-house, and then this here cooperative farm where the folks all work together and share the profits."