Grumbling, he came to stand beside me. I held Donna in my arms, and David stood beside Grant. Grandma focused the camera and took our picture.
I put the camera back into the glove compartment, and kissed a weeping Grandma goodbye.
"They wun't nothing seem right, with you folks gone!" she exclaimed.
I told her to say goodbye to Hellwig for us, and I climbed into the front seat with the children. I took a last look at our prim white house, gleaming in the morning sunlight, and at all the other prim houses on the palm-lined street.
Then Grant started the car, and we were off!
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS A long, hot, uncomfortable ride. The children, who ordinarily ride in the back seat, had to ride in front because the back seat was piled to the ceiling with clothes, pans, boxes and suitcases.
Grant had fastened an old blanket over the trailer to protect its contents from dirt and wind. It wouldn't stay fastened, though, and when we were on the highway headed toward Banning he had to stop the car and get out about every ten minutes to adjust it and to see how the things in the trailer were riding. The ironing board was slowly working its way loose from the ropes with which he had tied it to David's bed. Several books had slid forward from the crevice where I had tucked them, and their pages were fluttering and waving as though, I thought sentimentally, in farewell to the life we had known.
"Those mmm things," Grant mumbled.