| OCR Text |
Show also faded. Except for the colors, they all looked alike: steps leading up to a small arched porch, a bay window on the first floor, a bay window on the second, and a dormer window in the attic, all profusely surrounded with elaborate woodwork which made me think maybe elves had lived there once. Because it was the only green one, it was easy to find in the fog. My room was the one with the dormer window, I could see everything-the blue sky and the blue San Francisco Bay with the white and orange ferryboats crossing back and forth to Oakland. And the Berkeley Hills in the distance. Pa and I had stopped here a year earlier because the train did. We looked around and found Mrs, Maxwell's boarding house, and then we found Almo's Livery, and we became hack drivers. Whenever time or luck or money ran out for Pa, he just walked to the nearest railroad depot, got on a train and got off if he liked the looks of a place. The first place I remember was Omaha, Nebraska. I was five. On the day my mother died my pa took my hand and we climbed aboard a Union Pacific train. The next day we got off at Rock Springs, Wyoming, because Pa liked the looks of it when the train slowed down. We became ranch hands. We stayed there until hard times came and the ranchers could not pay their hired help. One day we got back on a train and got off at San Francisco, California, |
