Alice fixed supper for them that night. They ate at a long table presided over by Clay Tatro. The children were so noisy they could barely hear themselves over the racket. Even quiet little Red was happily chatting away with the Tatro kids. Emaline thought they might enjoy having neighbors so close after the isolation of the farm. Alice said most of the families in Millwood had children and there were plenty Red’s age.

That Sunday, they took all the children in both cars and drove all the way to the ocean, to a little town called Seaside. The children frolicked with Molly in the surf while Emaline stood gazing out at the mighty Pacific. She had spent most of her life in places where water was in short supply. Here it was infinite, with a breadth and power she could not have imagined. To live here, within an hour’s drive of such a place, made their long and difficult journey seem worthwhile. The water was still chilly, but she kicked off her shoes and waded with the children, barefoot in the surf. It felt like the beginning of something. She took Red by the hand and led him to where they could look down over the beach and the sea from a low hill. They could see the breakers building far out in the ocean, the powerful waves rolling in one after another until they crashed in the surf.

“Mom,” the boy asked, “is that ocean going to drown us?”

She tousled his hair. “No, silly. Not unless we’re fool enough to try to swim to Japan, and we’re not going to do that.”

“What’s a Japan?”

“It’s a country way on the other side of the water.”

“Do boys there have slingshots?”

“I’m sure they do.”

“Oh, boy! Can we go there sometime?”

“Maybe when you’re all grown up. Right now, we’re in a beautiful place, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. It’s beautiful. But I’m hungry.”

The following week, they moved into their rented company house and Jake started working at the mill. His job was outside, where the huge logs were pulled up from the river and into the mill. Tatro asked him where he wanted to work and Jake asked for something where he didn’t have to be inside all day, deafened by the clatter of machinery. It was dangerous work, but all the jobs in the mill were dangerous. Men lost fingers, arms, hands, legs, sometimes their lives when they were caught in the powerful saws or crushed by falling logs. Most of what pay they earned went to rent company houses or to buy food at the company commissary. Many of the men with large families were so in debt to the commissary that without a significant change in wages they would never be able to square things.