he fish into messes
for Mrs. Olsen, Maggie Donahue, and herself. She enjoyed her gossip with
each of them, and, returning home, plunged joyfully into the task of
putting the neglected house in order. She sang as she worked, and ever
as she sang the magic words of the boy danced and sparkled among the
notes: OAKLAND IS JUST A PLACE TO START FROM.

Everything was clear as print. Her and Billy's problem was as simple as
an arithmetic problem at school: to carpet a room so many feet long, so
many feet wide, to paper a room so many feet high, so many feet around.
She had been sick in her head, she had had strange lapses, she had
been irresponsible. Very well. All this had been because of her
troubles--troubles in which she had had no hand in the making. Billy's
case was hers precisely. He had behaved strangely because he had been
irresponsible. And all their troubles were the troubles of the trap.
Oakland was the trap. Oakland was a good place to start from.

She reviewed the events of her married life. The strikes and the hard
times had caused everything. If it had not been for the strike of the
shopmen and the fight in her front yard, she would not have lost her
baby. If Billy had not been made desperate by the idleness and the
hopeless fight of the teamsters, he would not have taken to drinking. If
they had not been hard up, they would not have taken a lodger, and Billy
would not be in jail.

Her mind was made up. The city was no place for her and Billy, no
place for love nor for babies. The way out was simple. They would leave
Oakland. It was the stupid that remained and bowed their heads to fate.
But she and Billy were not stupid. They would not bow their heads. They
would go forth and face fate.--Where, she did not know. But that would
come. The world was large. Beyond the encircling hills, out through the
Golden Gate, somewhere they would find what they desired. The boy had
been wrong in one thing. She was not tied to Oakland, even if she was
married. The world was free to her and Billy as it had been free to the
wandering generations before them. It was only the stupid who had been
left behind everywhere in the race's wandering. The strong had gone on.
Well, she and Billy were strong. They would go on, over the brown Contra
Costa hills or out through the Golden Gate.

The day before Billy's release Saxon completed her meager preparations
to receive him. She was without money, and, except for her resolve not
to of