We arrived at Royston only to find that Benny Carriker had changed his mind. He wanted to stay on the farm until the first of the year, and of course we couldn't move in. So, now what? It would be four months before we could get possession of the farm. So we moved in with Mama and Papa in Hamlin and I looked for a job. I thought just about anything would do for four months. I signed on at the Gyp Mill and went to work making wall boards. I worked just one day at the mill, the hardest work I had done in years. When the alarm clock sounded the next morning, it was raining all over the place. It took me about five seconds to decide what to do. Of course I had been thinking quite a bit about it before. The rain merely pushed me over the line of decision. The road was not paved from Hamlin to the mill. It would be a mess every time it rained. What's more, the work there was four times as hard as building boxes in California. So I shut off the alarm and rolled over to go back to sleep. Ima asked me what I was going to do. I told her I was going to get some sleep and then go to California. And as usual she thought I was crazy. Well, I sort of agreed with Ima, but not altogether. This job would just barely pay for rent and groceries. Out west we could live on half my salary and save the other half. So, Burbank, we're coming again. But this time I had an additional problem. For the first time, I was about out of gasoline ration coupons. And when I went to the ration board in Hamlin, the lady told me I would have to work at least six months before I could get gas coupons to go somewhere else. I was in trouble and I could see that I was going to have trouble convincing her. But I told her the whole story. I really spread it on thick and made it sound rather pitiful--at least I thought I did. I told her I knew I was needed on the farm here, but the other man had changed his mind and I couldn't get on the farm. It was not my planning nor my fault that I couldn't move onto the farm. I couldn't help it. And now I was needed in war work in Burbank. After all my pleading she had the same answer, "No gas coupons." Well, I could see that I was getting nowhere with the lady. I figured I had to change my approach or I would never get to Burbank. So I stopped begging and pleading with her, and with a little more firmness in my voice, I said, "Now look, Lady, I'm going to California and I am going to get gas coupons one way or another, and however I get them, it is going to take the same amount of gas to make the trip, and if you will just issue me the coupons it will save me an awful lot of trouble and I will get on out there faster and get on the job sooner." Well, I could hardly believe my ears. She asked me how much gas I needed. I told her and she gave me the coupons. We were on our way west again. If all Americans had helped out as much as I did during the war, I know we would have lost to the enemy.