Off to Texas

We were leaving Wendling.  Mom and I were to drive the Hudson Terraplane to Denton, Texas, where he had found us an apartment.  Mom's sister, Carldene, had returned from Georgia, where her husband David had been training as an infantryman and had shipped off to Europe.  Carldene was a jovial aunt, barely out of high school, who had locked me in the closet, had told me the barber was going to cut off my ears, and otherwise amused herself at my expense.  Now she had a little girl not yet two years old.
Grandad said Carldene should accompany us to Texas.
I was leaving GD.  No more games in the woods or meadow, no more walks across the mill pond to town to watch the loggers with their big suspenders, their stagged pants, fit to length by chopping the cuffs off with an axe, their high laced spiked boots, their muscular strutting walk.
Not knowing what to expect I stared out of the back seat window as we drove down the valley.  We stopped in Glenwood to fill up with gas and we took 99 south.
The Hudson Terraplane lasted until we got to Stockton, California.  I wandered big eyed around the hotel while telegrams passed back and forth and soon the four of us boarded a train.  Along the way we were joined by a Captain's wife, who also had a daughter, named Kim.
My little cousin began showing spots, and the two sisters told everyone she just had  a rash, but it turned out to be measles. (Nicky, you mustn't tell) they were afraid we would be put off the train.  The wife was quite vexed when Kim came down with measles soon after we arrived.
Denton,Texas turned out to be a wonderful place.
Our apartment was four rooms on the second floor of a large house owned by a lady from Arkansas who chewed tobacco and carried with her a tin can to spit in.  She had two children, both a couple of years older than I.  Kim and her mother briefly resisted in an adjoining apartment until officers ousting became available