An American Idyll / The Life of Carleton H. Parker

months in Europe, his serious objective being, on his return, to act as Extension Secretary to Professor Stephens of the University of California, who was prep

lege. Carl could have his trip to Europe and get an option, perhaps, on a tent in Persia. A friend was telling me recently of running into Carl on the street just before he left for Eu

Beatrice Webb's in London-what knowing them always meant to him! They, perhaps, have forgotten him; but meeting the Webbs and Graham Wallas and that English

to me. Meanwhile he learned much, studied the coolie question, investigated mine-workings, was entertained by his old college mates-mining experts themselves-in Johannesburg. There was the letter telling of the bull fight at Zanzibar, or Delagoa Bay, or some seafaring port thereabouts, that broke his heart, it was such a disappointment-"it made a Kappa tea look gory by comparison." And the letter that regretfully admitted that perhaps, after all, Persia

in the same room with a Freshman whom I was supposed to be "rushing" hard-when I heard a soft whistle-our whistle-under my window. My heart stopped be

formally engaged, on a bench up in the Deaf and Dumb Asylum grounds-our favorite trysting-place. It would have been foolish to waste a new dress on that night. I was clad

not please him altogether, and finally my father, a lawyer himself, persuaded him to go into law. Carl Parker in l

pany, for Carl to be a bond-salesman on a salary that assured matrimony within a year, though in no affluence, and the bottom all out of the law business and no enthusiasm for it anyway, we held a consultation and decided for bonds and ma

ney. We never did care in our lives, and never would have cared, no matter what our income might be. Undoubtedly that was the main reason we were so blissful on such a small salary in University work-we could never think, at the time, of anything much we were doing without. I remember that the happiest Christmas we almost ever had was over in the country, when we spent under two dollars for all of us. We were absolutely down to bed-rock that year anyway. (It was just aft

ys loved tramping more than anything else, and just prowling around the streets arm-in-arm, ending perhaps with an ice-cream soda. Not over-costly, any of it. I have kept some little reminder of almo

en Idaho could have brought us more joy than our seventy-five-mile trip up the Rogue River in Southern Oregon. We hired an old buckboard and two ancient, almost immobile, so-called horses,-they needed scant attention,-and with provisions, gun, rods, and sleeping-bags,

knew I could not cook-I had planned to take a course in Domestic Science on graduation; however, he preferred to marry me earlier, inexperienced, than later, experienced. But evidently he thought even a low-grade moron could boil rice. The bride of his hea

per: trout rolled in cornmeal and fried, corn on the cob just garnered from a willing or unwilling farmer that afternoon, corn-bread,-the most luscious corn-bread in the world, baked camper-style by the man of the party,-and red, red apples, eaten by two people who had waited four years for just that. Evenings in a sandy nook by the river's edge, watching the stars come out above the water. Adventures, such as losing Chocolada, the brown seven

g the largest cooking utensil for boiling what was boiled, and all the food tasted of Ivory soap for two days; but we did not mind even that. And then, after three weeks, back to skirts and collars and civil

money a month before I was married, I jumped to keeping two of us on sixty dollars, which was what was left after the rent was paid. I am not rationalizing when I say I am glad that we did not have a cent more. It was a real sporting event to make both ends meet! And we did it, and saved a dollar or so, just to show we could. Any and every thing w

ut to accept it, when the panic came, and it was all for retrenchment in banks. Then we planned farming, planned it with determination. It was too awful, those good-byes. Each got worse and harder than the last. We had divine days in betw

March, after six months of Seattle, we were called back to the San Francisco office. Business