An American Idyll | Page 2

the most perfect things in
my life."
An Eastern professor, who had visited at our home from time to time
wrote: "You have lost one of the finest husbands I have ever known.
Ever since I have known the Parker family, I have considered their
home life as ideal. I had hoped that the too few hours I spent in your
home might be multiplied many times in coming years. . . . I have
never known a man more in love with a woman than Carl was with
you."
So I write of him for these reasons: because I must, to ease my own
pent-up feelings; because his life was so well worth writing about;
because so many friends have sent word to me: "Some day, when you
have the time, I hope you will sit down and write me about Carl"--the
newer friends asking especially about his earlier years, the older friends
wishing to know of his later interests, and especially of the last months,
and of--what I have written to no one as yet--his death. I can answer
them all this way.
And, lastly, there is the most intimate reason of all. I want our children
to know about their father--not just his academic worth, his public

career, but the life he led from day to day. If I live till they are old
enough to understand, I, of course, can tell them. If not, how are they to
know? And so, in the last instance, this is a document for them.
C.S.P. March 17, 1919

AN AMERICAN IDYLL
CHAPTER I
Such hosts of memories come tumbling in on me. More than fifteen
years ago, on September 3, 1903, I met Carl Parker. He had just
returned to college, two weeks late for the beginning of his Senior year.
There was much concern among his friends, for he had gone on a two
months' hunting-trip into the wilds of Idaho, and had planned to return
in time for college. I met him his first afternoon in Berkeley. He was on
the top of a step-ladder, helping put up an awning for our sorority
dance that evening, uttering his proverbial joyous banter to any one
who came along, be it the man with the cakes, the sedate house-mother,
fellow awning-hangers, or the girls busying about.
Thus he was introduced to me--a Freshman of two weeks. He called
down gayly, "How do you do, young lady?" Within a week we were
fast friends, I looking up to him as a Freshman would to a Senior, and a
Senior seven years older than herself at that. Within a month I
remember deciding that, if ever I became engaged, I would tell Carl
Parker before I told any one else on earth!
After about two months, he called one evening with his pictures of
Idaho. Such a treat as my mountain-loving soul did have! I still have
the map he drew that night, with the trails and camping-places marked.
And I said, innocence itself, "I'm going to Idaho on my honeymoon!"
And he said, "I'm not going to marry till I find a girl who wants to go to
Idaho on her honeymoon!" Then we both laughed.
But the deciding event in his eyes was when we planned our first long

walk in the Berkeley hills for a certain Saturday, November 22, and
that morning it rained. One of the tenets I was brought up on by my
father was that bad weather was never an excuse for postponing
anything; so I took it for granted that we would start on our walk as
planned.
Carl telephoned anon and said, "Of course the walk is off."
"But why?" I asked.
"The rain!" he answered.
"As if that makes any difference!"
At which he gasped a little and said all right, he'd be around in a minute;
which he was, in his Idaho outfit, the lunch he had suggested being
entirely responsible for bulging one pocket. Off we started in the rain,
and such a day as we had! We climbed Grizzly Peak,--only we did not
know it for the fog and rain,--and just over the summit, in the shelter of
a very drippy oak tree, we sat down for lunch. A fairly sanctified
expression came over Carl's face as he drew forth a rather damp and
frayed-looking paper-bag--as a king might look who uncovered the
chest of his most precious court jewels before a courtier deemed worthy
of that honor. And before my puzzled and somewhat doubtful eyes he
spread his treasure--jerked bear-meat, nothing but jerked bear-meat. I
never had seen jerked anything, let alone tasted it. I was used to the
conventional picnic sandwiches done up in waxed paper, plus a stuffed
egg, fruit, and cake. I was ready for a