An American Idyll | Page 3

lunch after the conservative
pattern, and here I gazed upon a mess of most unappetizing-looking,
wrinkled, shrunken, jerked bear-meat, the rain dropping down on it
through the oak tree.
I would have gasped if I had not caught the look of awe and reverence
on Carl's face as he gazed eagerly, and with what respect, on his
offering. I merely took a hunk of what was supplied, set my teeth into it,
and pulled. It was salty, very; it looked queer, tasted queer, was queer.
Yet that lunch! We walked farther, sat now and then under other drippy
trees, and at last decided that we must slide home, by that time soaked

to the skin, and I minus the heel to one shoe.
I had just got myself out of the bath and into dry clothes when the
telephone rang. It was Carl. Could he come over to the house and spend
the rest of the afternoon? It was then about four-thirty. He came, and
from then on things were decidedly--different.
How I should love to go into the details of that Freshman year of mine!
I am happier right now writing about it than I have been in six months.
I shall not go into detail--only to say that the night of the Junior Prom
of my Freshman year Carl Parker asked me to marry him, and two days
later, up again in our hills, I said that I would. To think of that now--to
think of waiting two whole days to decide whether I would marry Carl
Parker or not!! And for fourteen years from the day I met him, there
was never one small moment of misunderstanding, one day that was
not happiness--except when we were parted. Perhaps there are people
who would consider it stupid, boresome, to live in such peace as that.
All I can answer is that it was not stupid, it was not boresome--oh, how
far from it! In fact, in those early days we took our vow that the one
thing we would never do was to let the world get commonplace for us;
that the time should never come when we would not be eager for the
start of each new day. The Kipling poem we loved the most, for it was
the spirit of both of us, was "The Long Trail." You know the last of it:--
The Lord knows what we may find, dear lass, And the Deuce knows
what we may do-- But we're back once more on the old trail, our own
trail, the out trail, We're down, hull down, on the Long Trail--the trail
that is always new!
CHAPTER II
After we decided to get married, and that as soon as ever we could,--I
being a Freshman at the ripe and mature age of, as mentioned, just
eighteen years, he a Senior, with no particular prospects, not even sure
as yet what field he would go into,--we began discussing what we
might do and where we might go. Our main idea was to get as far away
from everybody as we could, and live the very fullest life we could, and

at last we decided on Persia. Why Persia? I cannot recall the steps now
that brought us to that conclusion. But I know that first Christmas I sent
Carl my picture in a frilled high-school graduation frock and a silk
Persian flag tucked behind it, and that flag remained always the symbol
for us that we would never let our lives get stale, never lose the love of
adventure, never "settle down," intellectually at any rate.
Can you see my father's face that sunny March day,--Charter Day it
was,--when we told him we were engaged? (My father being the
conventional, traditional sort who had never let me have a real "caller"
even, lest I become interested in boys and think of matrimony too
young!) Carl Parker was the first male person who was ever allowed at
my home in the evening. He came seldom, since I was living in
Berkeley most of the time, and anyway, we much preferred prowling
all over our end of creation, servant-girl-and-policeman fashion. Also,
when I married, according to father it was to be some one, preferably
an attorney of parts, about to become a judge, with a large bank account.
Instead, at eighteen, I and this almost-unknown-to-him Senior stood
before him and said, "We are going to be married," or words to that
general effect. And--here is where I want you to think of the expression
on my conservative father's face.
Fairly early in the conversation he found breath to say, "And what, may
I ask, are your prospects?"
"None, just at present."
"And where, may I ask, are you planning to begin this married career
you seem to contemplate?"
"In