An American Idyll | Page 7

writing here to read through Carl's European letters, and laid
aside about seven I wanted to quote from: the accounts of three dinners
at Sidney and 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 group could be nothing
but red-letter events to a young economic enthusiast one year out of
college, studying Trade-Unionism in the London School of Economics.
Then there was his South-African trip. He was sent there by a London
firm, to expert a mine near Johannesburg. Although he cabled five
times, said firm sent no money. The bitter disgust and anguish of those
weeks--neither of us ever had much patience under such circumstances.
But he experted his mine, and found it absolutely worthless; explored
the veldt on a second-hand bicycle, cooked little meals of bacon and
mush wherever he found himself, and wrote 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 would not just do to settle down in. About that
time he wanted California with a fearful want, and was all done with
foreign parts, and declared that any place just big enough for two suited

him--it did not need to be as far away as Persia after all. At last he
borrowed money to get back to Europe, claiming that "he had learned
his lesson and learned it hard." And finally he came home as fast as
ever he could reach Berkeley--did not stop even to telegraph.
I had planned for months a dress I knew he would love to have me
greet him in. It was hanging ready in the closet. As it was, I had started
to retire--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 beating. I just grabbed a raincoat and threw
it over me, my hair down in a braid, and in the middle of a sentence to
the astounded Freshman I dashed out.
My father had said, "If neither of you changes your mind while Carl is
away, I have no objection to your becoming engaged." In about ten
minutes after his return we were 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 in cloth
of gold for all Carl knew or cared, or could see in the dark, for that
matter. The deserted Freshman was sound asleep when I got back--and
joined another sorority.
Thereafter, for a time, Carl went into University Extension, lecturing
on Trade-Unionism and South Africa. It did not please him altogether,
and finally my father, a lawyer himself, persuaded him to go into law.
Carl Parker in law! How we used to shudder at it afterwards; but it was
just one more broadening experience that he got out of life.
Then came the San Francisco earthquake. That was the end of my
Junior year, and we felt we had to be married when I finished
college--nothing else mattered quite as much as that. So when an offer
came out of a clear sky from Halsey and Company, 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 marriage. What a bond-salesman Carl made! Those who
knew him knew what has been referred to as "the magic of his
personality," and could understand how he was having the whole of a

small country town asking him to dinner on his second visit.
I somehow got through my Senior year; but how the days dragged! For
all I could think of was Carl, Carl, Carl, and getting married. Yet no
one--no one on this earth--ever had the fun out of their engaged days
that we did, when we were together. Carl used to say that the
accumulated expenses of courting me for almost four years came to
$10.25. He just guessed at $10.25, though any cheap figure would have
done. We just did not care about doing things that happened to cost
money. We never did care in our lives, and never would have cared, no
matter what our income might be. Undoubtedly that was the main