An American Idyll | Page 3

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 Persia."
Can you see my father? "Persia?"
"Yes, Persia."
"And what, for goodness' sake, are you two going to do in Persia?"
"We don't know just yet, of course, but we'll find something."
I can see my father's point of view now, though I am not sure but that I shall prefer a son-in-law for our daughter who would contemplate absolute uncertainty in Persia in