enough to show us that one year would get us nowhere. Could we finance
an added year at, perhaps, Wisconsin? And then, in November, Professor
Miller of Berkeley called to talk things over with Carl. Anon he
remarked, more or less casually, "The thing for you to do is to have a
year's study in Germany," and proceeded to enlarge on that idea. We sat
dumb, and the minute the door was closed after him, we flopped. "What
was the man thinking of--to suggest a year in Germany, when we have no
money and two babies, one not a year and a half, and one six weeks old!"
Preposterous!

That was Saturday afternoon. By Monday morning we had decided we would
go! Thereupon we wrote West to finance the plan, and got beautifully sat
upon for our "notions." If we needed money, we had better give up this
whole fool University idea and get a decent man-sized job. And then we
wrote my father,--or, rather, I wrote him without telling Carl till
after the letter was mailed,--and bless his heart! he replied with a fat
God-bless-you-my-children registered letter, with check enclosed,
agreeing to my stipulation that it should be a six-per-cent business
affair. Suppose we could not have raised that money--suppose our lives
had been minus that German experience! Bless fathers! They may scold and
fuss at romance, and have "good sensible ideas of their own" on such
matters, but--bless fathers!




CHAPTER V


We finished our year at Harvard, giving up the A.M. idea for the