present. Carl got A's in every subject and was asked to take a teaching
fellowship under Ripley; but it was Europe for us. We set forth February
22, 1909, in a big snowstorm, with two babies, and one thousand six
hundred and seventy-six bundles, bags, and presents. Jim was in one of
those fur-bags that babies use in the East. Everything we were about to
forget the last minute got shoved into that bag with Jim, and it surely
began to look as if we had brought a young and very lumpy mastodon into
the world!

We went by boat from Boston to New York, and sailed on the Pennsylvania
February 24. People wrote us in those days: "You two brave people--think
of starting to Europe with two babies!" Brave was the last word to use.
Had we worried or had fears over anything, and yet fared forth, we
should perhaps have been brave. As it was, I can feel again the
sensation of leaving New York, gazing back on the city buildings and
bridges bathed in sunshine after the storm. Exultant joy was in our
hearts, that was all. Not one worry, not one concern, not one small drop
of homesickness. We were to see Europe together, year before we had
dreamed it possible. It just seemed too glorious to be true. "Brave"?
Far from it. Simply eager, glowing, filled to the brim with a
determination to drain every day to the full.

I discovered that, while my husband had married a female who could not
cook rice (though she learned), I had taken unto myself a spouse who
curled up green half a day out on the ocean, and stayed that way for
about six days. He tried so desperately to help with the babies, but it
always made matters worse. If I had turned green, too--But babies and I
prospered without interruption, though some ants did try to eat Jim's
scalp off one night--"sugar ants" the doctor called them. "They knew
their business," our dad remarked. We were three days late getting into