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:--