That spring we began building our very own home in Berkeley. The months
in Alamo had made us feel that we could never bear to be in the centre
of things again, nor, for that matter, could we afford a lot in the
centre of things; so we bought high up on the Berkeley hills, where we
could realize as much privacy as was possible, and yet where our friends
could reach us--if they could stand the climb. The love of a nest we
built! We were longer in that house than anywhere else: two years almost
to the day--two years of such happiness as no other home has ever seen.
There, around the redwood table in the living-room, by the window
overlooking the Golden Gate, we had the suppers that meant much joy to
us and I hope to the friends we gathered around us. There, on the
porches overhanging the very Canyon itself we had our Sunday
tea-parties. (Each time Carl would plead, "I don't have to wear a stiff
collar, do I?" and he knew that I would answer, "You wear anything you
want," which usually meant a blue soft shirt.)

We had a little swimming-tank in back, for the boys.

And then, most wonderful of all, came the day when the June-Bug was
born, the daughter who was to be the very light of her adoring father's
eyes. (Her real name is Alice Lee.) "Mother, there never really _was_
such a baby, _was_ there?" he would ask ten times a day. She was not
born up on the hill; but in ten days we were back from the hospital and
out day and night through that glorious July, on some one of the porches
overlooking the bay and the hills. And we added our adored Nurse Balch
as a friend of the family forever.

I always think of Nurse Balch as the person who more than any other,
perhaps, understood to some degree just what happiness filled our lives
day in and day out. No one assumes anything before a trained nurse--they