and am learning "to possess, in loneliness, the joy of all the earth."
Truth compels me to add that it isn't always loneliness, either, as,
for example, one week-end that was much cheered by a visit from our
architect friend, who rode down from Santa Barbara in his motor, and
made himself very popular with every member of the household. He brought
home the laundry, bearded the ice man in his lair, making ice-cream
possible for Sunday dinner, mended the garden lattice, and drew
entrancing pictures of galleons sailing in from fairy shores with
all their canvas spread, for the boys. As we waved our handkerchiefs
to him from the Good-by Gate on Monday, Joedy turned to me:

"I wish he didn't have to go!" A little pause.

"Muvs, if you weren't married to Father, how would you like--" but here
I interrupted by calling his attention to a rabbit in the canyon.

One thing I do not consider a part of the joy of all the earth--the
neighbors' dogs. On the next hill-top is an Airedale with a voice like a
fog-horn. He is an ungainly creature and thoroughly disillusioned,
because his family keep him locked up in a wire-screened tennis-court,
where he barks all day and nearly all night. He can watch the motors on
the coast road from one corner of his cage, and that seems to drive him
almost wild. He ought to realize how much better off he is than the Lady
of Shalott, who only dared to watch the highway to Camelot in a mirror!
Sometimes he has a bad attack of lamentation in the night--he is quite
Jeremiah's peer at that--and then we all call his house on the
telephone. You can see the lights flash on in the various cottages and
hear the tinkle of the bell, as we each in turn voice our indignation.
Once I even saw a white-robed figure in the road across the canyon, and
heard a voice borne on the night wind, "For heaven's sake, shut that dog