ce in detail the process of packing, which began with some buoyancy
and system, to degenerate at last in its endlessness into dropping
things mechanically and hopelessly into whatever receptacle came first
to hand. I do not wish to renew the moments of vehemence and
exasperation when our Precious Ones, who really seemed to enjoy it all,
clattered about among the debris, or the vague appreciation of suicide
that was born within me when, in the midst of my despair, the Little
Woman suggested that after all she was afraid we were making a mistake
in leaving our little home where we had been happy so long; also that we
moved too often, an unusual statement considering the fact that we had
been there for more than a year. I told her that she reminded me of my
mother, who daily rated my father for keeping them poor, moving, they
having moved twice in thirty-eight years. I added that I had seen my
mother publicly denounce my father for having left out a broken stew-pot
when they moved the last time, some twenty years before.

I will not review these things fully, nor will I recall, except in the
briefest manner, the usual perfidiousness of the moving-man, who, as
heretofore, came two hours late, and then arranged upon the pavement all
the unbeauteous articles of our household, leaving them bare and
wretched in the broad light of day while he thrust into the van the
pieces of which we were justly proud.

I will also skim but lightly over the days devoted to getting settled. I
sent word to the office that I was ill--a fact which I could have sworn
to if necessary, though for a sick man my activity was quite remarkable.
The Little Woman was active, too, while the Precious Ones displayed a
degree of enterprise and talent for getting directly in my chosen path,
which was unusual even for them.

We were installed at last, however, and the jolly janitor had given us a
lift now and then which completely won our hearts and more than made up
for some minor shortcomings which we discovered here and there as the
days passed. We named our new home the "Sunshine" apartment and assured
each other that we were very well pleased, and when one morning as I set
out for the office I noticed that the lower halls and stairway had
suddenly taken on an air of spruce tidiness--had been magically
transformed over night, as it were--I was so elated that I returned to
point these things out to the Little Woman. She came down to the door
with me and agr