ge, and gazed upon charges of sixty-five dollars for
everything, with a wonderful note which said that, if we would be
inconvenienced in paying that, he would not mind at all if he got
nothing.

Such excitement! We had expected two hundred dollars at the least! We
tore out and bought ten cents' worth of doughnuts, to celebrate. When we
exclaimed to him over his goodness,--of course we paid the sixty-five
dollars,--all he said was: "Do you think a doctor is blind? And does a
man go steerage to Europe if he has a lot of money in the bank?" Bless
that doctor's heart! Bless all doctors' hearts! We went through our
married life in the days of our financial slimness, with kindness shown
us by every doctor we ever had. I remember our Heidelberg German doctor
sent us a bill for a year of a dollar and a half. And even in our more
prosperous days, at Carl's last illness, with that good Seattle doctor
calling day and night, and caring for me after Carl's death, he refused
to send any bill for anything. And a little later, when I paid a long
overdue bill to our blessed Oakland doctor for a tonsil operation, he
sent the check back torn in two. Bless doctors!

When we left for Harvard, we had an idea that perhaps one year of
graduate work would be sufficient. Naturally, about two months was
enough to show us that one year would get us nowhere. Could we finance
an added year at, perhaps, Wisconsin? And then, in November, Professor
Miller of Berkeley called to talk things over with Carl. Anon he
remarked, more or less casually, "The thing for you to do is to have a
year's study in Germany," and proceeded to enlarge on that idea. We sat
dumb, and the minute the door was closed after him, we flopped. "What
was the man thinking of--to suggest a year in Germany, when we have no
money and two babies, one not a year and a half, and one six weeks old!"
Preposterous!

That was Saturday afternoon. By Monday morning we had decided we would
go! Thereupon we wrote West to finance the plan, and got beautifully sat
upon for our "notions." If we needed money, we had better give up this
whole fool University idea and get a decent man-sized job. And then we
wrote my father,--or, rather, I wrote him without telling Carl till
after the letter was mailed,--and bless his heart! he replied with a fat
God-bless-you-my-children registered letter, with check enclosed,
agreeing to my stipulation that it should be a six-per-cent business
affair. Suppose we co