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American Idyll: The Life of Carlton H. Parker

<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> I am forever grateful that Carl had his experience at the University of Washington before he died. He left the University of California a young Assistant Professor, just one rebellious morsel in a huge machine. He found himself in Washington, not only Head of the Department of Economics and Dean of the College of Commerce, and a power on the campus, but a power in the community as well. He was working under a President who backed him in everything to the last ditch, who was keenly interested in every ambition he had for making a big thing of his work. He at last could see Introductory Economics given as he wanted to have it given—realizing at the same time that his plans were in the nature of an experiment. The two textbooks used in the first semester were McDougall's "Social Psychology" and Wallas's "Great Society." During part of the time he pinned the front page of the morning paper on the board, and illustrated his subject-matter by an item of news of that very day. His theory of education was that the first step in any subject was to awaken a keen interest and curiosity in the student; for that reason he felt that pure theory in Economics was too difficult for any but seniors or graduates; that, given too soon, it tended only to discourage. He allowed no note-taking in any of his courses, insisted on discussion by the class, no matter how large it was, planned to do away with written examinations as a test of scholarship, substituting instead a short oral discussion with each student individually, grading them "passed" and "not passed." As it was, because of the pressure of Government work, he had to resort to written tests. The proportion of first sections in the final examination, which was difficult, was so large that Carl was sure the reader must have marked too leniently, and looked over the papers himself. His results were the same as the reader's, and, he felt, could justifiably be used as some proof of his theory that, if a student is interested in the subject, you cannot keep him from doing good work. I quote here from two letters written by Washington students who had been under his influence but five months. "May I, as only a student, add my inadequate sympathy for the loss of Dr. Parker—the most liberal man I have known. While his going from my educative life can be nothing as compared to his loss from a very beautiful family group, yet the enthusiasm, the radiance of his personality—freely given in his classes during the semester I was privileged to know him—made possible to me a greater realization of the fascination of humanity than I obtained during my previous four years of college study. I still look for him to enter the classroom, nor shall I soon forget his ideals, his faith in humanity." From the second letter: "To have known Mr. Parker as well as I did makes me feel that I was indeed privileged, and I shall always carry with me the charm and inspiration of his glorious personality. The campus was never so sad as on the day which brought the news of his death—it seemed almost incredible that one man in five short months could have left so indelible an impress of his character on the student body." Besides being of real influence on the campus, he had the respect and confidence of the business world, both labor and capital; and in addition, he stood as the representative of the Government in labor-adjustments and disputes. And—it was of lesser consequence, but oh it did matter—we had money enough to live on!! We had made ourselves honestly think that we had just about everything we wanted on what we got, plus outside lectures, in California. But once we had tasted of the new-found freedom of truly enough; once there was gone forever the stirring around to pick up a few extra dollars here and there to make both ends meet; once we knew for the first time the satisfaction and added joy that come from some responsible person to help with the housework—we felt that we were soaring through life with our feet hardly touching the ground. Instead of my spending most of the day in the kitchen and riding herd on the young, we had our dropped-straight-from-heaven Mrs. Willard. And see what that meant. Every morning at nine I left the house with Carl, and we walked together to the University. As I think of those daily walks now, arm-in-arm, rain or shine, I'd not give up the memory of them for all creation. Carl would go over what he was to talk about that morning in Introductory Economics (how it would have raised the hair of the orthodox Econ. I teacher!), and of course we always talked some of what marvelous children we possessed. Carl would begin: "Tell me some more about the June-Bug!" He would go to his nine o'clock, I to mine. After my ten-o'clock class, and on the way to my eleven-o'clock lecture, I always ran in to his office a second, to gossip over what mail he had got that morning and how things were going generally. Then, at twelve, in his office again. "Look at this telegram that just came in." "How shall I answer Mr. ——'s about that job?" And then home together; not once a week, but every day. Afternoons, except the three afternoons when I played hockey, I was at home; but always there was a possibility that Carl would ring up about five. "I am at a meeting down-town. Can't get things settled, so we continue this evening. Run down and have supper with me, and perhaps, who knows, a Bill Hart film might be around town!" There was Mrs. Willard who knew just what to do, and off I could fly to see my husband. You can't, on $1700 a year. I hear people nowadays scold and roar over the pay the working classes are getting, and how they are spending it all on nonsense and not saving a cent. I stand it as long as I can and then I burst out. For I, too, have tasted the joy of at last being able to get things we never thought we would own and of feeling the wings of financial freedom feather out where, before, all had been cold calculation: Can we do this? if so, what must we give up? I wish every one on earth could feel it. I do not care if they do not save a cent. Only I do wish my Carl could have experienced those joys a little longer. It was so good—so good, while it lasted! And it was only just starting. Every new call he got to another university was at a salary from one to two thousand dollars more than what we were getting, even at Seattle. It looked as if our days of financial scrimping were gone forever. We even discussed a Ford! nay—even a four-cylinder Buick! And every other Sunday we had fricasseed chicken, and always, always a frosting on the cake. For the first two months in Seattle we felt as if we ought to have company at every meal. It did not seem right to sit down to food as good as that, with just the family present. And it was such fun to bring home unexpected guests, and to know that Mrs. Willard could concoct a dream of a dish while the guests were removing their hats; and I not having to miss any of the conversation from being in the kitchen. Every other Sunday night we had the whole Department and their wives to Sunday supper—sixteen of them. Oh dear, oh dear, money does make a difference. We grew more determined than ever to see that more folk in the world got more of it. And yet, in a sense, Carl was a typical professor in his unconcern over matters financial. He started in the first month we were married by turning over every cent to me as a matter of course; and from the beginning of each month to the end, he never had the remotest idea how much money we possessed or what it was spent for. So far as his peace of mind went, on the whole, he was a capitalist. He knew we needed more money than he was making at the University of California, therefore he made all he could on the outside, and came home and dumped it in my lap. From one year's end to the next, he spent hardly five cents on himself—a new suit now and then, a new hat, new shirts at a sale, but never a penny that was not essential. On the rest of us—there he needed a curbing hand! I discovered him negotiating to buy me a set of jade when he was getting one hundred dollars a month. He would bring home a box of peaches or a tray of berries, when they were first in the market and eaten only by bank presidents and railway magnates, and beam and say, "Guess what surprise I have for you!" Nothing hurt his feelings more than to have him suggest I should buy something for myself, and have me answer that we could not afford it. "Then I'll dig sewers on the side!" he would exclaim. "You buy it, and I'll find the money for it somewhere." If he had turned off at an angle of fifty degrees when he first started his earthly career, he would have been a star example of the individual who presses the palms of his hands together and murmurs, "The Lord will provide!" I never knew a man who was so far removed from the traditional ideas of the proper position of the male head of a household. He felt, as I have said, that he was not the one to have control over finances—that was the wife's province. Then he had another attitude which certainly did not jibe with the Lord-of-the-Manor idea. Perhaps there would be something I wanted to do, and I would wait to ask him about it when he got home. Invariably the same thing would happen. He would take my two hands and put them so that I held his coat-lapels. Then he would place his hands on my shoulders, beam all over, eyes twinkling, and say:— "Who's boss of this household, anyway?" And I had to answer, "I am." "Who gets her own way one hundred per cent?" "I do." "Who never gets his own way and never wants to get his own way?" "You." "Well, then, you know perfectly well you are to do anything in this world you want to do." With a chuckle he would add, "Think of it—not a look-in in my own home!" <hr style='width: 45%;' /> Seattle, as I look back on it, meant the unexpected—in every way. Our little sprees together were not the planned-out ones of former years. From the day Carl left Castle Crags, his time was never his own; we could never count on anything from one day to the next—a strike here, an arbitration there, government orders for this, some investigation needed for that. It was harassing, it was wearying. But always every few days there would be that telephone ring which I grew both to dread and to love. For as often as it said, "I've got to go to Tacoma," it also said, "You Girl, put on your hat and coat this minute and come down town while I have a few minutes off—we'll have supper together anyhow." And the feeling of the courting days never left us—that almost sharp joy of being together again when we just locked arms for a block and said almost nothing—nothing to repeat. And the good-bye that always meant a wrench, always, though it might mean being together within a few hours. And always the waving from the one on the back of the car to the one standing on the corner. Nothing, nothing, ever got tame. After ten years, if Carl ever found himself a little early to catch the train for Tacoma, say, though he had said good-bye but a half an hour before and was to be back that evening, he would find a telephone-booth and ring up to say, perhaps, that he was glad he had married me! Mrs. Willard once said that after hearing Carl or me talk to the other over the telephone, it made other husbands and wives when they telephoned sound as if they must be contemplating divorce. But telephoning was an event: it was a little extra present from Providence, as it were. And I think of two times when we met accidentally on the street in Seattle—it seemed something we could hardly believe: all the world—the war, commerce, industry—stopped while we tried to realize what had happened. Then, every night that he had to be out,—and he had to be out night after night in Seattle,—I would hear his footstep coming down the street; it would wake me, though he wore rubber heels. He would fix the catch on the front-door lock, then come upstairs, calling out softly, "You awake?" He always knew I was. Then, sitting on the edge of the bed, he would tell all the happenings since I had seen him last. Once in a while he'd sigh and say, "A little ranch up on the Clearwater would go pretty well about now, wouldn't it, my girl?" And I would sigh, and say, "Oh dear, wouldn't it?" I remember once, when we were first married, he got home one afternoon before I did. When I opened the door to our little Seattle apartment, there he was, walking the floor, looking as if the bottom had dropped out of the universe. "I've had the most awful twenty minutes," he informed me, "simply terrible. Promise me absolutely that never, never will you let me get home before you do. To expect to find you home and then open the door into empty rooms—oh, I never lived through such a twenty minutes!" We had a lark's whistle that we had used since before our engaged days. Carl would whistle it under my window at the Theta house in college, and I would run down and out the side door, to the utter disgust of my well-bred "sisters," who arranged to make cutting remarks at the table about it in the hope that I would reform my "servant-girl tactics." That whistle was whistled through those early Seattle days, through Oakland, through Cambridge, Leipzig, Berlin, Heidelberg, Munich, Swanage, Berkeley, Alamo in the country, Berkeley again (he would start it way down the hill so I could surely hear), Castle Crags, and Seattle. Wherever any of us were in the house, it meant a dash for all to the front door—to welcome the Dad home. One evening I was scanning some article on marriage by the fire in Seattle—it was one of those rare times that Carl too was at home and going over lectures for the next day. It held that, to be successful, marriage had to be an adjustment—a giving in here by the man, there by the woman. I said to Carl: "If that is true, you must have been doing all the adjusting; I never have had to give up, or fit in, or relinquish one little thing, so you've been doing it all." He thought for a moment, then answered: "You know, I've heard that too, and wondered about it. For I know I've given up nothing, made no 'adjustments.' On the contrary, I seem always to have been getting more than a human being had any right to count on." It was that way, even to the merest details, such as both liking identically the same things to eat, seasoned the identical way. We both liked to do the identical things, without a single exception. Perhaps one exception—he had a fondness in his heart for firearms that I could not share. (The gleam in his eyes when he got out his collection every so often to clean and oil it!) I liked guns, provided I did not have to shoot at anything alive with them; but pistols I just plain did not like at all. We rarely could pass one of these shooting-galleries without trying our luck at five cents for so many turns—at clay pigeons or rabbits whirling around on whatnots; but that was as wild as I ever wanted to get with a gun. We liked the same friends without exception, the same books, the same pictures, the same music. He wrote once: "We (the two of us) love each other, like to do things together (absolutely anything), don't need or want anybody else, and the world is ours." Mrs. Willard once told me that if she had read about our life together in a book, she would not have believed it. She did not know that any one on earth could live like that. Perhaps that is one reason why I want to tell about it—because it was just so plain wonderful day in, day out. I feel, too, that I have a complete record of our life. For fourteen years, every day that we were not together we wrote to each other, with the exception of two short camping-trips that Carl made, where mail could be sent out only by chance returning campers. Somehow I find myself thinking here of our wedding anniversaries,—spread over half the globe,—and the joy we got out of just those ten occasions. The first one was back in Oakland, after our return from Seattle. We still had elements of convention left in us then,—or, rather, I still had some; I don't believe Carl had a streak of it in him ever,—so we dressed in our very best clothes, dress-suit and all, and had dinner at the Key Route Inn, where we had gone after the wedding a year before. After dinner we rushed home, I nursed the son, we changed into natural clothes, and went to the circus. I had misgivings about the circus being a fitting wedding-anniversary celebration; but what was one to do when the circus comes to town but one night in the year? The second anniversary was in Cambridge. We always used to laugh each year and say: "Gracious! if any one had told us a year ago we'd be here this September seventh!" Every year we were somewhere we never dreamed we would be. That first September seventh, the night of the wedding, we were to be in Seattle for years—selling bonds. What a fearful prospect in retrospect, compared to what we really did! The second September, back in Oakland, we thought we were to be in the bond business for years in Oakland. More horrible thoughts as I look back upon it. The third September seventh, the second anniversary, lo and behold, was in Cambridge, Massachusetts! Whoever would have guessed it, in all the world? It was three days after Carl's return from that awful Freiburg summer—we left Nandy with a kind-hearted neighbor, and away we spreed to Boston, to the matinée and something good to eat. Then, whoever would have imagined for a moment that the next year we would be celebrating in Berlin—dinner at the Café Rheingold, with wine! The fourth anniversary was at Heidelberg—one of the red-letter days, as I look back upon those magic years. We left home early, with our lunch, which we ate on a bed of dry leaves in a fairy birch forest back—and a good ways up—in the Odenwald. Then we walked and walked—almost twenty-five miles all told—through little forest hamlets, stopping now and then at some small inn along the roadside for a cheese sandwich or a glass of beer. By nightfall we reached Neckarsteinach and the railroad, and prowled around the twisted narrow streets till train-time, gazing often at our beloved Dilsberg crowning the hilltop across the river, her ancient castle tower and town walls showing black against the starlight. The happiness, the foreign untouristed wonder of that day! Our fifth anniversary was another red-letter day—one of the days that always made me feel, in looking back on it, that we must have been people in a novel, an English novel; that it could not really have been Carl and I who walked that perfect Saturday from Swanage to Studland. But it was our own two joyous souls who explored that quaint English thatched-roof, moss-covered corner of creation; who poked about the wee old mouldy church and cemetery; who had tea and muffins and jam out under an old gnarled apple tree behind a thatched-roof cottage. What a wonder of a day it was! And indeed it was my Carl and I who walked the few miles home toward sunset, swinging hands along the downs, and fairly speechless with the glory of five years married and England and our love. I should like to be thinking of that day just before I die. It was so utterly perfect, and so ours. Our sixth anniversary was another, yes, yet another red-letter memory—one of those times that the world seemed to have been leading up to since it first cooled down. We left our robust sons in the care of our beloved aunt, Elsie Turner,—this was back in Berkeley,—and one Saturday we fared forth, plus sleeping-bags, frying-pan, fishing-rod, and a rifle. We rode to the end of the Ocean Shore Line—but first got off the train at Half Moon Bay, bought half a dozen eggs from a lonely-looking female, made for the beach, and fried said eggs for supper. Then we got back on another train, and stepped off at the end of the line, in utter darkness. We decided that somewhere we should find a suitable wooded nook where we could sequester ourselves for the night. We stumbled along until we could not see another inch in front of us for the dark and the thick fog; so made camp—which meant spreading out two bags—in what looked like as auspicious a spot as was findable. When we opened our eyes to the morning sunlight, we discovered we were on a perfectly barren open ploughed piece of land, and had slept so near the road that if a machine passing along in the night had skidded out a bit to the side, it would have removed our feet. That day, Sunday, was our anniversary, and the Lord was with us early and late, though not obtrusively. We got a farmer out of bed to buy some eggs for our breakfast. He wanted to know what we were doing out so early, anyhow. We told him, celebrating our sixth wedding anniversary. Whereat he positively refused to take a cent for the eggs—wedding present, he said. Around noon we passed a hunter, who stopped to chat, and ended by presenting us with a cotton-tail rabbit to cook for dinner. And such a dinner!—by a bit of a stream up in the hills. That afternoon, late, we stumbled on a deserted farmhouse almost at the summit—trees laden with apples and the ground red with them, pears and a few peaches for the picking, and a spring of ice-cold water with one lost fat trout in it that I tried for hours to catch by fair means or foul; but he merely waved his tail slowly, as if to say, "One wedding present you don't get!" We slept that night on some hay left in an old barn—lots of mice and gnawy things about; but I could not get nearly as angry at a gnawy mouse as at a fat conceited trout who refused to be caught. Next day was a holiday, so we kept on our way rejoicing, and slept that night under great redwoods, beside a stream where trout had better manners. After a fish breakfast we potted a tin can full of holes with the rifle, and then bore down circuitously and regretfully on Redwood City and the Southern Pacific Railway, and home and college and dishes to wash and socks to darn—but uproarious and joyful sons to compensate. The seventh anniversary was less exciting, but that could not be helped. We were over in Alamo, with my father, small brother, and sister visiting us at the time—or rather, of course, the place was theirs to begin with. There was no one to leave the blessed sons with; also, Carl was working for the Immigration and Housing Commission, and no holidays. But he managed to get home a bit early; we had an early supper, got the sons in bed, hitched up the old horse to the old cart, and off we fared in the moonlight, married seven years and not sorry. We just poked about, ending at Danville with Danville ice-cream and Danville pumpkin pie; then walked the horse all the way back to Alamo and home. Our eighth anniversary, as mentioned, was in our very own home in Berkeley, with the curtains drawn, the telephone plugged, and our Europe spread out before our eyes. The ninth anniversary was still too soon after the June-Bug's arrival for me to get off the hill and back, up our two hundred and seventeen steps home, so we celebrated under our own roof again—this time with a roast chicken and ice-cream dinner, and with the entire family participating—except the June-Bug, who did almost nothing then but sleep. I tell you, if ever we had chicken, the bones were not worth salvaging by the time we got through. We made it last at least two meals, and a starving torn cat would pass by what was left with a scornful sniff. Our tenth and last anniversary was in Seattle. Carl had to be at Camp Lewis all day, but he got back in time to meet me at six-thirty in the lobby of the Hotel Washington. From there we went to our own favorite place—Blanc's—for dinner. Shut away behind a green lattice arbor-effect, we celebrated ten years of joy and riches and deep contentment, and as usual asked ourselves, "What in the world shall we be doing a year from now? Where in the world shall we be?" And as usual we answered, "Bring the future what it may, we have ten years that no power in heaven or earth can rob us of!" <hr style='width: 45%;' /> There was another occasion in our lives that I want to put down in black and white, though it does not come under wedding anniversaries. But it was such a celebration! "Uncle Max" 'lowed that before we left Berkeley we must go off on a spree with him, and suggested—imagine!—Del Monte! The twelve-and-a-half-cent Parkers at Del Monte! That was one spot we had never seen ourselves even riding by. We got our beloved Nurse Balch out to stay with the young, and when a brand-new green Pierce Arrow, about the size of our whole living-room, honked without, we were ready, bag and baggage, for a spree such as we had never imagined ourselves having in this world or the next. We called for the daughter of the head of the Philosophy Department. Max had said to bring a friend along to make four; so, four, we whisked the dust of Berkeley from our wheels and—presto—Del Monte! Parents of three children, who do most of their own work besides, do not need to be told in detail what those four days meant. Parents of three children know what the hours of, say, seven to nine mean, at home; nor does work stop at nine. It is one mad whirl to get the family ears washed and teeth cleaned, and "Chew your mush!" and "Wipe your mouth!" and "Where's your speller?" and "Jim, come back here and put on your rubbers!" ("Where are my rubbers?" Ach Gott! where?) Try six times to get the butcher—line busy. Breakfast dishes to clear up; baby to bathe, dress, feed. Count the laundry. Forget all about the butcher until fifteen minutes before dinner. Laundry calls. Telephone rings seven times. Neighbor calls to borrow an egg. Telephone the milkman for a pound of butter. Make the beds,—telephone rings in the middle,—two beds do not get made till three. Start lunch. Wash the baby's clothes. Telephone rings three times while you are in the basement. Rice burns. Door-bell—gas and electric bill. Telephone rings. Patch boys' overalls. Water-bill. Stir the pudding. Telephone rings. Try to read at least the table of contents of the "New Republic." Neighbor calls to return some flour. Stir the pudding again. Mad stamping up the front steps. Sons home. Forget to scrape their feet. Forget to take off their rubbers. Dad's whistle. Hurray! Lunch.—Let's stop about here, and return to Del Monte. This is where music would help. The Home motif would be—I do not know those musical terms, but a lot of jumpy notes up and down the piano, fast and never catching up. Del Monte motif slow, lazy melody—ending with dance-music for night-time. In plain English, what Del Monte meant was a care-free, absolutely care-free, jaunt into another world. It was not our world,—we could have been happy forever did we never lay eyes on Del Monte,—and yet, oh, it was such fun! Think of lazing in bed till eight or eight-thirty, then taking a leisurely bath, then dressing and deliberately using up time doing it—put one shoe on and look at it a spell; then, when you are good and ready, put on the next. Just feeling sort of spunky about it—just wanting to show some one that time is nothing to you—what's the hurry? Then—oh, what motif in music could do a Del Monte breakfast justice? Just yesterday you were gulping down a bite, in between getting the family fed and off. Here you were, holding hands under the table to make sure you were not dreaming, while you took minutes and minutes to eat fruit and mush and eggs and coffee and waffles, and groaned to think there was still so much on the menu that would cost you nothing to keep on consuming, but where, oh, where, put it? After rocking a spell in the sun on the front porch, the green Pierce Arrow appears, and all honk off for the day—four boxes of picnic lunch stowed away by a gracious waiter; not a piece of bread for it did you have to spread yourself. Basking in the sun under cypress trees, talking over every subject under heaven; back in time for a swim, a rest before dinner; then dinner (why, oh, why has the human such biological limitations?). Then a concert, then dancing, then—crowning glory of an unlimited bank-account—Napa soda lemonade—and bed. Oh, what a four days! In thinking over the intimate things of our life together, I have difficulty in deciding what the finest features of it were. There was so much that made it rich, so much to make me realize I was blessed beyond any one else, that I am indebted to the world forever for the color that living with Carl Parker gave to existence. Perhaps one of the most helpful memories to me now is the thought of his absolute faith in me. From the time we were first in love, it meant a new zest in life to know that Carl firmly believed there was nothing I could not do. For all that I hold no orthodox belief in immortality, I could no more get away from the idea that, if I fail in anything now—why I can't fail—think of Carl's faith in me! About four days before he died, he looked up at me once as I was arranging his pillow and said, so seriously, "You know, there isn't a university in the country that wouldn't give you your Ph.D. without your taking an examination for it." He was delirious, it is true; but nevertheless it expressed, though indeed in a very exaggerated form, the way he had of thinking I was somebody! I knew there was no one in the world like him, but I had sound reasons for that. Oh, but it is wonderful to live with some one who thinks you are wonderful! It does not make you conceited, not a bit, but it makes a happy singing feeling in your heart to feel that the one you love best in the world is proud of you. And there is always the incentive of vowing that some day you will justify it all. The fun of dressing for a party in a hand-me-down dress from some relative, knowing that the one you want most to please will honestly believe; and say on the way home, that you were the best-looking one at the party! The fun of cooking for a man who thinks every dish set before him is the best food he ever ate—and not only say it, but act that way. ("That was just a sample. Give me a real dish of it, now that I know it's the best pudding I ever tasted!") <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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