haunts and friends. The girls at the end sang pensively of Seniors about to be “lost in the wide, wide world.” I didn’t care or fear. I hastened to be lost, for the wide, wide world meant California, my homeland, to which I fled the instant I secured my diploma. The western girl who went East to college went West to live.
The years at Wellesley soon slipped back into the dim region of memory and Los Angeles became once more the familiar environment of my life. It was so good to be at home again—but Time was bringing changes and new responsibilities. The family was smaller than it had been, for my sister had followed me to Wellesley, and my aunt was taking a year-long vacation in the East, thus giving me a chance to learn by experience how to be a house-keeper. I judge that I, the amateur, did not always reach the usual standard of good order set for our home, for I have a picture of my father down on his knees at the parlor fireplace, one evening before dinner when company was expected, carefully wiping the blower with an oiled rag, while suggesting to me “I think if your Aunt Marthy were here she would take those newspapers from the shelf under the table.” I did not know that he noticed such things. I was a bit conscience-smitten.
Our life went on serenely and happily. Daily he went down the hill to the company office on First Street, just above Broadway. We filled our home time with reading the newspapers, books and magazines especially The Forum, which at that time was
