very good. I made a final fruitless attempt to be musical, took a few painting lessons which I wish had been many, and for a time went to the new Throop Institute in Pasadena, for dressmaking training. I learned how to bone a basque and line a skirt, and a few other arts now unnecessary.
On Sunday I undertook to hold the attention of half a dozen lively small boys. We liked each other and had a very good time together, but how much we learned I cannot say. Perhaps my own sons have profited by my acquaintance with those other obstreperous young Americans. I never wanted to exchange them for the neighboring class of little girls whose whispers and giggles were less understandable to me than the excess of energy evidenced by punching, pin-sticking, and the tipping over of chairs.
Neither father nor I was very demonstrative, but we enjoyed being together as we always had. We went out seldom in the evening as a growing deafness made public meetings of little value to him. But we never missed a Maine Society gathering. He had not lost his interest in people from the old home state and read the Great Register whenever it came out, checking off every “Mainiac” and hunting him up when possible.
One evening when a cousin, Frank Weston from Santa Clara, was visiting us I heard him and father exchanging news of one and another relative unknown to me, so I asked how many cousins there were; they did not know; but father began naming them for me to count. He remembered one hundred and twenty-five,
