And to be in Boston!  We took a room with a bath in the Copley Square Hotel.  The first evening we arrived, Nandy (Carleton, Jr.) rolled off the bed; so when we went gallivanting about Boston, shopping for the new home, we left him in the bath-tub where he could not fall out.  We padded it well with pillows, there was a big window letting in plenty of fresh air, and we instructed the chambermaid to peep at him now and then.  And there we would leave him, well-nourished and asleep. (By the time that story had been passed around by enough people in the home town, it developed that one day the baby—­just seven months old, remember—­got up and turned on the water, and was found by the chambermaid sinking for the third time.)

Something happened to the draft from the home bank, which should have reached Boston almost at the same time we did.  We gazed into the family pocket-book one fine morning, to find it, to all intents and purposes, empty.  Hurried meeting of the finance committee.  By unanimous consent of all present, we decided—­as many another mortal in a strange town has decided—­on the pawnshop.  I wonder if my dear grandmother will read this—­she probably will.  Carl first submitted his gold watch—­the baby had dropped it once, and it had shrunk thereby in the eyes of the pawnshop man, though not in ours.  The only other valuable we had along with us was my grandmother’s wedding present to me, which had been my grandfather’s wedding present to her—­a glorious old-fashioned breast-pin.  We were allowed fifty dollars on it, which saved the day.  What will my grandmother say when she knows that her bridal gift resided for some days in a Boston pawnshop?

We moved out to Cambridge in due time, and settled at Bromley Court, on the very edge of the Yard.  We thrilled to all of it—­we drank in every ounce of dignity and tradition the place afforded, and our wild Western souls exulted.  We knew no one when we reached Boston, but our first Sunday we were invited to dinner in Cambridge by two people who were, ever after, our cordial, faithful friends—­Mr. and Mrs. John Graham Brooks.  They made us feel at once that Cambridge was not the socially icy place it is painted in song and story.  Then I remember the afternoon that I had a week’s wash strung on an improvised line back and forth from one end of our apartment to the other.  Just as I hung the last damp garment, the bell rang, and there stood an immaculate gentleman in a cutaway and silk hat, who had come to call—­an old friend of my mother’s.  He ducked under wet clothes, and we set two chairs where we could see each other, and yet nothing was dripping down either of our necks; and there we conversed, and he ended by inviting us both to dinner—­on Marlborough Street, at that!  He must have loved my mother very dearly to have sought further acquaintance with folk who hung the family wash in the hall and the living-room and dining-room.  His house on Marlborough Street!  We boldly and excitedly figured up on the way home, that they spent on the one meal they fed us more than it cost us to live for two weeks—­they honestly did.