And right here I must tell of Dr. J——.  He was recommended as the best doctor in Cambridge, but very expensive.  “We may have to economize in everything on earth,” said Carl, “but we’ll never economize on doctors.”  So we had Dr. J——­, had him for all the minor upsets that families need doctors for; had him when Jim was born; had him through a queer fever Nandy developed that lasted some time; had him through a bad case of grippe I got (this was at Christmastime, and Carl took care of both babies, did all the cooking, even to the Christmas turkey I was well enough to eat by then, got up every two hours for three nights to change an ice-pack I had to have—­that’s the kind of man he was!); had him vaccinate both children; and then, just before we left Cambridge, we sat and held his bill, afraid to open the envelope.  At length we gathered our courage, 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!