Then, like a bolt from the blue, came the fateful telegram from Washington, D.C.—­labor difficulties in construction-work at Camp Lewis—­would he report there at once as Government Mediator.  Oh! the Book, the Book—­the Book that was to be finished without fail before the new work at the University of Washington began!  Perhaps he would be back in a week!  Surely he would be back in a week!  So he packed just enough for a week, and off he went.  One week!  When, after four weeks, there was still no let up in his mediation duties,—­in fact they increased,—­I packed up the family and we left for Seattle.  I had rewound his fishing-rod with orange silk, and had revarnished it, as a surprise for his home-coming to Castle Crags.  He never fished with it again.

How that man loved fishing!  How he loved every sport, for that matter.  And he loved them with the same thoroughness and allegiance that he gave to any cause near his heart.  Baseball—­he played on his high-school team (also he could recite “Casey at the Bat” with a gusto that many a friend of the earlier days will remember.  And here I am reminded of his “Christopher Columnibus.”  I recently ran across a postcard a college mate sent Carl from Italy years ago, with a picture of a statue of Columbus on it.  On the reverse side the friend had written, quoting from Carl’s monologue:  “‘Boom Joe!’ says the king; which is being interpreted, ‘I see you first.’  ‘Wheat cakes,’ says Chris, which is the Egyptian for ‘Boom Joe’").  He loved football, track,—­he won three gold medals broad-jumping,—­canoeing, swimming, billiards,—­he won a loving cup at that, tennis, ice-skating, hand-ball; and yes, ye of finer calibre, quiver if you will—­he loved a prize-fight and played a mighty good game of poker, as well as bridge—­though in the ten and a half years that we were married I cannot remember that he played poker once or bridge more than five times.  He did, however, enjoy his bridge with Simon Patton in Philadelphia; and when he played, he played well.

I tell you there was hardly anything the man could not do.  He could draw the funniest pictures you ever saw—­I wish I could reproduce the letters he sent his sons from the East.  He was a good carpenter—­the joy it meant to his soul to add a second-hand tool ever so often to his collection!  Sunday morning was special carpenter-time—­new shelves here, a bookcase there, new steps up to the swimming-tank, etc.  I have heard many a man say that he told a story better than any one they ever heard.  He was an expert woodsman.  And, my gracious! how he did love babies!  That hardly fits in just here, but I think of it now.  His love for children colored his whole economic viewpoint.