Our sixth anniversary was another, yes, yet another red-letter memory—­one of those times that the world seemed to have been leading up to since it first cooled down.  We left our robust sons in the care of our beloved aunt, Elsie Turner,—­this was back in Berkeley,—­and one Saturday we fared forth, plus sleeping-bags, frying-pan, fishing-rod, and a rifle.  We rode to the end of the Ocean Shore Line—­but first got off the train at Half Moon Bay, bought half a dozen eggs from a lonely-looking female, made for the beach, and fried said eggs for supper.  Then we got back on another train, and stepped off at the end of the line, in utter darkness.  We decided that somewhere we should find a suitable wooded nook where we could sequester ourselves for the night.  We stumbled along until we could not see another inch in front of us for the dark and the thick fog; so made camp—­which meant spreading out two bags—­in what looked like as auspicious a spot as was findable.  When we opened our eyes to the morning sunlight, we discovered we were on a perfectly barren open ploughed piece of land, and had slept so near the road that if a machine passing along in the night had skidded out a bit to the side, it would have removed our feet.

That day, Sunday, was our anniversary, and the Lord was with us early and late, though not obtrusively.  We got a farmer out of bed to buy some eggs for our breakfast.  He wanted to know what we were doing out so early, anyhow.  We told him, celebrating our sixth wedding anniversary.  Whereat he positively refused to take a cent for the eggs—­wedding present, he said.  Around noon we passed a hunter, who stopped to chat, and ended by presenting us with a cotton-tail rabbit to cook for dinner.  And such a dinner!—­by a bit of a stream up in the hills.  That afternoon, late, we stumbled on a deserted farmhouse almost at the summit—­trees laden with apples and the ground red with them, pears and a few peaches for the picking, and a spring of ice-cold water with one lost fat trout in it that I tried for hours to catch by fair means or foul; but he merely waved his tail slowly, as if to say, “One wedding present you don’t get!” We slept that night on some hay left in an old barn—­lots of mice and gnawy things about; but I could not get nearly as angry at a gnawy mouse as at a fat conceited trout who refused to be caught.

Next day was a holiday, so we kept on our way rejoicing, and slept that night under great redwoods, beside a stream where trout had better manners.  After a fish breakfast we potted a tin can full of holes with the rifle, and then bore down circuitously and regretfully on Redwood City and the Southern Pacific Railway, and home and college and dishes to wash and socks to darn—­but uproarious and joyful sons to compensate.