y feet away a
mocking-bird is singing for all it's worth. It seems a poignantly
beautiful world. And everything suggests peace. But it was not an easy
peace to attain.

In the first place, the trip down was rather a nightmare. It brought
home to me the fact that I had three young barbarians to break and
subjugate, three untrained young outlaws who went wild with their
first plunge into train-travel and united in defiance of Struthers and
her foolishly impressive English uniform which always makes me think
of Regent Park. I have a suspicion that Dinky-Dunk all the while knew
of the time I'd have, but sagely held his peace.

I had intended, when I left home, to take the boat at Victoria and go
down to San Pedro, for I was hungry for salt water and the feel of a
rolling deck under my feet again. But the antics of my three little
outlaws persuaded me, before we pulled into Calgary, that it would be
as well to make the trip south as short a one as possible. Dinkie
disgraced me in the dining-car by insisting on "drinking" his mashed
potatoes, and made daily and not always ineffectual efforts to
appropriate all the fruit on the table, and on the last day, when I'd
sagaciously handed him over to the tender mercies of Struthers, I
overheard this dialogue:

"I want shooder in my soup!"

"But little boys don't eat sugar in their soup."

"I want shooder in my soup!"

"But, darling, mommie doesn't eat sugar in her soup!"

"Shooder! Dinkie wants shooder, shooder in his soup!"

"Daddy never eats shooder in his soup, Sweetness."

"I want shooder!"

"But really nice little boys don't ask for sugar in their soup,"
argued the patient-eyed Struthers.

"_Shooder!_" insisted the implacable tyrant. And he got it.

There was an exceptional number of babies and small children on board
and my unfraternal little prairie-waifs did not see why every rattle
and doll and automatic toy of their little fellow travelers and sister
tourists shouldn't promptly become their own private property. And
traveling with twins not yet a year old is scarcely conducive to rest.

And yet, for all the worry and tumult, I found a new peace creeping
into my soul. It was the first sight of the Rockies, I think, which
brought the change. I'd grown tired of living on a billiard-table,
without quite knowing it, tired of the trimly circumscribed monotony
of material life, of the isolating flat contention against hunger and
want. But the mountains took me ou