there were children. Before he came that first year our house
had no name. Now it is called "Let's Pretend."

Now the chimney in the living-room draws, but in those first
days of the built-over house it didn't. At least, it didn't
draw all the time, but we pretended that it did, and with much
pretense came faith. From the fireplace that smoked to the
serious things of life we extended our pretendings, until real
troubles went down before them--down and out.

It was one of Aiken's very best winters, and the earliest
spring I ever lived anywhere. R. H. D. came shortly after
Christmas. The spiraeas were in bloom, and the monthly roses;
you could always find a sweet violet or two somewhere in the
yard; here and there splotches of deep pink against gray cabin
walls proved that precocious peach-trees were in bloom. It
never rained. At night it was cold enough for fires. In the
middle of the day it was hot. The wind never blew, and every
morning we had a four for tennis and every afternoon we rode
in the woods. And every night we sat in front of the fire
(that didn't smoke because of pretending) and talked until the
next morning. He was one of those rarely gifted men who find
their chiefest pleasure not in looking backward or forward,
but in what is going on at the moment. Weeks did not have to
pass before it was forced upon his knowledge that Tuesday, the
fourteenth (let us say), had been a good Tuesday. He knew it
the moment he waked at 7 A. M. and perceived the Tuesday
sunshine making patterns of bright light upon the floor. The
sunshine rejoiced him and the knowledge that even before
breakfast there was vouchsafed to him a whole hour of life.