Nothing reveals just how impossible it is to do one thing from start to finish without interruption (unless it is a thing that takes only a split second to do) more accurately than a letter I wrote to Miss Nestleburt a few weeks after she had left. (I knew their honeymoon must be over, and so I sent the letter to their Burbank home, the address of which she had given me before she was married, before she had ever seen the place.) Rereading it, when at last I had signed my name to it, I felt that it was a masterpiece of revelation of our kind of life. "Dear Miss Nestleburt--or, rather, Mrs. Hawkins," I had written. "It's ten o'clock, a beautiful morning, and I hope that 10:25. To resume, I hope that you and your husband 10:45. Twice now I have been interrupted by people who wanted to look at cabins, so they'd know what we have to offer in the way of accommodations in case they ever come through here in the future and need a place to 11 a.m. I'll write a few more lines before I have to feed the baby and put her to bed. The weather has been 11:45. She was too hungry to wait any longer, so I had to 12:15 p.m. Grant has been helping Mrs. Clark clean cabins. He just came in to tell me he's taking her home now, and to ask what we need from the store. We always buy our groceries in town because these little highway markets are very 12:25. Well, I just took a reservation by phone, for next Saturday night. Business is certainly 1 p.m. I was just cornered by a long-winded salesman. I would have sent him on his way sooner but 1:10. I just rented a cabin, to a man who's going to spend the day in Palm Springs and wants to be sure he'll have a place to sleep tonight. As I was about to write a few minutes ago, business 1:30.1 just had to leave that time, I thought it was a wreck. A screeching of brakes outside--turned out to be just a dog run over. He didn't seem to be hurt very 2:30. I had to take time out to make lunch, as Grant came back. Our hours of eating and sleeping are certainly erratic. Grant has gone now to pick up David from school. I hear the baby waking up now so I'll have to close. Please write to us." At the same time I mailed the letter to Miss Nestleburt, I mailed a small box to her husband. The box contained a cockroach David had found outside and borne into the house triumphantly. I thought of Mr. Hawkins the moment I saw the creature. "Two can play his game," I thought to myself. I had put the cockroach carefully into the well-padded box, not really expecting it to be still alive when it reached its destination, but satisfied that, dead or alive, it would be a handsomely macabre gift.