Papa’s Friend was a very important person named Hartwell of the Eugenia Candy Company and they met frequently on the road as they both had the “Eastern territory” and stayed often in the same hotels. Mr. Hartwell lived in a club in Lesterville. He was not married but went steady with the company’s cashier there, a very lovely woman who had expressed the wish to meet Mrs. Willard and get acquainted.

“Why don’t they get married?” Mama asked one day when Papa was speaking of his Friend.

“They’ve gone together so long, there wouldn’t be any point in getting married,” Papa explained in some exasperation.

Mr. Hartwell, who after a suitable period, was called just Hartwell and presently Ed, persuaded Papa to join the Elks, and also the Masons, as he himself was a 33rd degree Mason. It was a wonderful thing in business, Papa said, to flash your lodge pins on a customer and find that they were brothers. It paid back the dues it cost you. He’d gotten many a new customer since he’d joined these organizations, just for that very reason. Besides, there were the social advantages—smokes, stag parties, picnics, fishing trips. As these social advantages usually delayed Papa’s homecomings, Mama was a little troubled about them. She was not even sure she would like Hartwell, in spite of the complimentary messages he sent through her husband to “the little woman.” Hartwell bought his suits from a Pittsburgh catalog which sent samples in return for his measurements, so Papa bought his suits there, too. People in London Junction said that Mr. Willard was a very snappy dresser. Mama and the children were very proud. When Papa came home with his new pepper-and-salt outfit and a stiff katy like Hartwell’s, he was so tickled with himself that he said Mama should take herself and the children down to the Fair Dry Goods Store for new outfits.

“I guess we don’t look good enough to go around with you,” Mama teased him, a little ruefully, but Papa kissed her and said he had the prettiest wife and the finest family in the world. He said they would always look good to him even in rags. He said he’d seen plenty society beauties in Cleveland and Philadelphia and Buffalo that couldn’t hold a candle to his Daisy in spite of their fine jewels and satins.

Mama took Lena and Marcia down to the Fair Dry Goods Store with the five-dollar bill Papa gave her. This was the store where Mary Evelyn’s mother clerked and where Mary Evelyn was now proudly sorting ribbons in a box for the Saturday sale. Marcia and Lena stood on the other side of the counter watching this delicate operation in silent envy while their mother looked around. Mary Evelyn had her hair in rag curlers, and wore a ruffled black sateen pinafore over her pink-checked gingham dress. She wore curlers, as many other children did, every day except for Sunday school, parties, and Exercise Day when they were released into half-braids with reluctantly curling ends. Marcia and Lena had real curls but regretted not being allowed to wear rag curlers like Mary Evelyn.