“I’m the only one that knows how to do it,” she said, airily. “Mr. Brady won’t let anybody but me handle these ribbons.”

“My, everything is dear now at Mr. Brady’s,” Mama murmured, hurrying them down Fourth Street. “You need a fortune in that store.”

This remark Lena told Mary Evelyn at recess the following school day, who told her mother who said that people without money shouldn’t go shopping in a high-class store, which was then repeated via Lena to Papa and Mama. This resulted in Papa flying into a rage and going down to Mr. Brady’s store all by himself. Mr. Brady was a brother Mason and that afternoon Papa, beaming with triumph, flung a paper package at his wife. When she opened it there was a shirtwaist, not the one she had wanted, but a black satin one with a high neck and lace bertha, besides a pair of white kid gloves and a cut-steel belt-buckle with slipper buckles to match.

“I want you to wear them to the Elks banquet next week,” Papa said, when Mama had embraced him in gratitude mixed with consternation. “By God, I’m not going to have this damn town saying anything is too dear for my wife.”

“But how did you do it, Harry?” Mama cried.

“Listen, Brady gives any lodge brother all the credit he wants,” boasted Papa. “I could have had the store if I asked for it. As I say to Hartwell, nothing’s too good for my Daisy.”

It took Mama four months of extra baking to pay the Fair Store bill, but anyhow Papa had her picture taken in the new finery just to show people. It was almost the only time she ever wore it.

8

IN THE SUMMER, Papa and Mama went on a trip up the Great Lakes with Hartwell and his lady-friend. They left Florrie with Aunt Lois and Grandma, although Grandma complained she had no time for them since she was packing up any minute to move to Cleveland. Lena and Marcia were to stay on the farm near Elmville with Aunt Betts and Uncle Louie. Uncle Louie was Grandma’s stepson and almost as old as she was. His wife was Grandma’s first cousin, brought up with her like a sister on the old Medrow County home near Bethel.

Uncle Louie drove up to London Junction in a fine new rubber-tired buggy prepared to collect the children. He invited Grandma to come back with him, but she said indeed not, that she was branching out soon as an independent woman in Cleveland. She said her good friend Mrs. Carmel and her astute business adviser, Mr. Sweeney, were behind her in her new venture, and she did not give a snap of her finger for what Louie or Lois or Daisy or anybody else had to say. She also didn’t give a snap whether she ever set foot on a farm again, because she was a body that liked to be where something was going on, where you could hear some good talk, learn something, and make a little spare cash. Uncle Louie brought in head cheese for her and a fried oyster sandwich from the London Junction Hotel and said he didn’t blame her for kicking about the farm and fire away all she liked.