had moved out so the Stoddards could move
right in. Now they were on their way in to their reserved suite at
Amalgamated's Guest-ville. "You were absolutely marvellous. Imagine
selling all three of them!"

"There wasn't anything to it, actually."

"Ben, how can you say that? Nobody else could have done it. It was a
sales masterpiece. And just think. Now salesmen all over the hemisphere
are going to follow your sales plan. Doesn't it make you proud? Happy?
Ben, you aren't going to be like _that_ again?"

No, of course he wasn't. He was pleased and proud. Anyway, the Old Man
would be, and that, certainly, was something. A man had to feel good
about winning the approval of Amalgamated's grand Old Man. And it did
seem to make Betty happy.

But the actual selling of the fool house and even the two other,
identical houses on the other side of the hill--he just couldn't seem to
get much of a glow over it. He had done it; and what had he done? It was
the insurance and the toothbrushes all over again, and the old nervous,
sour feeling inside.

"At least we do have a vacation trip coming out of it, hon. The O.M.
practically promised it yesterday, if our sell sold. We could--"

"--go back to that queer new 'Do It Yourself' camp up on the lake you
insisted on dragging me to the last week of our vacation last summer.
Ben, really!" He _was_ going to be like that. She knew it.

"Well, even you admitted it was some fun."

"Oh, sort of, I suppose. For a little while. Once you got used to the
whole place without one single machine that could think or do even the
simplest little thing by itself. So, well, almost like being savages. Do
you think it would be safe for Bennie? We can't watch him all the time,
you know."

"People used to manage in the old days. And remember those people, the
Burleys, who were staying up there?"

"That queer, crazy bunch who went there for a vacation when the Camp was
first opened and then just stayed? Honestly, Ben! Surely you're not
thinking of--"

"Oh, nothing like that. Just a vacation. Only--"

Only those queer, peculiar people, the Burleys had seemed so relaxed and
cheerful. Grandma and Ma Burley cleaning, washing, cooking on the
ancient electric stove; little Donnie, being a nuisance, poking at the
keys on his father's crude, manual typewriter, a museum piece; Donnie
and his brothers wasting away childhood digging and piling sand on the
beach, paddling a boat and actually building a play