of us had
any. If any of the children had whooping cough or the measles every
man and woman in the neighborhood watched at the bedside, in a sense,
until the youngster was well, again. We knew to a dollar what each man
was earning and what each was spending. We borrowed one another's
garden tools and the women borrowed from each other's kitchens. On the
surface we were just about as intimate as it's possible for a
community to be. And yet what did it amount to?

There wasn't a man-son of them to whom I would have dared go and
confess the fact I'd lost my job. They'd know it soon enough, be sure
of that; but it mustn't come from me. There wasn't one of them to whom
I felt free to go and ask their help to interest their own firms to
secure another position for me. Their respect for me depended upon my
ability to maintain my social position. They were like steamer
friends. On the voyage they clung to one another closer than bark to a
tree, but once the gang plank was lowered the intimacy vanished. If I
wished to keep them as friends I must stick to the boat.

I knew they couldn't do anything if they had wanted to, but at the
same time I felt there was something wrong in a situation that would
not allow me to ask even for a letter of introduction without feeling
like a beggar. I felt there was something wrong when they made me feel
not like a brother in hard luck but like a criminal. I began to wonder
what of sterling worth I had got out of this life during the past
decade.

However that was an incidental matter. The only time I did such
thinking as this was towards the early morning after I had lain awake
all night and exhausted all other resources. I tackled the problem in
the only way I could think of and that was to visit the houses with
whom I had learned the United Woollen did business. I remembered the
names of about a dozen of them and made the rounds of these for a
starter. It seemed like a poor chance and I myself did not know
exactly what they could do with me but it would keep me busy for a
while.

With waits and delays this took me two weeks. Without letters it was
almost impossible to reach the managers but I hung on in every case
until I succeeded. Here again I didn't feel like an honest man
offering to do a fair return of work for pay, so much as I did a
beggar. This may have been my fault; but after you've sat around in
offices and corridors and been scowled at as an intruder for three or
four hours a