n the swishing skirt
hem.

Tessie, the quick-tongued, would toss the wave of shining hair that lay
against either glowing cheek. "Oh, my, no! I just thought I'd dress
up in case Angie Hatton drove past in her auto and picked me up for a
little ride. So's not to keep her waiting."

Angie Hatton was Old Man Hatton's daughter. Anyone in the Fox River
Valley could have told you who Old Man Hatton was. You saw his name at
the top of every letterhead of any importance in Chippewa, from the
Pulp and Paper Mill to the First National Bank, and including the watch
factory, the canning works, and the Mid-Western Land Company. Knowing
this, you were able to appreciate Tessie's sarcasm. Angie Hatton was
as unaware of Tessie's existence as only a young woman could be whose
family residence was in Chippewa, Wisconsin, but who wintered in Italy,
summered in the mountains, and bought (so the town said) her very
hairpins in New York. When Angie Hatton came home from the East the
town used to stroll past on Mondays to view the washing on the Hatton
line. Angie's underwear, flirting so audaciously with the sunshine and
zephyrs, was of silk and crepe de Chine and satin--materials that we
had always thought of heretofore as intended exclusively for party
dresses and wedding gowns. Of course, two years later they were
showing practically the same thing at Megan's dry-goods store. But
that was always the way with Angie Hatton. Even those of us who went
to Chicago to shop never quite caught up with her.

Delivered of this ironic thrust, Tessie would walk toward the screen
door with a little flaunting sway of the hips. Her mother's eyes,
following the slim figure, had a sort of grudging love in them. A
spare, caustic, wiry little woman, Tessie's mother. Tessie resembled
her as a water color may resemble a blurred charcoal sketch. Tessie's
wide mouth curved into humor lines. She was the cutup of the
escapement department at the watch factory; the older woman's lips
sagged at the corners. Tessie was buoyant and colorful with youth. The
other was shrunken and faded with years and labor. As the girl minced
across the room in her absurdly high-heeled shoes, the older woman
thought: My, but she's pretty! But she said aloud: "I should think
you'd stay home once in a while and not be runnin' the streets every
night."

"Time enough to be sittin' home when I'm old like you."

And yet between these two there was love, and even und