ast suit, and a hat that would have been
funny if it hadn't been so pathetic. I grabbed her by the shoulders, and
I held her off, and looked--looked at the wrinkles, and the sallow
complexion, and the coat with the sleeves in wrong, and the mashed hat (I
told you Lil used to be the village peach, didn't I?) and I says:

"'For Gawd's sakes, Lil, does your husband beat you?'

"'Steve!' she shrieks, 'beat me! You must be crazy!'

"'Well, if he don't, he ought to. Those clothes are grounds for
divorce,' I says.

"Mr. Guy Peel, it took me just four weeks to get wise to the fact that
the way to cure homesickness is to go home. I spent those four weeks
trying to revolutionize my sister-in-law's house, dress, kids, husband,
wall paper and parlor carpet. I took all the doilies from under the
ornaments and spoke my mind on the subject of the hand-painted lamp, and
Lil hates me for it yet, and will to her dying day. I fitted three
dresses for her, and made her get some corsets that she'll never wear.
They have roast pork for dinner on Sundays, and they never go to the
theater, and they like bread pudding, and they're happy. I wasn't. They
treated me fine, and it was home, all right, but not my home. It was the
same, but I was different. Eleven years away from anything makes it
shrink, if you know what I mean. I guess maybe you do. I remember that
I used to think that the Grand View Hotel was a regular little oriental
palace that was almost too luxurious to be respectable, and that the
traveling men who stopped there were gods, and just to prance past the
hotel after supper had the Atlantic City board walk looking like a back
alley on a rainy night. Well, everything had sort of shriveled up just
like that. The popcorn gave me indigestion, and I burned the skin off my
nose popping it. Kneading bread gave me the backache, and the blamed
stuff wouldn't raise right. I got so I was crazy to hear the roar of an
L train, and the sound of a crossing policeman's whistle. I got to
thinking how Michigan Avenue looks, downtown, with the lights shining
down on the asphalt, and all those people eating in the swell hotels, and
the autos, and the theater crowds and the windows, and--well, I'm back.
Glad I went? You said it. Because it made me so darned glad to get
back. I've found out one thing, and it's a great little lesson when you
get it learned. Most of us are where we are because we belong there, and
if we didn't, we