that a woman's greatest
happiness comes from dressing a little girl. Mothers may like pretty
clothes for themselves; but to put pretty things on a little girl is an
infinitely greater pleasure. More than once Mother went down-town for
something for herself--only to return without it, but with something for
Marjorie!

We pledged to ourselves at the very beginning that we would make
Marjorie ours; not only to ourselves but to others. Our friends were
asked never to refer in her presence to the fact that she was adopted.
As far as we were concerned it was dismissed from our minds. She was
three years old when she was born to us, and from then on we were her
father and her mother. To many who knew her and loved her, this article
will be the first intimation they ever have received that Marjorie was
not our own flesh and blood. It was her pride and boast that she was
like her mother, but had her father's eyes. Both her mother and I have
smiled hundreds of times, as people meeting her for the first time would
say, "Anyone would know she belonged to you. She looks exactly like
you!"

Marjorie made a difference in our way of living. A second-story flat,
comfortable though it was, was not a good place to bring up a little
girl. More than ever, we needed a home of our own. But to need and to
provide are two different propositions. We needed a back yard; but back
yards are expensive; and though newspapermen may make good husbands they
seldom make "good money."

One evening Mother announced to me that she had seen the house we ought
to have. It had just been completed, had everything in it her heart had
wished for, and could be bought for forty-two hundred dollars. The price
was just forty-two hundred dollars more than I had!

All I did have was the wish to own a home of my own. But four years of
our married life had gone, and I was no nearer the first payment on a
house than when we began as man and wife. However, I investigated and
found that I could get this particular house by paying five hundred
dollars down and agreeing to pay thirty-five a month on the balance. I
could swing thirty-five a month, but the five hundred was a high
barrier.

Then I made my first wise business move. I went to Julius Haass,
president of the Wayne County and Home Savings Bank, who always had been
my friend, and explained to him my difficulties. He loaned me that five
hundred dollars for the first payment--I to pay it back twenty-five
dollars