usetops. But he knew
the futility of it.

"I shall never marry," she said, "until I find somebody different from
anything I've ever seen."

Jane's ideas of men were bounded largely by the weakness of her father
and the crudeness of men like Henry Bittinger, Atwood Jones and others
of their kind. She didn't consider Tommy at all. He was a nice boy and a
faithful friend. His mother, too, was a faithful friend. She classed
them together.

Her plan, told with much coming and going of lovely color, was this: She
had read that the way to make money was to find the thing that a
community lacked and supply it. Considering it seriously she had decided
that in Tinkersfield there was need of good food.

"There's just one horrid little eating house," she told Tommy, "when the
men come in from out of town."

"Nothing fit to eat either," Tommy agreed; "and they make up on booze."

She nodded. "Tommy," she said, and leaned toward him, "I had thought of
sandwiches--home-made bread and slices of ham--wrapped in waxed paper;
and of taking them down and selling them in front of the post-office on
Saturday nights."

Tommy's eyes bulged. "You take them down?"

"Why not? Any work is honorable, Tommy."

Tommy felt that it wouldn't be a goddess role.

"I can't see it." The red crept up into his honest freckled face. "You
know the kind of women that's round on Saturday nights."

"I am not that kind of woman." She was suddenly austere.

He found himself stammering. "I didn't mean--"

"Of course you didn't. But it's a good plan, Tommy. Say you think it's a
good plan."

He would have said anything to please her. "Well, you might try."

The next day he found himself talking it over with O-liver. "She wants
to sell them on Saturday nights."

"Tell her," said O-liver, "to stay at home."

"But she's got to have some money."

"Money," said O-liver, "is the root of evil. You say she has a garden.
Let her live on leeks and lettuce."

"Leeks and lettuce?" said poor Tommy, who had never heard of leeks.

"Her complexion will be better," said O-liver, "and her peace of mind
great."

"Her complexion is perfect," Tommy told him, "and she isn't the peaceful
kind. Her hair is red."

"Red-haired women"--O-liver had his eye on Vanity Fair--"red-haired
women always flaunt themselves."

Tommy, softening O-liver's words a bit, gave them in the form of advice
to Jane: "He thinks you'd better live on leeks and lettuce than go
down-town li