absorbed, sitting there on Brandeis' front porch, watching Winnebago go
by to supper.

At Christmas time she helped in the store, afternoons and evenings.
Then, one Christmas, Mrs. Brandeis was ill for three weeks with grippe.
They had to have a helper in the house. When Mrs. Brandeis was able to
come back to the store Sadie left to marry, not one of her traveling-men
victims, but a steady person, in the paper-hanging way, whose suit had
long been considered hopeless. After that Fanny took her place. She
developed a surprising knack at selling. Yet it was not so surprising,
perhaps, when one considered her teacher. She learned as only a woman
can learn who is brought into daily contact with the outside world.
It was not only contact: it was the relation of buyer and seller. She
learned to judge people because she had to. How else could one gauge
their tastes, temperaments, and pocketbooks? They passed in and out
of Brandeis' Bazaar, day after day, in an endless and varied
procession--traveling men, school children, housewives, farmers, worried
hostesses, newly married couples bent on house furnishing, business men.

She learned that it was the girls from the paper mills who bought
the expensive plates--the ones with the red roses and green leaves
hand-painted in great smears and costing two dollars and a half, while
the golf club crowd selected for a gift or prize one of the little white
plates with the faded-looking blue sprig pattern, costing thirty-nine
cents. One day, after she had spent endless time and patience over the
sale of a nondescript little plate to one of Winnebago's socially elect,
she stared wrathfully after the retreating back of the trying customer.

"Did you see that? I spent an hour with her. One hour! I showed her
everything from the imported Limoges bowls to the Sevres cups and
saucers, and all she bought was that miserable little bonbon dish with
the cornflower pattern. Cat!"

Mrs. Brandeis spoke from the depths of her wisdom.

"Fanny, I didn't miss much that went on during that hour, and I was
dying to come over and take her away from you, but I didn't because I
knew you needed the lesson, and I knew that that McNulty woman never
spends more than twenty-five cents, anyway. But I want to tell you now
that it isn't only a matter of plates. It's a matter of understanding
folks. When you've learned whom to show the expensive hand-painted
things to, and when to suggest quietly the little, vague