Free Francie Comes Home by Emily Hahn

everybody did in Jefferson, sooner or later. The personal columns began to mean something to Francie as the weeks went by. How gay they sounded! They were misleading, though. If you didn’t know for a fact that Miss Fritzi Smithers didn’t wash her neck quite often enough, you might be more impressed by the account of her Canasta Club luncheon party. On the other hand, having seen Juliet Harper close up and admired her neat little person, it was pleasant to read that she was going away for a dance at Culver. Francie hoped Julie would have a marvelous time. Even the Jefferson Country Club Saturday night dances sounded glamorous in “Chit-Chat”, which is what the column was really called, though Francie knew it had always meant the same old crowd, the old decorations. If you didn’t know Jefferson you’d never think the reporter was talking about the same drab club, with its buff-colored walls and heavy maroon draperies.
    Depressed, Francie reflected that it was more fun to read about practically any Jefferson social function than to attend it. If she had thought about it two months previously, she would have said that she knew all about Jefferson and whatever went on in town in the party department; she had grown up in Jefferson—she knew it, it knew her. But lately she had become acutely aware of a faction she didn’t know at all. There was a part of Jefferson that didn’t seem to be conscious that she was alive—or care. Such a novelty could be described in a few words—Chadbourne Fredericks and her group. They had a social life different from the usual, and Francie’s juke-box crowd didn’t mix with them at all.
    Of course, she reminded herself, it was only Chadbourne’s fault and Chadbourne’s loss. The red-haired girl wasn’t really a part of the town, and that was probably why Francie, back in her teen-age days, hadn’t noticed her. Mrs. Fredericks, though legally a resident of Jefferson, had spent much of her life in other places and had sent Chadbourne to school here and there in the East. Her center of interest had always been elsewhere, and the girl’s present status was the result of it. Once, discussing the matter with the family, Francie was so extreme in her disapproval as to call Chadbourne an “outsider.” Pop immediately picked her up on it.
    â€œIf it comes to that, chicken, you’re an outsider yourself, by Jeffersonian standards,” he said warningly. “You’ve been around the world a lot more than Ruth and your other friends, so why criticize the Fredericks girl?”
    â€œI’m not criticizing, Pop. At least, I didn’t mean to,” said Francie. “I was just saying to Aunt Norah, that’s all, that Chadbourne isn’t one of the girls and so I can’t very well expect her to drop in as if she were. It’s not the same with me, anyway. Admittedly I’ve spent a lot of time in other places, but I did spend my youth here, and that’s what counts.”
    Pop seemed to find this statement immoderately funny, but Francie knew very well what she meant. She plunged ahead, undaunted. “I mean, I went to grammar school here. And I went to dancing-classes on Saturday morning with the gang. We knew each other; it was the same for all of us. We ate our lunch together at junior high, and went to football games together, and had crushes on the same movie stars and … well, all that. It makes a bond. Now Chadbourne, for the little time she was here now and then, as far as I can make out treated the place like a summer resort. She just dropped in on the place when she felt like it.”
    â€œOr when her mother felt like it, more probably,” put in Aunt Norah.
    â€œExactly. When her mother felt like it, but the effect was the same,” said Francie triumphantly. “It shows how in the way Chadbourne behaves to the rest of us. As if we were mere natives. Why, she even