Free Francie Comes Home by Emily Hahn Page A

imports all her friends from outside. Who are the people she’s always with? No locals, anyway.”
    Aunt Norah said Francie was perfectly right, though perhaps a little hard on the Fredericks girl. “It’s all Lottie’s fault, really,” she said. “I hope she doesn’t come to regret it now she’s decided to make a go of the life here. That Chadbourne looks to me like a difficult child—discontented and snippy. Spoiled. She’s obviously delicate anyway, with that bad complexion; I remember she always was, from a child.”
    Mr. Nelson, remaining recalcitrant, said with some irritation that it wasn’t necessarily a law of nature with del-growing up outside Jefferson should be punished with deicate constitutions. He pointed out that America was full of healthy girls who had never so much as seen Jefferson, let alone been born there, but Aunt Norah was unconvinced. Francie, however, felt a bit ashamed of herself. She knew she had come very near to being downright catty, and she suspected, with a guilty twinge, that Pop had somehow divined the reason.
    Dropping the subject, she read again the item in “Chit-Chat” which had brought on all this discussion. A gay treasure hunt was held on Thursday evening for twenty guests at the home of Miss Chadbourne Fredericks. The eager treasure seekers divided up into teams of two. First clue was hidden among the lilac bushes growing on the spacious grounds of the Fredericks estate. The discoverer, appropriately enough, was Mr. Bruce “Lucky” Munson — he is always called “Lucky” by his friends — who, with Miss Fredericks, led a ravening party pell-mell to the car park and thence to the Old Mill in the North Road … etc, etc. If you didn’t allow for the lady reporter’s lush style, Jefferson sounded like the popular idea of Hollywood.
    â€œLucky” Munson indeed, thought Francie; that must surely be the glamor-boy she had seen with Chadbourne. She disliked him without even knowing him. How long would he stick around, anyway? She rather thought he must have a job with Fredericks & Worpels; he turned up there every day in his noticeable car and usually departed at closing time with Chadbourne, so there seemed to be no likelihood of his going back soon to wherever he had come from. And that, no doubt, was why Chadbourne herself was still in Jefferson. Without imported boy friends the town wouldn’t be good enough for her. As for girl friends, surely there must be something wrong if a person carried her own crowd around with her.… Francie pulled on her coat and set off to work in a rebellious mood, quite as if she hadn’t often reflected that Jefferson wasn’t good enough for her, either.
    â€œGood morning, Mrs. Clark.” Francie spoke with a good imitation of cordiality. It was the first time she had seen the woman since that evening when her vexation with Chadbourne Fredericks was born, and it was only because of Chadbourne that she recognized her now. There were so many plain, gentle women like Anne Clark who came into the Birthday Box to sniff around at the drink thermometers, the baked tiles, and bronze lampshades, and to waste their little odd bits of money. But again, as before, Mrs. Clark did not live up to type. She finally bypassed all the clutter on the tables and picked out a plain, attractive set of paper tablecloth and napkins.
    â€œI’ll pay for them now. Don’t bother with looking up my account,” she said as Francie reached for the ledger. “I know Mrs. Ryan isn’t here today and you’re on your own. You won’t want any more responsibility.”
    Francie said, “Oh, that would be all right, Mrs. Clark.”
    â€œNever mind.” The woman smiled pleasantly and brought out her purse. As Francie made change, she asked, “Do you like working here?”
    â€œIt’s nice now I’m catching on a little. There was