business. And in Grand Rapids they're the same;
only there, of course, it's furniture.

"Yes," they say almost with reluctance, "we do make
a good deal of furniture, but we also have big printing
plants and plaster mills, and a large business in automo-
bile accessories, and the metal trades."

They talked that way to me. But I kept right on
asking about furniture, just as, when the young husband
talks to me about his wife's harp playing, I keep right
on eating shortcake. That is no reflection on her mu-
sic (or her arms!); it is simply a tribute to her cook-
ing.

Grand Rapids is one of those exceedingly agreeable,
homelike American cities, which has not yet grown to
the unwieldy size. It is the kind of city of which they
say: "Every one here knows every one else"--mean-
ing, of course, that members of the older and more
prosperous families enjoy all the advantages and dis-
advantages of a considerable intimacy.

To the visitor--especially the visitor from New
York, where a close friend may be bedridden a month
without one's knowing it--this sort of thing makes a
strong appeal at first. You feel that these people see
one another every day; that they know all about one
another, and like one another in spite of that. It is
nice to see them troop down to the station, fifteen
strong, to see somebody off, and it must be nice to be seen
off like that; it must make you feel sure that you have

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