The Homemaker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher — Read

Evangeline Knapp was eating her breakfast with a good appetite, the morning paper propped up in front of her, so that she could study attentively Mrs. Willing's clever advertising for the day. She admired Mrs. Willing's talent so much! That was something she could never do, not if her life depended on it! She had always hated writing, even letters. Everything in her froze stiff when she took up a pen. But she knew enough to appreciate somebody who could write. And Mrs. Willing could. Her daily advertisements were positively as good as a story -- better than most stories because there was no foolishness about them. This morning, for instance, as Evangeline sipped her coffee, she enjoyed to the last word the account of the new kitchen-cabinets at the Emporium, and Mrs. Willing's little story about the wonderful way in which American ingenuity had developed kitchen conveniences! Good patriotism, that was, too. She knew that all over town women were enjoying it with their breakfast and would look around their own kitchens to see how they could be improved. The kitchenware department would have a good day, she thought unenviously, her pride in the store embracing all its departments.

She moved to the cashier's desk to pay for her breakfast, for she took her breakfast downtown, as the easiest way to manage things at home in the morning. The children didn't need to be off to school until an hour after she left the house, and this plan left them more time to get their breakfast without hurrying. The cashier gave her a pleasant good morning as he handed over the change, and asked how all the family were that morning. Everybody in town knew what troubles Mrs. Knapp had, and how brave she was about them. As he asked the question he was thinking to himself, "Nobody ever heard her complain or look depressed -- and yet how forlorn for a homebody such as she had always been to get her breakfast in a cafeteria like a traveling-man!"