Page:Weeds (1923).pdf/139

 big black type exhorting the reader to "Send no Money," "Win Health and Happiness Without Cost," "Stop Suffering," "Send Two-cent Stamp and Know Your Future," "Make Big Money by Pleasant Work in Spare Time," these caused Hat to get down from the clock shelf the pen, the bottle of ink, and the letter paper and write to such of the advertisers as most appealed to her imagination.

It is true that the answers were usually disappointing. One brought a sample of kidney remedy, for which Hat, never having had any symptoms of kidney trouble, could find no present use. She laid it away carefully, half hoping that she or Luke might need it at some time in the future. The "Pleasant Occupation in Spare Time" people always required you to buy some complicated and expensive apparatus before you could begin to earn money with it. This was the last thing that Hat was prepared to do. She derived her greatest satisfaction from the firms that told your fortune for a dime or read your horoscope if you told them the date of your birth and the color of your eyes and hair; and from those that sent free samples of cosmetics, remedies for chicken diseases and gaudy calendars and bookmarks. There was no thrill in her life greater than that of finding a package in the mail box addressed to herself, of carrying it home in delightful suspense and at last opening the package in secret to see what it contained. The joy of getting something for nothing and of being in secret communication with unknown people appealed both to her cupidity and her thirst for adventure. Luke was not a partner in these pleasures; and as he could neither read nor write, she had no difficulty in keeping him in the dark regarding her correspondence.

Besides the "Farm Wife's Friend," and the carefully studied current almanac, Hat had other literature. She had a book called "Lena Rivers," in a tattered yellow paper cover, and another book entitled "No Wedding Bells For Her," in no cover at all. These two books she had read through at least a dozen times. She had a paper bound dream book which interpreted dreams, not as Professor Freud would do, but in a