equipment which the wheat farmer would not even look at.

And the townpeople he learned to classify in the same way. He was soon
on good terms with those store clerks who were handy men about the
house, with women who did all their own work, with blacksmiths and
carpenters, with unskilled laborers and garage mechanics. In time he
could almost tell where a man lived and what he did for a living, just
by the hardware he bought and the questions he asked about it.
Heretofore J.W. had thought he knew most of the people in Delafield.
But the first weeks in the store showed him that he knew only a few. Up
to this time "most of the people in Delafield" had meant, practically,
his school friends, the clerks and salespeople in certain stores--and
the members of the First Methodist Church.

That is to say, in the main, to him Delafield had been the church, and
the church had been Delafield. But now he realized that his church was
only a small part of Delafield. The town had other churches. It had
lodges. When the store outfitted Odd Fellows' Hall with new window
shades he learned that the Odd Fellows shared the place with strong
lodges of the Maccabees and Modern Woodmen. And there were other halls.
J.W. Farwell, Sr., was a Mason, but these other lodges seemed to have as
many members as the Masons, and one or the other of them was always
getting ready for a big public display.

The same condition was true of the country people. He began to hear
about the Farm Federation, and the Grange, and the Farmers' Elevator,
and the cooperative creamery, for members of all of these groups passed
in and out of the store.

One day J.W. remarked to the pastor who had dropped into the store: "Mr.