21.

nothing else. But when Dad, two days before we were to leave, told me to get a hair cut in preparation the whole thing turned dismally sour. No trip, not even to the Moon, was in my mind the equal in pleasure to my feminine life, I was just sick and as soon as I could get from his presence I flew to Mother sobbing out the news. There again Mother supported me to the hilt and going to Dad she announced that she wasn't through with me by any means and that neither she nor I would go if such was required. Dad groaned, but his fondness for Mother won out and he reluctantly consented to travel with two daughters rather than a daughter and a son. I was overjoyed for the trip as a girl would be a double pleasure.

When I suggested to Mother that I really needed more clothes she fairly screamed with laughter, saying, that for once she really had the male sex where she wanted them. Then, turhing serious, she suggested that we wait till we got to Chicago before buying anything more for the selec- tion would be so much better there

So the morning we started I wore my skirt and blouse as being the least liable to be harmed by motoring's dirt and muss In a bag I had my limited wardrobe augmented by a dress and accessories borrowed from Mother. An ac- cident with anything, particularly my under things would have left me woefully short. Compensating that, though, were my dreams of the wonderful Chicago stores and their vast armloads of wonderful, lovely clothes. The whole ride was unalloyed joy. Meeting nothang but strangers at our stops meant that I could forget the danger of recog- nition always present to some extent when at home.

I won't dwell too long on what we did, but the first few days were nothing but shopping while Dad worked. But most disappointing to me was Mother's refusal to buy me anywhere near what I wanted. She wisely pointed out that Dad just wouldn't stand for it. I did get two new dresses though, bath simple little prints, a very well cut tweed skirt from the Fall collections, a little soft white shorty coat and quite a lot of wonderul underthings--included was