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. Drury, I never noticed before how this place is alive with societies and clubs and lodges and things.  Everybody seems to belong to three or four organizations.  And they talk about ’em!  But I don’t hear much about our church, and nothing at all about the old church out at Deep Creek.  Yet I used to think that the church was the whole thing!”

The older man nodded.  “It’s true, J.W.,” he said, “all the churches together are only a small part of the community.  They are the best, and usually the best-organized forces we have, I’m sure of that; but the church and the town have to reckon with these others.”

“What good are they all?  They must cost a pile of money.  What for?”

“That’s what you might call a whale of a question, J.W.”  John W. Farwell, Senior, who had been standing by, listening, essayed to answer.  “And you haven’t heard yet of all the organizations.  Look at me, for example.  I belong to the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club.  I’m on the Executive Committee of the Madison County Horticultural Society, and I’ve just retired from the Board of Directors of the Civic League.  Then you must think of the political parties, and the County Sunday School Association, and the annual Chautauqua, and I don’t know what all.”

“Yes, and I notice, dad, that a good many of these,” said J.W., Jr., “are just for the men.  The women must have nearly as many.  Why, Delafield ought to be a model town, and the country ’round here ought to be a regular paradise, with all these helpers and uplifters on the job.  But it isn’t.  Maybe they’re not all on the job.”