In that vanished time in small-town Jackson,  most of the ladies I was familiar with, the mothers of my friends  in the neighborhood,  were busiest  when they were sociable.  In
the afternoons there was regular visiting up and down the little grid of residential streets. Everybody had calling cards, even certain children; and newborn babies themselves were properly announced by sending out their tiny engraved calling cards attached with a pink or blue bow to those of their parents. Graduation presents to high-school pupils were often "card cases." On the hall table in every house the first thing you saw was silver tray waiting to receive more calling cards on top of the stack already piled up like jackstraws; they were never thrown away.
My mother let none of this idling, as she saw it, pertain to her, she went her own way with or without her calling cards, and though she was fond of her friends and they were fond of her, she had little time for small talk. At first, I hadn't known what I'd missed.
When we at length bought our first automobile, one of our neighbors was often invited to go with us on the family Sunday afternoon ride. In Jackson it was counted an affront to the neighbors to start out for anywhere with an empty seat in the car. My mother sat in the back with her friend, and I'm told that as a small child I would ask to sit in the middle, and say as we started off, "Now talk."
There was dialogue throughout the lady's accounts to my mother. "I said"..."He said"..."And I'm told she very plainly said"..."It was midnight before they finally heard, and what do you think it was."