Why do buddy and his friend make fruitcakes each year? Explain who they make them for.

Each year Buddy and his friend make fruitcakes for those who have shown them a small kindness, people who they are not well acquainted with, such as the President. The pair makes the cakes for people who come to town on occasion to lecture or provide a service to the townspeople for example the itinerant knife grinder. They do not make them for close friends because they do not have any. Buddy’s friend is very shy and seems to relate well to those who spend a few hours with them or those that they have not met. They keep a scrapbook of the thank-you notes they receive from people, and in this way relate to them without having to interact with them on a regular basis. This gives them a feeling of being part of something larger than their own little world. Buddy says,

Also, the scrapbooks we keep of thank-you's on White House stationery, time-to-time communications from California

and Borneo, the knife grinder's penny post cards, make us feel connected.