Probably the specters from the canned hash are at the lower end of the scale.
I suggested to the old man that all these things might be happening while he slumbered, but he declared that I was mistaken. “There’s never bin any doin’s like that goin’ on ’round the store,” said he.
Figuratively, it might be said that many of us obtain most of our intellectual food from cans. The diet may be varied occasionally by fresh nutrients, but too often we rely upon products bearing established trade-marks for our mental sustenance. The rows of labels, honored by time and dimmed by dust, stand like tiers of skulls, with their eyeless caverns gravely still—mute symbols of the eternal hours—as if staring in dull mockery out of a vanished past. Living currents flow around us unheeded. We absorb predigested thought to repletion, and neglect vibrant mental forces, that through disuse become depleted, instead of enriching them with the study of the green and growing things that have not been put in cans.
“About ev’ry third year,” said the old man, “business gits worse’n ever, an’ that’s when a hoss trader named Than Gandy comes ’round. He lives some’rs in the eastern part o’ the state, an’ after ’e’s bin through ’ere ’e waits long enough fer most of ’em to fergit ’im before ’e comes agin. He starts out from where ’e lives with a sulky, an’ a crow bait hoss, an’ about five dollars. He spends a couple o’ months on ’is travels among the little places away from the railroads, an’ when ’e gits through with ’is trip, ’e has a string o’ seven er eight hosses, an’ four er five little wagons an’ buggies, an’ a lot o’ harnesses an’ whips an’ calves an’ sheep, an’ a big wad o’ money. He’s got all them things to boot in trades ’e keeps makin’. He beats ev’rybody ’e runs up ag’inst, an’ when ’e quits ’round ’ere nobody’s got any money left to buy things with. They don’t know what’s happened to ’em till ’e’s away off. When ’e stops at the store, he gen’rally trades me sumpen fer what ’e wants.
“Once Jedge Blossom traded hosses with ’im when ’e was piped, an’ gave ’im ten dollars to boot. He got a bum animal shifted on ’im, an’ when ’e sobered up, ’e sent Gandy a bill fer fifteen dollars fer legal advice, an’ the advice was not to come into this part o’ the country any more.”
The old man told me that he was born in a small town in Massachusetts.
“I was named after the preacher of our church. He was a great man an’ ’is eloquence was wonderful. His name was the Reverend Elihu Baxter, an’ ’e used to go up into the pulpit, an’ lean ’is stummick ’way out over it, an’ say, ‘Now you listen to me’!—an’ that’s the way ’e drawed ’em to ’im. When ’e’d first begin, the church ’ud be so still that you could hear the flies buzz, an’ ’is voice would sound all hollow, like ’e was talkin’ into a big dish-pan. We don’t have no more preachers like ’im now days, an’ people don’t go to church no more like they did then. We don’t have no more old-fashioned Sundays. There’s too many newspapers, an’ what they have to say takes the place o’ what we used to hear in the pulpit. What the preachers say now days ain’t interestin’ any more. People rest an’ play on Sunday now, instid o’ bein’ solemn an’ sad an’ settin’ ’round an’ listenin’ over an’ over to somebody tellin’ about them three fellers that was in the fiery furnace.”
He felt deeply his responsibility as a representative of the national government. The post-office department, with its rows of glass-fronted mail boxes, numbered from 1 to 40, was located at the right of the store entrance. The mail bag was brought daily from the railroad station, five miles away, by a fat-faced young man in blue overalls and a hickory shirt. His elbows flopped madly up and down as his horse galloped along the highway with the precious burden across the pommel. He made another trip at night with the out-going mail, and when the hoof-beats were heard on the road, there would be many glances at the clocks in the houses along his route, and the fact approvingly noted, that “Bill’s on time to-night, all right.”
There are many people in the world who win lasting laurels by being “on time.” Some do it quietly, and others by flopping their arms violently, to the accompaniment of resonant hoof-beats, as “Bill” does, but being “on time” is essential to success in life. “Bill” may have no other argument to present for his eventual redemption than the fact that he was always “on time,” but it cannot fail to be powerful and convincing.
“I would like this postmaster business,” said the old man, “if it wasn’t fer all the books I have to write in an’ the blanks I have to fill out. It keeps people comin’ in, but sometimes I have to set up pretty near all night writin’ out things fer the gov’ament. I don’t keep no books fer the store, fer I never sell nothin’ ’cept fer cash, or fer sumpen that’s brought in, an’ I keep my expense account in my hat. If the sheriff ever comes ’round ’ere to close me up, ’e won’t find no books to go by. I spend all the money that gits in the drawer, an’ if what’s in the store should burn up, I’d be ahead ’cause I’ve got insurance, an’ I’d git it all at once; so I guess I’m all right. I ain’t got much to show fer my life, ’cept a grin, but that’s sumpen. Some day I’ll have all the poetry I’ve made printed into a volume that’ll be put on sale, an’ I’ll have a reg’lar income an’ I won’t have to work no more.