“I’m keepin’ a first class place here. There’s a lot o’ this new-fangled stuff that I’ve stopped carryin’. People always buy it out when they come in, an’ I have to keep gittin’ more all the time. If I don’t have them things they ask fer, they’ll prob’ly buy sumpen that’s already on hand. I can’t please ev’rybody all the time, or I’d be worked to death. I don’t keep no likker, but anybody can git most anything else here that’ll make ’em smell like a man, an’ I don’t sell no cigarettes. A feller come in ’ere with one once, an’ when ’e went out ’e left ’is punk on the edge of a pile o’ paper. After a while some o’ the bunch out in front noticed some fire, an’ it pretty near burnt up the store, an’ besides they smell like a burnt offering, an’ I don’t like ’em.”
I asked him if he ever went over to the lake.
“Not fer about fifteen years. We all drove over there fer a bath, an’ I took a bad cold an’ I haven’t bin there since. This talk o’ washin’ all the time is nonsence. Jedge Blossom’s got a big tin bath tub up to his place, that’s painted green, an’ ’e gits in it an’ sloshes ’round ev’ry Saturday night when ’e’s home, but when Monday mornin’ comes ’e don’t look no better’n anybody else.”
During one afternoon that I spent with him in the rear of the store, he showed me some of the literature which he had taken down from the stock on one of the upper shelves, and had been reading during the winter. The pile consisted of old-fashioned dime novels of years ago, with their multicolored illustrated paper covers. Among the titles, and on the blood-curdling, well-thumbed pages, I found names that were once familiar and much beloved. “Lantern-Jawed Bob,” “Snake Eye,” “Deadwood Dick,” “Iron Hand,” “Navajo Bill,” “Shadow Bill,” “The Forest Avenger,” “Eagle-Eyed Zeke,” “The War Tiger of the Modocs,” “The Mountain Demon,” and many other forgotten heroes of boyhood days, “advanced coolly and stealthily” out of the mists of the dim past, and once more they scalped, robbed, trailed, circumvented bloodthirsty pursuers, had hair-breadth escapes, mocked death, rescued peerless maidens from savage redskins in the wilderness, and finally married them, as of yore.
The romance in the pile was irretrievably bad, but it recalled happy memories. It was not surprising that the old man was impressed with the idea that “too much readin’ rots the mind,” when spring came, and he had finished the stack.
Around the big stove, on chilly days, the owners of the chin whiskers congregate, with cob pipes and juicy plug. They contribute liberally to the square boxes filled with sawdust that serve as cuspidors. In this solemn circle the great political problems of the nation are considered and solved.
The gossip of the township is exchanged, and the personal frailties of absent ones discussed. The local Munchausen tells wondrous tales of his cow, that stands out in the river and is milked by hungry fish that wait among the lilies, and of hailstorms he has seen that have demolished brickyards.
A projected barn, the sale of a horse or cow, the repairs on a wagon, the prospects of frost or rain, the crops, the price of hogs, the tariff, the trusts, the rascality of the railroads, and many other subjects, are mingled with the gossip of the neighborhood. These matters are all deeply pondered over. They talk about their rheumatism, the “cricks” in their backs, their coughs, their aches and pains, and the foolish vagaries of the “women folks.” They buy patent medicines, and they bathe only when they get caught in the rain.
THE PESSIMISTS