“Chalk them up, Sampson,” Gordon carelessly told the clerk who wrapped up his purchases. “How much are those?” he added, indicating a pair of women’s low white shoes.
“Four. They’re real buck, and a topnotch article. Nothing better comes.”
Gordon turned them over in his hand; they would, he thought, just fit Clare; she liked pretty articles of attire; she had not been so well lately. Clare was a faithful sister. “Just add them to the bundle,” he directed in a lordly manner.
The clerk hesitated, and glanced toward the private office, where Simmons’ head could be seen pinkly bald. “Do you think you’d better, Gordon?” he asked; “the boss has been crabbed lately about some of the old accounts, and yours has waited as long as any. I wouldn’t get nothing to catch his eye—”
“Add the shoes to my bundle,” Gordon repeated with a narrowing gaze; “I always ask for the advice I need.”
Outside he endeavored to recall when he had last paid anything on his account at Simmons’ store. This was the last week in June ... had he paid any in April? in November? He was not able to remember the occasion of his last settlement. He must attend to that; he had other obligations, too, small but long overdue. He cursed the fluid quality of his wage, forever flowing through his fingers. He must apportion his expenditures more carefully; or, better yet, give all his money to Clare; the high-power rifle he had purchased in Stenton the year before had crippled their resources; his last Christmas present to Clare had been a heavy drain; he had not yet recovered from the generous funeral he had given their mother.
He was unaccustomed to such considerations. They interfered with the large view he held of himself, of his importance, his deserts; they limited his necessity for a natural indifference to penny matters; and he dismissed them with an uneasy movement of his shoulders.
He passed the discolored, plaster bulk of the Presbyterian Church, the drug store and dwelling of Dr. Pelliter, and was on the outskirts of the village. The shadow of the western range had now slipped across the valley and nearly climbed the opposite wall; lavender scarfs of mist veiled the far, jumbled peaks in the darkling rift; slim, swaying columns of smoke from the clustered chimneys of Greenstream towered dizzily through the shaded air to where, high above, they were transformed to gold by the last, up-flung rays of the sun.