The curious sickish odour was a compound of many ingredients blended into one by the all-powerful and all-pervading kerosene. The floor, moderately clean, was covered with sand and saw-dust, which was occasionally swept out and replaced by a fresh layer.
On the right, as you went in, was a small show-case filled with bright coloured candies, displayed in the original packages. Other boxes were piled in the window and still others on the shelf. Within a radius of twenty steps one could buy calico, muslin, ruled stationery, or groceries and kerosene, as he might choose.
Once a year, the commonplace merchandise gave way to "Christmas novelties," and during the first two weeks in February the candy show-case was filled with the pretty nonsensical bits of paper called valentines, with a pile of "comics" on top.
Every year on the twelfth of February, as Mrs. Safford had said, Elmiry Ann Rogers came in and bought a valentine. Every year on the fourteenth of February, as the postmaster's keen-eyed wife had noted, Elmiry Ann Rogers had received a valentine. It was no comic, either, such as one might send to an unprepossessing old maid of forty, but a gorgeous affair of lace paper and cupids, in an ornate wrapping, for more than once, Elmiry's trembling fingers had torn the envelop a bit, as if she could not wait until she reached home.
In many a country town, the buyer of the valentines would have been known as "Ol' Mis' Rogers," but The Corners, lazy, rather than tactful, still clung to the name the pretty girl had gone by.
There was little in Elmiry to recall the graceful figure that was wont to appear in pink muslin or red merino at church and prayer meeting, for the soft curves had become angles, the erect shoulders were bent, and the laughing eyes were now filled with a dumb pathetic sadness. Elmiry's hair had once fallen in soft curls about her face, but now it was twisted into a hard little knot at the back of her head. The white dimpled hands were dark and scrawny now, but people still spoke of her as "Elmiry Ann."
The morning of the thirteenth dawned cloudy and cold. The postmaster went out of town on business, and his wife had her hands full. She moved briskly from one part of the store to the other, making change, rectifying mistakes, and attending to the mail.
At noon a crowd of children came in after "comics" and John Weeks stood by, watching aimlessly.
"You want any valentines, Mr. Weeks?" asked Mrs. Safford.