THE STORE.

The morning after his arrival at his uncle’s, Walter began his new duties as clerk, and opened the store. It was in the south–western corner of the house, and was also in a corner made by two roads. One was the lane that came up from the life saving station, widening into a road which went to the outside world. The second, starting at the store, continued its travels in an easterly direction, and ended them in a little fishing village overlooking the sea. Opening from the store into these two roads, as if to solicit and take up all passing custom, were two doors, and each was bordered by two windows. Above one of these doors, that on the road to the outside world, was a small sign, and it said, “B. Blake”; but said it very faintly. The sign once was black, and the name had been painted in gilt letters; but the rains had been scouring the sign for years, and the sun bleaching it; and between the scouring and the bleaching, there had resulted a surface of shabby, blackish gray, streaked with dim, yellow lines. The store, as well as the sign, looked old. The entire house looked old. So did its owner, Boardman Blake; and the great, dark forest of pines beyond the house seemed to murmur day and night, “Growing old, growing old!” As one entered the store, in a very hospitable location between the two doors, he saw a rusty box stove flanked by two benches. The benches in winter rarely were without an occupant. In the spring, summer, and fall, these occupants in part were out on the sea, pulling into their uneasy boats, cod, hake, or haddock; while some were following the plow, hoeing corn or pitching the fragrant hay into bulky carts. Behind the benches, on the wall, were posters, announcing to a generally neglectful and ungrateful world, that “Vandyke’s Life–Bitters” would cure dyspepsia; that “Peaslee’s Liniment” never failed to take the stiffness out of a horse’s joints; while “Payson’s Hair Elixir” was sure to vitalize a bald head into the manufacturing of rich, luxuriant locks. The counters bordered two sides of the store, and sustained the weight of a desk in one corner where Boardman attended to his scanty book–keeping. Then there were two faded old show–cases whose store of peppermints, lozenges in gaudy wrappings, and gumdrops of every known rainbow–tint, excited the admiration of every schoolboy. There were also several pairs of scales, and a cheesebox. Behind the counters, ranged on shelves that began in some mysterious space below the counters’ level, and reached to the dusty, fly–specked ceiling, was an assortment of goods that only a country store can produce. There was not very much of any one article, but so many articles were gathered there that variety made up fully for quantity. There were dry goods, and goods that were not dry, such as bottles of medicine and essences; there were outfits for the farmer, and outfits for the fisherman. Hardware was there, like hammers and planes; and software, like sugar and meal. Goods were there, like boots and shoes; and goods like caps and clothing. As the storekeeper generally had only one suit of clothes on hand at a time, there was but little range of choice for the customer, and if compelled to take what he could find, a giant might have gone away wretched in the suit of a dwarf, or the dwarf departed only to be lost in the apparel of a giant.

The store excited Walter’s interest, and as he opened it that first morning, his eyes made a rapid inventory of its miscellaneous contents.

“And what is that?” he asked, noticing a shelf on which were clustered a few books. They were not for sale, but their titles and well–thumbed condition showed that they were for reference. One was a state gazetteer, another a volume of state laws, a third a small English dictionary, and a fourth was a Bible. The latter was bound in old leather covers, and its type was antique. It seemed to be a kind of safe, as well as aid to devotion, for various documents were there, like deeds and bills.

“What is this?” exclaimed Walter, as a piece of paper fluttered out of the old Bible when he chanced to lift and open the book. “Uncle has a lot of papers in it, and I must look out. I must put this back.”

He could not but see the figures, five hundred, in the left hand corner of the document, and carelessly had read, “For value received, I promise to pay Bezaleel Baggs, or order, five hundred dollars.” Walter stopped.

“I must not read that, and did not intend to,” thought the clerk. He could but notice a blot in one corner of the bill. It was a singular blot.

“It looks like an animal. There is its body, and those four streaks below would make good legs for a small animal. Pig, I guess. Now, I will put that away and attend to my work,” thought Walter. “Hullo! Who’s calling? Who’s here at six o’clock?”

Walter noticed that the time by a clock secured to a post, was very near six o’clock.

Somebody without was apparently shouting for the storekeeper. Stepping quickly to the door, Walter noticed first a gaily painted wagon. Its wheels were scarlet, and its shining black body was striped with scarlet. He was about saying to himself, “It’s a young fellow aboard,” when this same young fellow lifted a round–topped felt hat, disclosed a wall of hair, and shouted, “You here? You don’t say!”

“I didn’t say anything about it, but I am glad to see you, Aldrich. What are you up to?”

“This morning, I am up to bringing my uncle down here. He is out in the yard, the barnyard. I am clerking it with him, and shall be a neighbor of yours this winter; that is, a mile off, up at the office of my uncle. It is near the mill you know, that your uncle has put up for the sawing of the timber round here. A feller gets a good apprenticeship with Bezaleel Baggs, I tell you. Oh, he is bright on a trade! I have learned a good deal by being with him, already. Say, what kind of a store have you in there? Most everything, I suppose.”

Walter, who was out on the doorstep, here turned to the store. The upper part of the door was of glass, and one who occupied Walter’s position, could easily see within.

“Is that a man in the store?” thought Walter. “Is it a man behind the counter?”

He could not make out anything very distinctly. Besides, Chauncy was calling out to him, “Look out here, not in there? Do you expect the Hon. Boardman Blake is in there trading with himself? That would be handy, for he could be as sharp as he pleased, or as easy as he pleased. Really, he is out in the barn, for I saw him there a moment ago.”

“I thought I noticed somebody in the store, but I guess it was only a shadow.”

“Come, tell me about your plans,” said Chauncy, who seemed anxious to catch and hold Walters attention. “Tell me what you are up to?”

“Why, I am clerking, am I not?”

“Oh, yes. Of course you are. Well, do you like?”

Walter did not answer at once. He could not rid his mind of the impression that something was not right in the store. He finally said, “This is my first morning in the store,” and was about to add, “I think I shall like here,” when he chanced to look again into the store. A golden ray of sunlight, as if an auger, had bored its way through the shadows behind the counter, and it fell upon the shelves that held the Bible and other volumes. In that light, Walter saw a form, that of a man, though of no one that he had ever seen before,—a short, heavy man, with broad shoulders, hatless; and was his hair light, or did the sunray brighten it as it fell upon it? He noticed that the man’s side whiskers projected into the sunlight, and also that he leaned over. Walter was about to lay his hand on the latch of the door when a terrific yell from Chauncy delayed him.

“Ah–hoo! Ah–hoo!”

Was Chauncy calling to him, or shouting to somebody in the store that he had already discovered, and perhaps might wish to notify? If such a thought came into Walter’s mind, it did not come clear as a ray of sunshine, but it was so confused and dim a suspicion that it made little impression upon him, and he turned one moment as if in obedience to Chauncy’s call, who was now shouting, “Ah–hoo–hoo! Plymp–ton!” Then he laughed heartily: “Ha–ha! You did not recognize my Indian yell that I have for folks. See here! I only wanted to say, if you were going into the store, and you have any—any—any—”

It took Chauncy some time to tell what he did want, but fumbling in his pocket, he produced a ten–cent piece, and said, “Oh, anything! Bring me some candy!”

“There is a customer in here, and I’ll bring it to you quick as I can.”

“Customer, boy! You are demented! I don’t believe anybody is there, unless it is the Hon. Boardman, as I said before.”

Chauncy was right. When Walter entered the store, no one was there! He went behind the counter, and then he looked under the counter. The usual row of dumb, unintelligent soap–boxes, and spice–boxes, and candy–boxes, could be seen there. He went to the shelves on which were the books. The sunshine, as well as the visitor, had mysteriously vanished. A fly crawling over the books suddenly buzzed in Walter’s face, as if to ask, in the fly–tongue, “What does this fellow want here?”

“If this is not strange!” thought Walter.

“Where did that man go? Am I getting ‘demented,’ as Chauncy said? Could anybody have gone to the sitting–room from the store?”

From the store, one could directly enter the sitting–room. Walter hastily looked into the sitting–room. The sunray might have retreated there, and in the rich overflow of light entering two eastern windows, it certainly would not have been noticed as a separate ray. But had the rich, strong flood of light swallowed up the man, as well as the ray of sunshine? If he had gone into the sitting–room, where was he?

“Nonsense!” thought Walter, for he heard the cracked voice of Aunt Lydia piping an old love–song of her girlhood, as she ironed the week’s wash in the kitchen opening out of the sitting–room. “Nonsense! If anybody had come here, of course she would have seen them. She don’t act as if she had seen anybody.” No. Aunt Lydia was singing in sharp, slender strains that old love–ditty, as free from any agitation as if it had been her uninterrupted avocation that morning.

“Plympton! Plympton! Where’s that candy? Have you gone to get your folks to make that candy?” Chauncy was now calling from the store door, which he had opened. Walter returned, went to one of the show–cases, took out the quantity of candy ordered, and handed it to Chauncy.

“The queerest thing!” exclaimed Walter. “I am sure I saw a man in here; but where he has gone, I don’t know.”

“Saw a man!” replied Chauncy, with an incredulous air. “Nobody has been round here except you and me. Here’s your uncle up the road.”

And there indeed Boardman Blake was, slowly moving along toward the store in his careless, abstracted way.

“There’s my uncle, and you can see him down at the fish–house,” continued Chauncy. “He would like to find your uncle. That’s what I brought him down here for. Don’t you see my uncle?”

The fish–house was a black little building, that the rough, strong sea–winds for the last twenty–five years had been trying to push over, and had partially succeeded. It had been found necessary to prop it on one side. Here, the storekeeper accumulated every year a stock of dried salt fish, purchased of the fishermen and then sold out to customers from the surrounding country. Chauncy’s uncle was walking about the fish–house as if trying to find somebody.

“Is that the man I saw in the store?” Walter asked.

“Haw–haw!” laughed Chauncy noisily. “He’s been down at the fish–house trying to hunt up your uncle, all the time I have been here. Come out and see him, and let’s ask him.”

Walter stepped back to say to Aunt Lydia that he wanted to go to the fish–house, and would be back very soon, and then crossed the road with Chauncy to the fish–house.

“The man I saw in the store was sort of built that way, heavy, and short, and broad at the shoulders, and was leaning over. I wish this man would lean over, and let me see how he looks,” thought Walter. The suspected party now turned his face to the young men, as if aware of Walter’s desire to inspect it. It was a face round and full, flanked with thin, gray whiskers. One of the eyes had a cast in it, which gave “Uncle Bezaleel’s” face a certain crookedness of look; but that does not necessarily mean crookedness of character. The eyes of some very honest people have an unfortunate squint. If though, any one looking at the upper part of B. Bagg’s face should say, “B. Baggs is a crooked fellow. Look out!” then the voice below entirely contradicted that impression. It was a mild, agreeable voice, kindly, and rather musical. It had a persuasive tone, and if the crooked eye was a misfortune, the voice of which B. Baggs was owner, had proved to be an excellent piece of property. It had coaxed many poor fellows on to their ruin. Its softness, its sympathy, its willingness to be your friend at any sacrifice, and its great grief if you possibly could think it was your enemy, had brought its possessor much money. It was this voice that had made its way to the softest place in the soft heart of Boardman Blake, quicker than the sharpest auger in the world.

“Uncle, have you been in Mr. Blake’s store this morning?” inquired Chauncy.

“Why, no, child!” said Uncle Bezaleel in the most affectionate and bland of tones, at the same time winking maliciously with his crooked eye. “What made you think so?”

“Oh, I didn’t think so. I knew you had been out here all the time, trying to hunt up Mr. Blake; but my friend Plympton here, uncle, thought you had been in.”

“Ah, how d’ye do, Mr. Plympton,” said Uncle Bezaleel cordially, addressing Walter by that title of manhood which goes so straight to a boy’s heart. Here, with his fat fingers, he softly squeezed Walter’s hand. “I have been out here and round somewhat, admiring the tidy way you and your uncle keep things in. Now that barnyard looks trim as a dining–room. Thrifty as can be, I’m sure.”

The barnyard certainly was very neat for such a place, but that tired, shabby, leaning old fish–house, and the aspect of the place in general, did not sustain B. Baggs’ wonderful opinion of thrift. Walter, though, did not like to mistrust people, and this ready denial, the soft–toned compliment also, were irresistible, and Walter concluded it must have been somebody else that he saw in the store.

“Oh, I see, sir,” he cried promptly. “It must have been another man. Excuse me.”

“All—all right. I must have my little joke, and I guess you—you—ran into your uncle’s cider barrels, this morning, and couldn’t see straight.”

“Haw—haw!” shouted Chauncy.

“Oh, no,” laughed Walter. “I don’t imbibe.”

“That’s right, young man. Don’t touch it! Don’t.”

The crooked eye now gave a funny, wicked look at Walter, while Chauncy, behind Walter’s back, executed with his features a look extraordinary enough to have fitted out a clown for his performances. Uncle Boardman here arrived, and the upright, moral B. Baggs, proceeded at once to confer with him. But who was it that Walter saw in the store? He intended to speak at once to his uncle and aunt about it, but he was sent away to The Harbor, the fishing village in the neighborhood, and when he returned, other duties occupied his mind, and at last, like other matters we neglect, it went for the present out of his thoughts altogether.

Aunt Lydia, the evening of this call by Bezaleel Baggs, had a remark to make to her husband. They were alone in their sitting–room, Aunt Lydia knitting by a little, red, square–topped stand, that supported a kerosene lamp. Uncle Boardman was also sitting near the table, reading the weekly county paper. He had a pleasant face, one to which children, and dogs, and all kinds of dumb animals never made their appeal in vain. It was benevolent as the sunlight after three days of cloudy sky. He may have had brown eyes, but these watchers of the world had their seat so far under his bushy eyebrows, like overhanging eaves, that it was hard to tell their color. When he looked at another, one saw two soft, shining little globes of light directed toward him. As he always shaved, his big, smooth face had a certain boy–look to it. When walking, he had a way of looking down, carrying his folded hands before him. He was likely to come in contact with all sorts of beings and objects; but no romping child that he collided with, no big dog bumping against the abstracted pedestrian, ever heard a testy word of remonstrance from him. He took kindly a knock from a fish–barrel, or a poke from a passing wheel–barrow. While people joked about him, everybody respected and trusted his integrity.

“He’s good salt all the way through,” said Nahum Caswell, an old fisherman at The Harbor. “He trusts other folks too much, and don’t allers know on which side of his bread the butter is; but then he never takes other folks’ butter from ’em. You can trust Boardman with a mint of money, and not a penny will ketch ’tween his fingers. No, sir.”

If Boardman’s eyes, in their great charity, did not at once see into a man’s mean motives, Aunt Lydia’s did, very soon. Her bright, dark eyes looked deep, and did not look in vain. Bezaleel Baggs was uneasy the first time he met her. He felt that a very sharp, clear–seeing pair of eyes had fastened upon him a look that meant inspection, and he avoided her in every possible way.

“Queer!” exclaimed Aunt Lydia this evening of our story. “Queer, that Belzebub Baggs—”

“Bezaleel,” remonstrated Boardman mildly.

“Wall, he is pizen whatever he is; but isn’t it queer he don’t like to talk with me? He’ll buttonhole you by the hour, Boardman, and palaver and make his soft speeches; but nary a word does he say to me if he can help it.”

“Oh, he has business with me.”

“The snake! I wish he had some with me, if I wouldn’t jest scorch him.”

Uncle Boardman let out one of his soft, easy–natured chuckles, and remarked. “He probably sees you are a dangerous character. Ha—ha!”

“Wall, if he don’t keep away from my winders, I’ll put some b’ilin’ water on him.”

“Keep away from what? What’s he been doin’?”

“My advice to him is to keep away from my winders. There I was this mornin’ at six o’clock, ironin’ away, and happened to hear a scratchin’ noise behind me—you see I was in the kitchen at the time, and my back was away from the sittin’–room—and I turned sort of quick, and there was that Baggs at the winder of the sittin’–room—”

“Inside?”

“No, outside; and yet it seemed sort of queer. His head was turned this way, and it seemed as if he was a slidin’ down outside the clapboards. I couldn’t make it out what he was a doin’. For once in his life, he seemed awful glad to see me, and grinned at me, and really teched his hat. I don’t want none of his grins or hat–techin’s. When he had gone, I went to this winder, and I found this clingin’ to the blind. It looks as if it had been torn from a coat. I jest tucked it in there, because I wasn’t goin’ upstairs to my rag–bag then, and knew it would be safe.”

Every housekeeper is apt to have a “saving fever,” but its style may vary extensively in different houses. One housekeeper will carefully cherish the scraps from the table. Another husbands the coal. A third burns no superfluous oil or gas. Another garners all bits of paper or cloth for the rag–man; and a fifth has two eyes out for all possible lessening of the consumption of butter. Aunt Lydia’s ambition, was to treasure up every shred of cloth, all ends of threads, and every slip of paper. She had put the savings of the morning in a little tin box on the mantel, intending to transfer them to the rag–bag the next time she journeyed upstairs.

“A piece of cloth!” said Uncle Boardman, handling the relic. “Did you think it came from Baggs’ coat, though I don’t see how? He wore this morning that blue frock–coat of his, with the big, silver buttons.”

“It looks more like a piece of coat–linin’.”

“Indeed! Oh, I guess it’s all right,” said Uncle Boardman, rising to deposit in the box on the mantel this mysterious fragment. About five minutes later, he was wondering if something were not all wrong. Taking a candle from the mantel and lighting it, he stepped into the store. It was very dark, and very still there, save that the clock was ticking sharply. The storekeeper passed behind the counter to the book–shelf, where Bible and gazetteer, dictionary and statute–book, kept one another company in the dark. He took down the Bible, laid it on the counter, and then proceeded to examine it.

“It’s in here somewhere, I know,” he softly whispered to himself; “for I tucked it away here, day before yesterday. He inquired for it, and I told him this morning I would get it, and send it to–morrow.”

The desired document was that promise to pay Bezaleel Baggs five hundred dollars, which Walter had noticed. It could not now be found.

“Perhaps it’s in the Psalms. I read a good deal there,” thought Uncle Boardman.

Many promises are in the Psalms, but none to pay B. Baggs five hundred dollars could be found there.

“Maybe it’s in Daniel. I was a lookin’ at the prophecies there,” thought the bewildered storekeeper; but the prophet had no such treasures in his keeping. He now proceeded to make a thorough and deliberate hunt through the book. He began at Genesis, and was patiently turning over the leaves in Proverbs, when a sharp voice rang out overhead, and then came in definite tones down through a funnel–hole in the ceiling. “You goin’ to bed some time ’fore the millennium, Boardman?”

It was Aunt Lydia, in her chamber directly above the store; and she was using a very convenient substitute for a speaking–tube; a disused funnel–hole that passed through the ceiling of the store and the floor of Aunt Lydia’s room. Uncle Boardman started back as if the funnel–hole had been the mouth of a cannon, and Aunt Lydia sent from it a very effective shot.

“Massy!” he exclaimed inwardly. “I didn’t know she was up there. Comin’, Lydia!” he shouted. “Comin’ very soon!”

Giving occasional looks at the funnel–hole as if to be in readiness to dodge the shot that might be expected any moment from that quarter, he hastily completed his investigation of the Bible. So good a book, though, was unwilling to promise so untrustworthy a man as B. Baggs anything without a good assurance of repentance, and Uncle Boardman, closing the book, placed it on the book–shelf again.

“That is queer!” he murmured. “Well, if anybody found it, the note won’t do ’em any good, and as for Bezaleel, I can write him another.”

Taking his candle again, he passed into the sitting–room, and then upstairs. It was time that he did so, for a fluttering of angry steps around the funnel–hole showed that Aunt Lydia was getting ready another and far heavier shot.