supplies. It was owned by an old gentleman who was a jackof-all-trades in a quiet way. He played the organ in the adjacent church, tuned pianos and "taught" the violin, besides plying his small business of merchant. He not only catered to the schoolboy but offered equipment to those who were religiously inclined, besides carrying on a weak trade in musical instruments. The shop was no more than a dwelling with a goodly first and a meager second story. What should have been the "parlor" was turned into a storeroom, while the rest of the place was reserved for private habitation. The little structure had stood steadfast for half a century among the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches. It had defied the encroachments of enterprising house-builders and was tucked quietly away between two brick structures of more noble dimensions. The building, painted green, stood plump out on the street, and it had a single door to which one ascended by three high wooden steps, apt to be jeopardous in cold weather. This, when opened, moved a small bell, which tinkled pleasantly above the head of the customer and gave warning of his approach. Two small windows, one at either side of the door, in lieu of better accommodation, served the purpose of display fronts. These windows were always impressive and marvelous to me, and I call to mind with what childish wonder I used to stand (eyes wide open, I suppose) looking on their contents. They had in them little black and gilt crucifixes, statuettes of the Virgin and the Saints done in pretty soft colors, rosaries hung on an ingenious contrivance of wires, prayer books, and catechisms, glass candlesticks for first communions, and a great lot of picture prints for use in the church school. The displays were never changed except perhaps to be dusted or when a novelty was added to the stock. I cannot remember when the windows altered their appearance in all the eight years I passed the place four times a day. But the exterior had small charm compared to the shop's inside. When you stepped through the door and the sound of the bell had ceased, you immediately felt the atmosphere of the place close around you like a soft cloud. It made you wish to stay and play there all the morning in that peaceful quietude. A few drowsy sunbeams stole through the half shaded windows and revealed the brown old ceiling and the well-worn boards of the floor with the nail heads smoothed flat and bright. An odor of sponges and slates, pencils and tablets mixed with the smell of slowly decaying wainscot stole into your nostrils. A small stove was always warming in the corner except during the hot days of spring and autumn. Through the door at a far corner you saw the precincts of the home, bright carpet, a clock on the wall ticking away peacefully, immaculate lace curtains in the window and the warm sun shining through them. The walls were ranged with dusty old cupboards of dark wood and hung with religious pictures in gilt frames like "The Sacred Heart." The shelves were filled with a nondescript array of wares. Besides the academic supplies there were many boxes of marbles, ranging all the way from the little white pellets called "commies" to the great brown and blue ones, the agates and glass alleys with spiral streaks of red, green and blue in them. There were tops and tin whistles à piston besides jackstones for the girls. About St. Valentine's Day the creations of blue and pink celluloid and paper lace made their appearance, some of them set low on the counters in an alluring array. I can remember a certain table always placed before a side window filled with red geraniums, which at this season of the year was reserved for the comic penny valentines, and how a troop of us would track our muddy feet into the shop on a wet afternoon and stand in an admiring inspection of the horrible cartoons with their vulgar bits of doggerel for hours at a time. These never failed to appeal to our morbid small-boy tastes. On either side of the street door was a cupboard on high legs with a glass lid. One was filled with pencil tablets, copy books and spelling blanks, while the other contained an assortment of pens and pencils in high colors. The latter held the greater charm. Its legs were just long enough to bring the top on a level with the nose of an average youngster, so it was only by standing on tip-toe, hooking the chin over the edge and craning the neck into a cramped posture that one could see the box-like interior and its ravishing contents. The pens especially were delightful to look upon, and to buy of course if one was wealthy. There were all sorts and sizes of these from pens like a thermometer made of glass tubing, which enclosed a small shell floating in a colored liquid to a combination of pen and pencil. These latter were rather expensive. They were an absurd trumpery of tin and had brass tips which in the current notion were responsible for the high price of the article, for they were considered to be made of the purest gold. In the shop's palmy days its proprietor was never seen in it. He doubtless had more weighty matters to attend to in the rear of the establishment. I remember several occasions when the sounds that came from that direction gave evidence that the master was guiding a tender pupil through the ups and downs of a monotonous exercise. The music-teacher's daughter was the only clerk, and she waited on all customers, even during the rush hours before school with a promptness and dispatch. She was a bulky, middle-aged woman with a stern, tired-looking face that yet had something of softness in it. She worked hard, poor lady. Her skin was of a healthy brown, but her hair was fast turning grey, as grey as the thin lines in the sombre calico stuff which she invariably wore. She was decisive and swift in all her movements, never wasted a moment in an act and was the most taciturn person I have ever known. I recollect hearing her speak only once. always had me at grips with fear and on this occasion she nearly frightened me out of sense. I was standing in nervous. indecision between a slate pencil of a wonderful mottled purple and another decorated patriotically in red, white and blue. I must have been an unconscionably long time at it, for she finally exclaimed with quick impatience, "Well, I can't wait here all day!" I shook in my dusty shoes and made an instant choice. ment. She Once only I had privilege to see the owner of the establishIt was one of those cold days in mid-winter, when the sun, shining with great energy and cheerfulness through the windows of a morning, lights up every corner of the room with a lustral radiance and makes one wish to stay domestically indoors to read a book and bathe in the cozy light. On my way to the morning session of school I stopped in the shop to buy something. The shop mistress was standing behind the counter, her head tilted to one side, her arms spread, her hands resting on the counter's edge. And through the far door I saw a very old man, sitting in an arm-chair by the window. A canary was singing in a gilt cage above him, and the sun, as it shone through the white curtains, fell on his face lined with kindly wrinkles, on his hands, resting placidly on his thin knees and on his white hair, which shone like silver benignly as the sun. His eyes were closed and his head, bowed almost on his breast, nodded gently as if in tune to the music of a violin, which in an unseen corner of the room, with many quirks and quavers, sobbed out the pathos of a simple theme. I stood for a moment, looking at the old man and listening to the music, then made my purchase, walked quietly out into the street and on to school. Such was the shop as I knew it when a small boy. Not long ago, when I went to revisit the neighborhood, I found the little old house still there, still painted the same shade of green. But the romance of the thing was gone. Lace curtains were in the windows. An air of positive domesticity had settled upon it and the only reminder of what it had once been was the blurred sign-board over the door, which still made notice that J. Sps held forth, instructor in organ and violin, dealer in musical instruments and notions. I do not doubt that the venerable musician has passed on. But the sign-board has been left hanging, perhaps for the sake of sentiment. It is much the same sentiment that has prompted me to set down my remembrance of the place, for in my recollection it holds a charm that never weakens, and I hope never will. The memory of its quaintness continually hangs about my head and like a pleasant genius pops in at odd moments when I least expect it. Indeed, I think recollections are best when they come this way. Try to force memory and she will fly far off. You may turn down your light, sit beside your fire, puff your pipe and prepare all in the most approved fashion for her reception and yet she may shun your door and leave you gazing stupidly at the wall. No, the latch-string must be put out and the hearth swept and garnished by secret hands, while you are in an affable state of preoccupation and dreams. Then she will steal in softly, lay her finger on your lips, wave in her dim pageant and bring you smiles or tears. So it is perhaps on a warm afternoon in summer, when the sky is low with clouds, and I lie stretched on the grass, my thoughts a thousand leagues from nowhere, that of a sudden I see the shop as it was on that winter morning, smell the musty odor of sponges and old wood, watch the old man as he sits in the sun, his head nodding and nodding, and hear the violin utter its quavering melody. Charles Otis Locke. SAILING AT NIGHT. The moon has laid her finger on the river The sail is limp and dark against the sky, While now the tiny foamy frill That formed a wake behind us, has grown blue. Oh, deepest, richest hue! All turns to blue, the sapphire stream The violet of Mamacoke, the stars Are pale and sunken in the softened air, Blue but for yellow far below the bridge The twinkling town. Strange Lethe must have been as blue as this When frail ghosts disembarked in noiseless flight, To mar the azure symphony of night. William Douglas. |