THE VILLAGE STORE. 357 



that the storekeeper had just got. Not but what a yearning 

 toward the medical and dental professions occasionally took 

 possession of me, but a desire to 'tend store was uppermost in 

 my juvenile mind. The department devoted to the mackerel 

 and pork fisheries, the drawing of molasses and extracting of 

 oil from their respective casks — so detested by the novice be- 

 fore he is half through his probationary exercises and is a full- 

 fledged clerk — had no terrors for me. Even the clawing among 

 the contents of the nail kegs, with its attendant annoyances 

 of getting splinters of nails under your own, and tearing your 

 coat sleeves with the points of the "three-penny-fines," which, 

 after piercing the hoops and staves, come through on the in- 

 side, was as naught. The desire to be installed on the other 

 side of the counter, where I would be in a position to say to 

 the customers as they entered, " Well, what can I do for you 

 to-day?" to weigh out the toothsome sugar and mouth an 

 occasional lump, to poise the fragrant tea, to balance the rat- 

 tling coffee, to recklessly serve out the black gunpowder and 

 bright globules of shot, to wield the murderous cheese knife, 

 to sway the yard-stick sceptre over a prostrate array of rolls of 

 cloths, cassimeres and vestings, of muslins and calicoes, tapes 

 and laces ; to dispense the goods in the show case, to hand out 

 the contents of the post-office, and, above all, to sit on the stool 

 at the desk and "just charge it " — the desire, I say, to do these 

 things pervaded my being. Besides, the free run of the candy 

 jars was not to be lost sight of. 



I recollect well when Bob Beeser, the son of a farmer neigh- 

 bor and about my own age, was promoted to a vacancy in our 

 store. The position had been for some time vacant, and I had 

 longed for it like L for the apple pie in the old nursery book. 

 I teased my father for the coveted position, but in vain. He 

 had higher aspirations for me, and Bob got the place. At 

 school I was not behind him : in truth, I was his superior, 

 both mentally and physically. Whether it was a 



