home. It was a long, shedlike
structure with a false facade; before it, elevated a man's height from the
road, was the broad platform where the mountain wagons unloaded their
merchandise; on the side facing the Courthouse ran a wooden hitching rail.
Inside, on the left, Simmons' private office was shut in glass from the
main floor of the store; long counters led back into a semi-obscurity,
where a clerk was lighting a row of swinging kerosene lamps.

"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