n with the shoes in his hand,
jumping to his feet and creeping away from the window.

A flush crept into Elmer Cowley's face and his hands
began to tremble. In Cowley & Son's store a Jewish
traveling salesman stood by the counter talking to his
father. He imagined the reporter could hear what was
being said and the thought made him furious. With one
of the shoes still held in his hand he stood in a
corner of the shed and stamped with a stockinged foot
upon the board floor.

Cowley & Son's store did not face the main street of
Winesburg. The front was on Maumee Street and beyond it
was Voight's wagon shop and a shed for the sheltering
of farmers' horses. Beside the store an alleyway ran
behind the main street stores and all day drays and
delivery wagons, intent on bringing in and taking out
goods, passed up and down. The store itself was
indescribable. Will Henderson once said of it that it
sold everything and nothing. In the window facing
Maumee Street stood a chunk of coal as large as an
apple barrel, to indicate that orders for coal were
taken, and beside the black mass of the coal stood
three combs of honey grown brown and dirty in their
wooden frames.

The honey had stood in the store window for six months.
It was for sale as were also the coat hangers, patent
suspender buttons, cans of roof paint, bottles of
rheumatism cure, and a substitute for coffee that
companioned the honey in its patient willingness to
serve the public.

Ebenezer Cowley, the man who stood in the store
listening to the eager patter of words that fell from
the lips of the traveling man, was tall and lean and
looked unwashed. On his scrawny neck was a large wen
partially covered by a grey beard. He wore a long
Prince Albert coat. The coat had been purchased to
serve as a wedding garment. Before he became a merchant
Ebenezer was a farmer and after his marriage he wore
the Prince Albert coat to church on Sundays and on
Saturday afternoons when he came into town to trade.
When he sold the farm to become a merchant he wore the
coat constantly. It had become brown with age and was
covered with grease spots, but in it Ebenezer always
felt dressed up and ready for the day in town.

As a merchant Ebenezer was not happily placed in life
and he had not been happily placed as a farmer. Still
he existed. His family, consisting of a daughter named
Mabel and the son, lived with him in rooms above the
store and it did not cost them much to live