THE GRINDSTONE QUESTION.
by Robert Barr
Author of "The Face and the Mask," "In the Midst of Alarms," etc.
OLD Monro's general store was supposed to contain everything that a human being might require. The shelves on the right-hand side as you entered were filled with all kinds of groceries, canned goods, spices, and so forth, not to mention glass jars containing brilliantly colored candies, the envy of all the children in the place, which made the boys resolve that when they grew up they would be grocers: an aspiration augmented by bags of hazel nuts and boxes of raisins placed just beyond the reach of a long arm. On the counter at this side stood a big pair of scales by means of which the various commodities were weighed. What rested under the counter nobody exactly knew; it was an unknown land, into which the grocer or his assistant dived, bringing to light sugar, coffee, tea, or almost anything that was called for, with something of the mystery that surrounds a conjurer when he develops an unexpected omelette from a silk hat.
On the public side of the counter were ranged barrels of nails, for the most part, which served as seats for lazy customers or loiterers about the store, while at the same time the contents of the barrels did not offer the temptation to purloiners that soda crackers or nuts might have done. On the left-hand side of the store were bolts of cloth for men and women, chiefly for the latter; and instead of scales being on that counter, there were brass-headed nails driven on the inside edge of it, that measured a yard, half a yard, quarter of a yard, and so forth, enabling the deft assistant to run off speedily the length required, snip it at the exact spot with the little scissors from his vest pocket, and then, with an ear-satisfying rip, tear the cloth across.
Sam, the assistant, was easily the leading man of the place, for he understood the mysteries of bookkeeping and he arrayed himself with the gorgeousness which no young man of the neighborhood could hope to emulate, as Sam had the resources of this emporium at his command, getting neckties and other necessaries at wholesale prices.
Old Monro himself was rather a tough-looking, gnarled individual, who paid little attention to dress, as often as not serving his customers in his shirt-sleeves, and was thus thought by the youth of the village to underestimate his privileges, although the lumbermen rather envied him his run of the tobacco-box, where the black plugs lay tightly wedged together and had to be dislodged by a blunt chisel. Old Munro chewed tobacco continually, and all he had to do when one plug was exhausted was to go to the box and take out another: surely a most entrancing prerogative.
The young man who now stood before the counter in the public part of the store seemed somewhat incongruous in such a place. He was dressed neatly, and in what was referred to with some contempt as "city style," which dwellers in the country naturally despised. His carefully-tied scarf, instead of being like Joseph's coat, of many colors, and those all flaming, was of one quiet hue; and the disdain with which Sam contemplated him was tinctured uneasily by the feeling that perhaps, after all, this was the correct thing, although it made such little show.
Old Monro's thoughts, however, were not on dress. Nevertheless, he regarded the young man before him with a look in which pity was the predominant element, Monro was not now acting in his capacity of store-keeper, but in his rôle of school trustee, one of three, and the chief one, who had the management of the educational interests of Pineville. Russell Copford, who had applied for the position of teacher in the Pineville school, had some expectation that his scholastic attainments were to be critically looked into, but this was not the case.
"Do you think you can lick the big boys?" asked old Monro. "They're a tough lot; ain't they, Sam?"
"You bet!" replied Sam.
"I'm not a believer in corporal punishment," said young Copford, "and I hope to be able to manage the school without it."
"Don't believe in licking?" cried old
