“But when cold weather comes, you’re sure you’ll consent?” he urged.
“Like a shot!” she assured him, and, after a happy little caress, he started out again on his momentous mission.
Thurston’s was a place concerning which opinions differed in Octavius. That it typified progress, and helped more than any other feature of the village to bring it up to date, no one indeed disputed. One might move about a great deal, in truth, and hear no other view expressed. But then again one might stumble into conversation with one small storekeeper after another, and learn that they united in resenting the existence of Thurston’s, as rival farmers might join to curse a protracted drought. Each had his special flaming grievance. The little dry-goods dealers asked mournfully how they could be expected to compete with an establishment which could buy bankrupt stocks at a hundred different points, and make a profit if only one-third of the articles were sold for more than they would cost from the jobber? The little boot and shoe dealers, clothiers, hatters, and furriers, the small merchants in carpets, crockery, and furniture, the venders of hardware and household utensils, of leathern goods and picture-frames, of wallpaper, musical instruments, and even toys—all had the same pathetically unanswerable question to propound. But mostly they put it to themselves, because the others were at Thurston’s.
The Rev. Theron Ware had entertained rather strong views on this subject, and that only a week or two ago. One of his first acquaintances in Octavius had been the owner of the principal bookstore in the place—a gentle and bald old man who produced the complete impression of a bibliophile upon what the slightest investigation showed to be only a meagre acquaintance with publishers’ circulars. But at least he had the air of loving his business, and the young minister had enjoyed a long talk with, or rather, at him. Out of this talk had come the information that the store was losing money. Not even the stationery department now showed a profit worth mentioning. When Octavius had contained only five thousand inhabitants, it boasted four bookstores, two of them good ones. Now, with a population more than doubled, only these latter two survived, and they must soon go to the wall. The reason? It was in a nutshell. A book which sold at retail for one dollar and a half cost the bookseller ninety cents. If it was at all a popular book, Thurston’s advertised it at eighty-nine cents—and in any case at a profit of only two or three cents. Of course it was done to widen the establishment’s patronage—to bring people into the store. Equally of course, it was destroying the book business and debauching the reading tastes of the community. Without the profits from the light and ephemeral popular literature of the season, the bookstore proper could not keep up its stock of more solid works, and indeed could not long keep open at all. On the other hand, Thurston’s dealt with nothing save the demand of the moment, and offered only the books which were the talk of the week. Thus, in plain words, the book trade was going to the dogs, and it was the same with pretty nearly every other trade.
Theron was indignant at this, and on his return home told Alice that he desired her to make no purchases whatever at Thurston’s. He even resolved to preach a sermon on the subject of the modern idea of admiring the great for crushing the small, and sketched out some notes for it which he thought solved the problem of flaying the local abuse without mentioning it by name. They had lain on his desk now for ten days or more, and on only the previous Friday he had speculated upon using them that coming Sunday.
On this bright and cheerful Tuesday morning he walked with a blithe step unhesitatingly down the main street to Thurston’s, and entered without any show of repugnance the door next to the window wherein, flanked by dangling banjos and key-bugles built in pyramids, was displayed the sign, “Pianos on the Instalment Plan.”
He was recognized by some responsible persons, and treated with distinguished deference. They were charmed with the intelligence that he desired a piano, and fascinated by his wish to pay for it only a little at a time. They had special terms for clergymen, and made him feel as if these were being extended to him on a silver charger by kneeling admirers.
It was so easy to buy things here that he was a trifle disturbed to find his flowing course interrupted by his own entire ignorance as to what kind of piano he wanted. He looked at all they had in stock, and heard them played upon. They differed greatly in price, and, so he fancied, almost as much in tone. It discouraged him to note, however, that several of those he thought the finest in tone were among the very cheapest in the lot. Pondering this, and staring in hopeless puzzlement from one to another of the big black shiny monsters, he suddenly thought of something.
“I would rather not decide for myself,” he said, “I know so little about it. If you don’t mind, I will have a friend of mine, a skilled musician, step in and make a selection. I have so much confidence in—in her judgment.” He added hurriedly, “It will involve only a day or two’s delay.”
The next moment he was sorry he had spoken. What would they think when they saw the organist of the Catholic church come to pick out a piano for the Methodist parsonage? And how could he decorously prefer the request to her to
