“Well,” I said in despair, “what about the table?  You can sell that, can’t you?”

“I couldn’t—­not till he comes back.  I don’t know what he’d want to do about it.”

“What’s the price of it?”

“I dunno.  He could tell you.”

I went out of the thick-aired stuffy backroom with its unwashed windows, and when I got opposite the Bible near the door I said: 

“What’s the matter with him anyhow?  Why doesn’t he straighten things out here?”

Again the clerk awoke.  “Huh!” he exclaimed.  “Straighten it out!  Gar!  I’d like to see anybody try it.”

“It could be,” I said encouragingly.

“Gar!” he chuckled.  “One man did try to straighten it out once when Mr. Burridge was away.  Got about a third of it cleaned up when he come back.  Gar!  You oughta seen him!  Gar!”

“What did he do?”

“What did he do!  What didn’t he do!  Gar!  Just took things an’ threw them about again.  Said he couldn’t find anything.”

“You don’t say!”

“Gar!  I should say so!  Man come in an’ asked for a hammer.  Said he couldn’t find any hammer, things was so mixed up.  Did it with screws, water-buckets an’ everything just the same.  Took ’em right off the shelves, where they was all in groups, an’ scattered ’em all over the room.  Gar!  ‘Now I guess I can find something when I want it,’ he said.”  The clerk paused to squint and add, “There ain’t anybody tried any straightenin’ out around here since then, you bet.  Gar!”

“How long ago has that been?”

“About fourteen years now.”

Surprised by this sharp variation from the ordinary standards of trade, I began thinking of possible conditions which had produced it, when one evening I happened in on the local barber.  He was a lean, inquisitive individual with a shock of sandy hair and a conspicuous desire to appear a well-rounded social factor.

“What sort of person is this Burridge over here?  He keeps such a peculiar store.”

“Elihu is a bit peculiar,” he replied, his smile betraying a desire to appear conservative.  “The fault with Elihu, if he has one, is that he’s terribly strong on religion.  Can’t seem to agree with anybody around here.”

“What’s the trouble?” I asked.

“It’s more’n I could ever make out, what is the matter with him.  They’re all a little bit cracked on the subject around here.  Nothing but revivals and meetin’s, year in and year out.  They’re stronger on it winters than they are in summer.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, they’ll be more against yachtin’ and Sunday pleasures when they can’t go than when they can.”

“What about Elihu?” I asked.

“Well, he can’t seem to get along, somehow.  He used to belong to the Baptist Church, but he got out o’ that.  Then he went to a church up in Graylock, but he had a fallin’ out up there.  Then he went to Northfield and Eustis.  He’s been all around, even over on Long Island.  He goes to church up at Amherst now, I believe.”