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Show .TINIEST. IN ffiS IN SALT LREE; YOU HBVE TO VAUl OUT TO SNEEZE People, and by that is meant cities, are always bragging of "the biggest that" and "the largest this," and '.'the heaviest something else," but yon seldom hear them blow off steam about the smallest this or that. - Salt Lake does. , Salt Lake has the smallest shop on earth. It's a ramshackle affair, about as big aa a Martian postage stamp. . It nestles closely, as If for support, against a blacksmith shop at 160 State street. Now, when it comes; to numbering that smallest shop, it's a job. It's too small to call it a half, and about big enough to dub it a sixteenth, so the Owner calls it 160 1-16 State street. ' He's a character that owner. His name is Philander Butler, and he's a Hoosier. Butler wears side whiskers a la Francis Joseph, and speaks with a comfortable, easy-going drawX. "W-a-a-al, I was born- 'bout five miles from Peru, in ol' Indianny, Tout sixty-six years ago, right on the oP Miamy Indian reservation," he says. His Life and Work. "Come hyah September 18, 1857, an' been hyah off an ' on ever since. Come hyah when there was nothing but sagebrush sage-brush an ' jackrabbits an' a few 'dobe houses. Had good .times those days, you bet. Knew everybody an' everybody every-body knew me. Never had the least trouble an' don' expect any." "Married!" "Hate to say I wahn't." "Happy t" ' "As hapjvy as a caterpillar down a &I 8 neck . "Making money! " ' "Eatia' three times a day, an' sleepin' well." , "Ever been in the army!" "NaT siree ever since I conld think, I ve alwavs had a- horrenee of the thought or takin' up a gun and shootin' at a man." "Feelgood!" "If I felt any better, it would hurt." That's the way Philander Butler, philosopher, humorist, mechanic, diplomat, diplo-mat, good fellow to the things of the earth, everybody's friend and optimist lives and thinks and works. Goes Out to Sneeze. Every time he wants to sneeze in his shoplet, he's obliged to go on the outside. out-side. If he sneezed on the inside, the walls of his little place would bulge out. There 's hardly enough room in the shop to take a long breath. It's three feet wide and seven feet long and about high enough to let you in and grow stoop-shouldered. If you go . in frontward, you've got to s"tay frontward, or else go outside to turn around. Shelves about four inches wide run around the inside of the place, and at the far end is a grinding-wheel and the familiar footboard seen on the streets on the backs of sunny sons or rather on the backs of sons of sunny Italv. J The shop is so . built that it can bo taken up and placed on an ordinary wagon-gear and wheeled away. Butler has been on the spot about three years. Everybody knows, old Phil Butler. On the front eff the shop is a cowbell cow-bell attached to a rope. If vou want Phil you pull the rope, and if he's in, he 11 poke out his head. That's all he has to do; he doesn't even have to get off his little stool to do the poking. Scissors, knives, shears, saws and other cutting things are painted on the front, so that he who runs past may read that the mill of the little god inside grinds fast. Smiles at the Boys. Alongside the proposed Newhotise building, Butler's shop would look like a wart on the face of mother nature. It s so small that you've probably walked past it a dozen "times a dav anil never even noticed it. But the boys do. They see that little bell in front, yank it and run. Butler does the poking stunt, finds nobody, pokes his head back again and smiles. . That's his philosophy of life smiles. The minute he sees you. he smiles anoT asks vou in. When you pay him his little bit, he smiles again, and when vou go away he still smiles. Smile whirr-whirr-smile-b r-r-r smile-zzzzzzzz-smile and your jack knife is handed back to you with a smilp. Butler But-ler is well read, an educated, pleasant, traveled, young, old man. . . "Call again'' smile. "Glad to see you any time" that's the way he bade farewell today with the same old, pleasing Hmile. |