Show Bal tuffs grocery time h s taught me that it was merely an old ramshackle frame building sway backed and hun ery tor but in the days of my j juvenescence when father let me go down town with him or when mother st nt me for a jug of molasses baltuth s corner grocery was a wonderful tri filled with d and striped stick candy across from the county court house it dozed in the sun of sum mer and a retreat from the inclemency of win ter in the warm evenings father and the men about town used to sit out in front on the wide window thresh or on soap boxes and talk about the local improvements in winter there was little work to do and there were great checker games back of the grocery stove alongside the vinegar and treacle barrels amid the aroma of dried herring and the smell ot soap here were merry quips and pointed raillery the latest bit ot gossip and the just out scandal wo haa only weekly newspapers in those days in and the corner grocery was the distributing point for matters of dally interest the r called the gem of the cedar then now they bavol re christened it the city of homes ve all knew then that the village had a great future to be euro the horo has been not absolutely true but it Is still the home of my youth 1 no greater aralee may a man say than this it Is the home of my youth but that grocery store there was liquor ice root marmalade jujube am end ginger cookies in its saccharine storehouse lollipop strawberry pop lemon pop pop and lust pop stood invitingly forth there was sugar candy marble candy chocolate candy sucker candy candy and maple bugar candy there may have been other things in that store like pota toes and carrots and rutabagas but toy attention to the product was always too centralized to speak truthfully of the stock espe dally after so many years mr gal tuff I 1 presume kept pickled pigs feet prunes I 1 am almost sure 0 the prunes and dried apples I 1 know we used to have dried apples for sauce and in pies and t am quite sure father never bought them elsewhere that would have been sacrilege almost we all had our likes and dislikes in those days and stuck to our grocer aa we stuck to our religion we swore him and poo booed those who were foolish enough to trade elsewhere and every time we paid our grocery mr baltuff gave father a sack 0 for mother and the boy no wonder we remained steadfast but time has taken away mr bal tuff and Bal tuffs grocery if there shall have risen pheonix like from the ashes 0 the old ramshackle build ng another grocery modern and alt I 1 am sure it Is nothing like it in point of interest and comfit it men sit about and gossip I 1 know they are not the men that used to argue and gesticulate about the stove of val baltuff it men there be they belong to another generation to the city of homes the men whose faith was pinned to the gem of tho cedar are sleeping in the quiet aeme tery along that murmuring tream or babbling wab bling about in ag watching the sunset of life the youths who ate stick candy from the shelves of bal buffs grocery are men now for the most part they are scattered far and wide upon the bosom of the earth some are great and some are in jail and some others ought to be but valentine baltuth Is dead his grocery Is dead god rest them both pin wheels sometimes a little thing can spend a lot of money cr u an ounce of prevention la worth a pound of alimony if cz r the sweetest aeolean harp wouldn t bound like music it it were used to get a man up in the morning d u u don t make a mistake on spring she isn t here until you get that old indolent fever same as heretofore fr A woman who marries a man for his money Is quite apt to leave her love in the keeping of a poorer but wiser man BYRON WILLIAMS |