The elderly domestic animals may have a dignified stratum of their own, in which the affairs of the old families can be discussed, while those who were feathered in life possibly form another pale group that devotes itself entirely to questions of personal adornment.
Behind the red labels on the lower shelves are the devilled ham and the pig’s feet. The goblins from these may hold high carnival in the silvery light--the frolics of the indigestibles--and their antics may last until the gray of the morning comes.
Nameless elfs may appear in the little throng. They are from the soups, and have so many component parts that they know not what they are. Naturally they may precede the others, but if they are in the ghostly circle, they are not of it.
Probably the specters from the canned hash are at the lower end of the scale.
I suggested to the old man that all these things might be happening while he slumbered, but he declared that I was mistaken. “There’s never bin any doin’s like that goin’ on ’round the store,” said he.
Figuratively, it might be said that many of us obtain most of our intellectual food from cans. The diet may be varied occasionally by fresh nutrients, but too often we rely upon products bearing established trade-marks for our mental sustenance. The rows of labels, honored by time and dimmed by dust, stand like tiers of skulls, with their eyeless caverns gravely still--mute symbols of the eternal hours--as if staring in dull mockery out of a vanished past. Living currents flow around us unheeded. We absorb predigested thought to repletion, and neglect vibrant mental forces, that through disuse become depleted, instead of enriching them with the study of the green and growing things that have not been put in cans.
“About ev’ry third year,” said the old man, “business gits worse’n ever, an’ that’s when a hoss trader named Than Gandy comes ’round. He lives some’rs in the eastern part o’ the state, an’ after ’e’s bin through ’ere ’e waits long enough fer most of ’em to fergit ’im before ’e comes agin. He starts out from where ’e lives with a sulky, an’ a crow bait hoss, an’ about five dollars. He spends a couple o’ months on ’is travels among the little places away from the railroads, an’ when ’e gits through with ’is trip, ’e has a string o’ seven er eight hosses, an’ four er five little wagons an’ buggies, an’ a lot o’ harnesses an’ whips an’ calves an’ sheep, an’ a big wad o’ money. He’s got all them things to boot in trades ’e keeps makin’. He beats ev’rybody ’e runs up ag’inst, an’ when ’e quits ’round ’ere nobody’s got any money left to buy things with. They don’t know what’s happened to ’em till ’e’s away off. When ’e stops at the store, he gen’rally trades me sumpen fer what ’e wants.