At the back of J.F.’s store there was a wrapping counter with a huge roll of butchers paper and a fascinating string that dangled down from an ornate iron cage at ceiling height. To the rear of the store also were the massive sliding doors of the cold room where all the good cuts of meat were hung. And then there was a stove-hole, neatly disguised in summer by a handsome chromo of Lake Como but, in winter, holding the shiny pipe that lead to a large coal stove. The cheerful glow from that stove in winter was a real attraction to the men of the village who seemed to much prefer it to the warmth of their own kitchens. There was always a cluster of rocking chairs about it and they were never empty. They were for resting and conversation. J.F. ran his store alone, except as the summer population began to grow he would hire a boy to make deliveries, with horse and wagon for many years and, finally, with a small truck with the name of the establishment modestly proclaimed on its sides. He was leisurely and when he became successful it was almost as though it had been inevitable, even though you knew better. Once a Cape bank asked him to join its Board of Directors. “I drove over to that shiny, new building,” he told me, “and it seemed as if even the car was hanging back on the way. When I got there I just walked up and down outside and looked at the bank and thought, ‘this is no place for you, J.F.’. Finally I got up courage to go in and they were all sitting around a table waiting for me. They introduced me all around as if I was really somebody and then they got down to business. I tell you it was nothing but trouble. It didn’t seem as if there was anything for me to _say_ but I thought about it some and I didn’t like it. Seemed to me there’s plenty of trouble in the world already without my sitting there and hearing about more of it and passing judgment on folks I don’t even know. So when it was all over I came home and wrote them a letter and said I would be pleased to stop being a director and I never went back.” J.F. thought a minute and then a look of puzzlement, incredulity and good humor came over his face. “You know what?”, he said. “There’s a big picture of me hanging on the wall of that room. There’s a brass plate under it with my name and ‘Former Director’ on it!” Perhaps J.F. was already out of place in the twentieth century. His first, uneasy recognition of this did not come until the thirties when the store was still prospering and life in general was as uncomplicated as ever.