It was in the thirties that a lot of new terms began coming out of Washington and the Cape first heard of “the little people” and the “forgotten man.” No Cape Codder would think of himself or his neighbors as little people and no one locally, at least, was ever forgotten. J.F. had always extended credit and had often given merchandise to help neighbors over the rough spots of poor cranberry or fishing years. A catastrophe such as a fire was the direct responsibility of the whole community. Otherwise, most people in our village, in those days, helped themselves--and had never imagined there was any other way. Nevertheless, the wheels of government had begun to grind and there was no doubt in Washington that the Cape was a part of the United States. Each mail brought J.F. a new form to be filled out. It was either an inquiry into matters he had always considered to be personal or a set of regulations to be followed in running the grocery. Whatever professor devised those forms it was a sure bet from the beginning that he had never been inside a village store. Poor J.F. would squint through his glasses for hours at the devilish forms. Sometimes he would ask me for an opinion but, fresh as I was from college, and full as I was of the concept of the “century of the Common man”, I could make no more head nor tails of the forms than could he. Finally he would shrug his shoulders in mystification and shuffle the forms into a pile at one end of the wrapping counter. As the weeks passed the pile of forms grew until at last it was too big for the wrapping counter. Then they were set upon the floor where they were nearly out of sight and would have been out of mind except that the letters became more and more frequent and the demands more forceful. At the end of six months the pile of government verbiage was monumental and the letters had become almost violently threatening. One day there came a letter from Washington by Registered Mail. It looked very ugly and very important. J.F. never told me what was in that letter but soon after reading it he stooped down and gathered up the monumental pile of forms and placed them on the wrapping counter. He wrapped them neatly and methodically in the good butcher’s paper and he tied them securely with the string that dangled down from the little iron cage at the ceiling. To the huge bundle he attached an envelope addressed to the government at Washington and inside the envelope he had written a note in his neat, meticulous script: “Dear Sir: I do not know what it is you want me to do and I am too old now to take the time to figure it out. I give up. I am closing the store. Respectfully, J.F. Small” When he had made the bundle ready and inspected it for mailability, he picked it up and walked past the glass cases of candy and cut plug and he never looked back all the way to the Post Office. The Grocery Store was closed.