He leaned over towards me and spoke in my ear. “It ain’t nothin’ but dope and whisky. The village is pretty nigh divided even on which they like best. I’ve got a bunch of old maids that get drunk reg’lar on it and don’t know it. The meanest thing I do is to sell it to ’em.” “Why don’t you cut it out?” I suggested. “’Cause they’d go to the drug store and buy it there,” he said. “If this was the only place in town where they could get it, I’d take an ax handle and smash every last bottle. That’s honest. Howsomever, that ain’t got anything to do with eggs, an’ then again maybe it has. P’raps it’s that stuff that makes them lazy.” He turned to his books again. “You any idee how many of these folks I carry on credit?” “Ten per cent.,” I said for a guess. “Say seventy per cent. an’ ye’ll come nearer. Any idee how long I carry most of the accounts?” “Six months.” “They’ll average up two years. Any idee how much of that is bad?” “Five per cent.,” I said with a laugh. “Say twenty per cent. and ye wouldn’t come nigh enough even to hit the target.” I was curious enough to examine his books carefully and I saw that every statement he made was true. I settled my bill without another word. “I don’t see how you keep in business,” I said. “You’ll have my trade from now on even though I could do better buying in town. I’ve come out here to live and I believe in standing my tax, but I’ll be hanged if I can see any reason why things should be this way.” “After you’ve lived here a year, maybe you’ll see.” “Maybe I will,” I said, “but I tell you right now that within that time I’ll be raising most of my own stuff.” He nodded. “That’s what they all say. But I’d hate to pay you what that’s goneter cost you.” “What about Dardoni?” I asked. “Oh, he’s a Dago,” answered Moulton, as though that disposed of the question. Moulton’s books had summed up conditions in this country town concretely and vividly. His ledger was a tract. Five years’ residence couldn’t have given me such a clear insight into the actual state of things as they existed here. But of course they furnished no explanation either of the apparent degeneracy of the natives or the success of the newcomers. The key to the latter I held myself, but the revelation of the condition of the former came to me as a shock. Think of it! Here almost within sight of one of the oldest and most prosperous cities in the East lay a village of three or four hundred American families, descendants of the best New England stock, in a condition of such stagnation that they couldn’t pay their store bills. Surrounded by land which had supported their ancestors, they were dependent upon the West for their food stuffs. Born and bred in the open air they were weak and lazy and sick. In ideal surroundings my own kith and kin were actually worse off than many of the penniless immigrants of the slums.