In fact, ours was a musical community. The very man who now occupied the armchair in front of the stove (how plainly he comes before me as I write, taking snuff and reading the shopkeeper’s newspaper of the evening before) had acquired the competency of which he was supposed to be possessed by playing the flute (or was it the clarinet?) in a Boston theatre orchestra; and at this very minute three younger men of the village were getting rich in the same sure and easy manner. As for whistling, there was hardly a boy in the street but was studying that accomplishment, though none of them could yet come within a mile of Jason Andcut. His was indeed “a soft and solemn-breathing sound,” as unlike the ear-piercing notes which most pairs of puckered lips gave forth as the luscious fruit of his own early pear tree (“Andcut’s pears,” we always called them) was unlike certain harsh and crabbed things that looked like pears, to be sure, but tied your mouth up in a hard knot if, in a fit of boyish hunger, you were ever rash enough to set your teeth in one. The good man! I should love to hear his whistle now; I believe I should like it almost as well as Mr. Longy’s oboe; but the last of those magical improvisations was long ago finished. I have heard good whistling since (not often, but I have heard it, both professional and amateur), but nothing to match that soliloquistic pianissimo, which I stole close to the man’s elbow to get my fill of. Was the prosperity of the music partly in the boyish ear that heard it? That corner-grocery gathering was one of our institutions; I might almost say the chief of them--casino and lyceum in one. If somebody once called the place a “yarn factory,” that was only in the way of a joke. On a rainy holiday it was a great resource. There were always talkers and listeners there,--the two essentials,--and the talk was often racy, though never, so far as I know, unfit for a boy’s hearing. The town supported no local newspaper, nor did we feel the need of any. You could get all the news there was, and more too, “down at the store.” If the regular members of the club failed to bring it in, the baker or the candy peddler would happen along to supply the lack. And after all, say what you will, word of mouth is better than printers’ ink. And while you listened to the talk, you could be eating a stick of barber’s-pole candy or a cent’s worth of dates, or, if your wealth happened to admit of such extravagance, you could enjoy, after the Cranford fashion, quite unembarrassed by Cranford pudicity, a two-cent orange. Those were the days of small things. Dollars did not grow on every bush. Seven-year-old boys, at all events, were not yet accustomed to go about jingling a pocketful of silver. Once, I remember, I saw a little chap sidle up to the counter and look long at the jack-knives and other temptations displayed in the showcase. By and by the shopkeeper espied a possible customer, and came round to see what was wanted.