One of the "fore rooms," so called, of the house was his shop; the floor was of immaculate neatness, and carefully sanded every morning. On one side stood a cluster of barrels, one empty barrel surmounted by a board, exactly a yard long, the edge notched for the quarters and inches. This was his counter, and held a clumsy pair of scales. On the other side was a rude table containing boxes of cotton cloth, cambrics or checked goods, sewing cotton, buttons, thimbles, scissors, jack-knives, needles, and pins. On the mantel-shelf stood a pile of white, blue-edged plates, and mugs, and pitchers, from which projected sticks of red and white candy, like miniature barber's poles, and heaps of "gibraltars," hard and solid, sweet and brittle, and honest. Every child knew that they were a cent apiece, and thought them worth it. No errand was half as welcome as one to Uncle Josh, when they might take an egg and get a skein of cotton. Sometimes he dived down into a cask of raisins as he passed by it, and filled the hand of the waiting messenger when he gave her whatever she came for, and took her money. Uncle Josh made no charges; he went on the cash system. He would barter, but he kept no running accounts with any one. The youngest child might go to him with the same certainty of right measure and weight as the shrewdest adult. One bright-faced little girl, who used to come often into his store, neatly dressed in her high-necked tier, and cape-bonnet, seemed to be a great favorite with him. He would sometimes say, half aside, that she was "pooty as a queen," although why the sturdy republican should make that comparison is a mystery. One day he stood at the open door, wistfully watching her as she walked off with her light, elastic step, and his mother, who had come in from the back room, answered to his unspoken thought, "Yes, she does, look a sight as Liza used to." The one woman whom others had connected with the idea of Uncle Josh's marrying had been dead long ago. It was said he had meant to ask her to be his wife when he should have laid by a certain sum of money, but the shy and reticent man suddenly found her "spoken for," as the villagers termed it, by the mate of a vessel. She died of consumption, unmarried. Uncle Josh never referred to this passage in his life, but his mother knew his mind, and why his words grew fewer than ever. The little Molly reproduced the soft hazel eyes and the trim air he so well remembered in her aunt.