The charge account is
open to everyone. A memorandum of the purchase is made upon a strip torn
from a writing-tablet or upon a piece of wrapping-paper and tossed into
the show-case, among many others of its kind, until the customer "comes
around to settle up." Then, with an unerring instinct, John Marion can
pull from the tumbled pile of memoranda the records of the charges he
seeks. If the charge account is to remain open until the next crop comes
in, on some rainy day he will transcribe the charge to his day-book.
The clocks of the valley are not controlled by the government's or the
railroads' standard of time. They go by "sun time" and are regulated by
the hour the almanacs say the sun should rise. John Marion winds the
store clock after it has run down and he sets it by no consultation with
anything but his feeling as to what hour of the day it should be.
At least once a week every man who lives in the valley is at the store,
but Saturday is the popular meeting-time. When the chairs and the row of
horseshoe kegs are occupied, the men rest their hands behind them on the
counter and swing to a place of comfort upon it, or they sit upon the
window-sills, keeping well within the range of raillery that welcomes
the coming and speeds the parting guest. It is a good-natured humor that
these mountaineers love, quick as the crack of a rifle and as direct as
its speeding ball.
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