The Glass Village

“You know, getting me up here so you could talk to me like a Yank uncle, pump some blood into my veins. But you’re worse than I am.”

“Am I?” murmured the Judge.

“You almost make me revert to my ancient chauvinism. I want to twist your arm and tell you to look at that flag flying up there. That’s not going to wither away, no matter what happens to you and me. Droughts are temporary—”

“Old age and wickedness,” retorted Judge Shinn, “are permanent.”

Millie Pangman was waddling across Shinn Road. She was almost as large as her husband, formidably featherbedded fore and aft. The sun bounced off her goldrimmed eyeglasses as she waved a powerful arm. “Made you some jiffy oatmeal bread, Judge,” she called in passing. “I’ll be back to fix your supper... Deb-bie? Where are you?”

The Judge waved back at the farmer’s wife with tenderness. But he repeated, “Permanent.”

“You’re a fraud,” said Johnny.

“No, I mean it,” said the Judge. “Oh, I make sma’t rema’ks on and off, but that’s only because a Yankee’d rather vote Democratic than make a public parade of his feelings. The fact is, Johnny, you’re meandering along the main street of a hopeless case.”

“And here I was, laboring under the delusion that you’re a gentleman of great spiritual substance,” grinned Johnny.

“Oh, I have faith,” said Judge Shinn. “A lot more faith than you’ll ever have, Johnny. I have faith in God, for instance, and in the Constitution of these United States, for another instance, and in the statutes of my sovereign state, and in the future of our country — Communism, hydrogen bombs, nerve gas, McCarthyism, and ex-majors of Army Intelligence to the contrary notwithstanding. But Johnny, I know Shinn Corners, too. As we get poorer, we get more frightened; the more frightened we get, the narrower and meaner and bitterer and less secure we are... This is a fine preparation for a Fourth of July speech, I must say! Let’s drop in on Peter Berry, cheeriest man in Shinn Corners.”

The village’s only store occupied the east corner of the intersection. A ramshackle building painted dirty tan, it was evidently a holdover from the nineteenth century. The entrance straddled the corner. A pyramid of creaking wooden steps led to a small porch cluttered with garden tools, baskets, pails, brooms, potted geraniums, and a hundred other items. Above the porch ran a faded red sign: BERRY’S VARIETY STORE.

As Johnny pulled back the screen door for the Judge, an old-fashioned bell tinkled and a rich whiff of vinegar, rubber, coffee, kerosense, and cheese surged up his nose.

“I could have used this smell once or five times,” said Johnny, “in those stinking paddies.”

“Too bad Peter didn’t know that,” said the Judge. “He’d have bottled it and sold it.”

There was almost as much stock in midair as on the floor and shelves. They made their way through a forest of dangling merchandise, crowding past kegs of nails, barrels of potatoes and flour, sacks of onions, oil stoves, tractor parts, counters of housewares, drygoods, and sundries, cheap shoes, a wire-enclosed cubicle labeled U.S. POST OFFICE SUB-STATION — there was even a display rack of paper-backed books and comic books. Signs advertised charcoal and ice, developing and printing, laundry and dry cleaning — there was no service, it seemed, that Peter Berry was not prepared to render.

“Is Berry’s Garage next door on Shinn Road his, too?” asked Johnny, impressed.

“Yes,” said the Judge.

“How does he take care of it all?”

“Well, Peter tries to do most of his car-tinkering nights, after he closes the store. Em helps out when she can. Dickie — he’s ten — is big enough to handle the gas pump and run errands, and Calvin Waters makes deliveries in Peter’s truck.”

They edged along a narrow aisle toward the main counter of the grocery department, where the cash register stood. A large fat man with a head like William Jennings Bryan was stacking loaves of bread on the counter as he talked to a lanky teenage boy in jeans. There was something tense about the set of the boy’s head, and Judge Shinn touched Johnny on the arm. “Let’s wait,” he said.

The boy at the counter said something at last in a low voice. Peter Berry smiled, shaking his head. He was about forty-five, with a jowly face that kept changing shape as its curves merged and dissolved. It was the kind of face that should have been rosy; instead, it was a disappointing gray. And where the blue eyes should have twinkled, they were lumpy and cold.

“Who’s the boy?” murmured Johnny.

“Drakeley Scott, Earl and Mathilda Scott’s eldest. He’s seventeen.”

“He seems distressed about something.”

“Well, Drake’s got his row to hoe. With Earl and Seth helpless, it’s his farm to run. It’s cut into his schooling.” The Judge shrugged. “He’s a full year behind. Don’t suppose he’ll ever finish... Good morning, Drake.”

Drakeley Scott shuffled toward them, eyes lowered. They were beautiful eyes with great welts under them. His thin face was pimpled and sore-looking.

“Mornin’, Judge.”

“Want you to meet a relative of mine.”