“It’s fust-rate of you, Jake, to stand up for the doctor,” said he.  “We all of us feel all wrought up about poor Abel.  I understand the doctor’s goin’ to be easy with the widder about the mortgage.  I thought likely he would be.  Sometimes folks do considerable more good than they get credit for.  I shouldn’t be surprised if Doctor Prescott’s left hand an’ his neighbors didn’t know all he did.”

Ozias Lamb turned slowly around and looked at the storekeeper.  “Doctor Prescott’s a pretty good customer of yours, ain’t he?” he inquired.

There was a subdued titter.  Cyrus Robinson colored, but kept his pleasant smile.  “Everybody in town is a good customer,” said he.  “I haven’t any bad customers.”

“P’r’aps ’cause you won’t trust ’em,” said Ozias Lamb.  This time the titter was audible.  Cyrus Robinson’s business caution was well known.

The storekeeper said no more, turned abruptly, took a key from his pocket, went to the little post-office in the corner, and locked the door.  Then he began putting up the window-shutters.

There was a stir among the company, a scraping of chairs and stools, and a shuffling of heavy feet, and they went lingeringly out of the store.  Cyrus Robinson usually put up his shutters too early for them.  His store was more than a store—­it was the nursery of the town, the place where her little commonweal was evolved and nurtured, and it was also her judgment-seat.  There her simple citizens formed their simple opinions upon town government and town officials, upon which they afterwards acted in town meeting.  There they sat in judgment upon all men who were not within reach of their voices, and upon all crying evils of the times which were too mighty for them to struggle against.  This great country store of Cyrus Robinson’s—­with its rank odors of molasses and spices, whale oil, and West India rum; with its counters, its floor, its very ceiling heaped and hung with all the paraphernalia of a New England village; its clothes, its food, and its working-utensils—­was also in a sense the nucleus of this village of Upham Corners.  There was no tavern.  Although this was the largest of the little cluster of Uphams, the tavern was in the West Corners, and the stages met there.  However, all the industries had centred in Upham Corners on account of its superior water privileges:  the grist-mill was there, and the saw-mill.  People from the West and East Corners came to trade at Robinson’s store, which was also a factory in a limited sense.  Cyrus Robinson purchased leather in considerable quantities, and employed several workmen in a great room above the store to cut out the rude shoes worn in the country-side.  These he let out in lots to the towns-folk to bind and close and finish, paying them for their work in store goods, seldom in cash, then selling the shoes himself at a finely calculated profit.

Robinson had, moreover, several spare rooms in his house adjoining the store, and there, if he were so disposed, he could entertain strangers who wished to remain in Upham overnight, and neither he nor his wife was averse to increasing their income in that way.  Cyrus Robinson was believed by many to be as rich as Doctor Prescott and Simon Basset.