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Wood, Eugene, 1860-1923

"Back Home"

They were made of candy striped spirally in red and white.
There were candy men and women in the window, and chocolate mice
with red eyes, and a big cake, all over frosting, with a candy
preacher on it marrying a candy man and lady. The little children
stood outside, with their joggerfies, and arithmetics, and
spellers, and slates bound in red flannel under their arms, and
swallowed hard as they looked. Whenever anybody went in for a
penny's worth of yeast and opened the door, that had a bell
fastened to it so that Mrs. Plotner could hear in the back room,
and come to wait on the customer, the smell of wintergreen and
peppermint and lemonsticks and hot taffy gushed out so strong that
they couldn't swallow fast enough, but stood there choking and
dribbling at the mouth.
Brown's shoe store exhibited green velvet slippers with deers'
heads on them, and Galbraith's windows were hung with fancy
dressgoods, and handkerchiefs with dogs' heads in the corners;
but, next to Plotner's, Case's drug-and-book store was the nicest.
When you first went in, it smelled of cough candy and orris root,
but pretty soon you could notice the smell of drums and new sleds,
and about the last smell, (sort of down at the bottom of things)
was the smell of new books, the fish-glue on the binding, and the
muslin covers, and the printer's ink, and that is a smell that if
it ever gets a good hold of you, never lets go.


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