News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-11-29
THE CORNER GROCERY
With Slight Variation it is tn e Same
the World Over.

The corner grocery has always been
sufficiently distinctive in its character to
/ furnish material for the story-writers.
Works of fiction and even plays have
/ been woven around the quaint little
| building of the rural village, which is
often the only thing that gives the place
recognition in the geography. Without
! the grocery there would be no town,
and more than one man has afterward
achieved distinction in the halls of Con-
gress who made his first poiiti al speech
in the corner grocery. 1t is there that
the villagers gather to gossip, and the
country boy receives his first impressions
OF what the outside world contains by
sitting on cracker barrel and listening
to the arguments of his elders. The
man who has lived his life without hav-
ing had an opportunity to spend an
evening IN corner grocery can never
appreciate the character of the place.
The post-office is always there, and
when the stage comes dashing up to the
door and the mail carrier throws down
the leather mail-pouch with reckless
abandon he is looked upon as q tourist,
though he has never been beyond the
neighboring village. But he brings
some glimpses of the outside world and
is welcome.
The one who has passed middle age
and has mingled in the stirring exper-
fences Of metropolitan life, if he has
been fortunate enough to have known
the charms of rural simplicity in his
younger days, remembers the corner
grocery much as he does the old log
shool-house. The ties that bind him to
that humble temple of learning reach
out to the corner grocery, and the one is
luseperable from the other No country
boy will ever forget the grocery and its
presiding genius. The groceryman has
always been a character, rs his place
OF business has been fabled in song and
story. He knows every man within
radius of ten miles, and is ready with
the latest bits of interesting gossip to
ro3ale the dog-fancier and the horse
scientist, who are always eager listeners. |
He is the patron saint of the neighbor- |
fence quarreis, as We'll as nrbitratins
domestic difficulties. He has literary
because he is agent for every
known publication, and is supposed to
be on intimate terms with all the great
editors and publishers.
A remarkable thing about the corner
grocery is that it is entirely provincial.
In one section of the country the goods
are of a particular kind, and are ar
ranged in precise imitation of the gro
cery in the neighboring town. South of
Mason and Dixon's line the groceries
have articles in stock that are entirely
unknown in the North. The Southern
grocery is a saloon, and sugar and coffee
are not leaders. So common has it been
to sell liquor with the other articles, that
when a grocer drops the sale of coffee
and sugar and confines his business ef-
forts exclusively to dealing in liquors,
his establishment is still known as a
grocery instead of a grog- shop. Not
that the articles of stock
differ to suit the wants of the people in
certain great divisions of the United
States, the corner grocery, with its au-
tocratic proprietor, must always remain
the same, quaint and romantic. Chicago
Nez1s