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.”
The boy raised his eyes unseeingly. “How do,” he said. “Judge, I got to get back to the barn—”
“Getting any help these days, Drakeley?” asked the Judge.
“Some. Old man Lemmon right now. Jed Willet from over Comfort — he’s promised to cut the south lot and help me get the hay in, but Jed can’t come till next week.” The Scott boy pushed by them suddenly.
“See you at the exercises?”
“Dunno, Judge. Ma’ll be there with Judy.” Drakeley Scott shuffled out rapidly, his meager shoulders drawn in as if he expected a blow from behind.
“Mornin’,” boomed Peter Berry. He was all overlapping smiles. “Real fine day, Judge! Lookin’ forward to your speech today...” He kept glancing from Judge Shinn to Johnny, his gray face shifting and changing as if it were composed of seawater.
“Thank you, Peter.” The Judge introduced Johnny.
“Real glad to meet you, Mr. Shinn! Judge’s kin, hey? Ever visited before?”
“No.”
“That’s too bad. How d’ye like our little community?”
“Nice solid sort of town,” said Johnny tactfully. “Settled. Peaceful.”
“That’s a fact.” Johnny wished that Berry’s face would stand still for a moment, “Visitin’ long?”
“A week or so, Mr. Berry.”
“Well, now, that’s fine. Oh, Judge, Millie Pangman was in t’other day chargin’ some groceries to your account. Is it all right?”
“Of course it’s all right, Peter,” said the Judge a bit sharply.
“Darn fine woman, Millie. Credit to Shinn Corners—”
“We won’t keep you, Peter,” said the Judge. “I know you’re open only for a few hours this morning—”
“Judge.”
“Yes?”
Peter Berry was leaning over his counter in a confidential way.
“Had it in my mind to talk to you for quite a while now...”
Johnny delicately drifted off to the book rack. But Berry seemed to have forgotten him, and the booming voice carried.
“It’s about the Scotts.”
“Oh?” said Judge Shinn. “What about the Scotts?”
“Well, now, you know I been carryin’ the Scotts right along...”
“Owe you a big bill, do they, Peter?”
“Well, yes. I was wonderin’ what I could do about it. You bein’ a lawyer and a judge—”
Judge Shinn’s voice grew shrill. “You mean you want to take the Scotts to court?”
“Can’t carry ’em forever, Judge. I like to oblige my neighbors, but—”
“Haven’t they paid you anything?”
“Dribs and drabs.”
“But they have been trying to pay.”
“Well, yes, but the balance keeps gettin’ bigger.”
“Have you talked to Earl, Peter?”
“No use talkin’ to Earl.”
“No, I s’pose not,” said the Judge, “Earl being tied down to that wheelchair.”
“I’ve talked to Drakeley, but shucks! Drakeley’s not half a man yet. Lettin’ a boy run a farm! Seems to me what Earl ought to do is sell out—”
“What does Drakeley say, Peter?”
“He says he’ll pay first chance he gets. I don’t want to be hard on them, Judge—”
“But you’re contemplating legal measures. Well, Peter, I’ll tell you,” said Judge Shinn. “I remember — a long time ago — when Nathan Berry was so deep in a hole he had the Sheriff peering down over the edge. You remember it, too — it was during the depression. Old Seth Scott was a man then, standing on his two feet, not a bag of mumbling lard whose legs won’t support him, the way he is today. And between Seth and his son Earl, they’d weathered the storm. And your father, Nathan Berry, went to Seth and Earl Scott for help, and they saved his neck, Peter — yes, and yours, too. You wouldn’t be standing behind this counter today if not for the Scotts!” And Judge Shinn’s voice came to Johnny in a long thin line, like charging infantry. “If you had to carry those people for five years, Peter Berry, you ought to do it and be thankful for the chance! And while I’m riled up, Peter, I’m going to tell you what I think of your prices. I think you’re a highway robber, that’s what I think. Taking advantage of these folks you grew up with, who can’t deal anywhere else ’cause there’s nowhere else to deal! Sure you work hard. So did Ebenezer Scrooge. And so do they, only they haven’t got anything to show for it, the way you have!”
“No call gettin’ het up, Judge,” said the other voice, still smily-boomy. “It was just a question.”
“Oh, I’ll answer your damned question! If the Scotts owe you less than a hundred dollars, you can file your claim in the Small Claims Court. If it’s anything above that up to five hundred, you can go to the Court of Common Pleas—”