candy store on the corner. She was sick with envy of these young women.
They were in the world, they were elegant, they were debonair, they had
their "young men."

On this occasion she presented herself at the door of Old Grannis's room
late in the afternoon. His door stood a little open. That of Miss Baker
was ajar a few inches. The two old people were "keeping company" after
their fashion.

"Got any junk, Mister Grannis?" inquired Maria, standing in the door, a
very dirty, half-filled pillowcase over one arm.

"No, nothing--nothing that I can think of, Maria," replied Old Grannis,
terribly vexed at the interruption, yet not wishing to be unkind.
"Nothing I think of. Yet, however--perhaps--if you wish to look."

He sat in the middle of the room before a small pine table. His
little binding apparatus was before him. In his fingers was a huge
upholsterer's needle threaded with twine, a brad-awl lay at his elbow,
on the floor beside him was a great pile of pamphlets, the pages uncut.
Old Grannis bought the "Nation" and the "Breeder and Sportsman." In the
latter he occasionally found articles on dogs which interested him. The
former he seldom read. He could not afford to subscribe regularly to
either of the publications, but purchased their back numbers by the
score, almost solely for the pleasure he took in binding them.

"What you alus sewing up them books for, Mister Grannis?" asked Maria,
as she began rummaging about in Old Grannis's closet shelves. "There's
just hundreds of 'em in here on yer shelves; they ain't no good to you."