III

WITCHES' LOAVES


Miss Martha Meacham kept the little bakery on the corner (the one
where you go up three steps, and the bell tinkles when you open the
door).

Miss Martha was forty, her bank-book showed a credit of two thousand
dollars, and she possessed two false teeth and a sympathetic heart.
Many people have married whose chances to do so were much inferior to
Miss Martha's.

Two or three times a week a customer came in in whom she began to take
an interest. He was a middle-aged man, wearing spectacles and a brown
beard trimmed to a careful point.

He spoke English with a strong German accent. His clothes were worn
and darned in places, and wrinkled and baggy in others. But he looked
neat, and had very good manners.

He always bought two loaves of stale bread. Fresh bread was five cents
a loaf. Stale ones were two for five. Never did he call for anything
but stale bread.

Once Miss Martha saw a red and brown stain on his fingers. She was
sure then that he was an artist and very poor. No doubt he lived in a
garret, where he painted pictures and ate stale bread and thought of
the good things to eat in Miss Martha's bakery.