" To this day, the older
inhabitants of Windomville will tell you about the way his widow
"took on" until she couldn't stand it any longer,--and then married
George Hooper, the butcher, four months after the shocking demise
of Joseph.
Dowd's Tavern had few transient guests. "Drummers" from the city
hard-by dropped in occasionally for a midday meal, but they never
stayed the night. The guests were what the Misses Dowd called
"regulars." They included Hatch, the photographer; an old and indigent
couple, parents of a farmer whose wife objected so vehemently to
their well-meant efforts to "run" her house for her that he was
obliged to "board 'em" with the Dowd girls, an arrangement that
seemed to satisfy every one concerned except the farmer himself,
who never missed an opportunity to praise the food and the comforts
to be enjoyed at the county "poorhouse" when he paid his semi-annual
visit to the venerable dependents; Mr. Charlie Webster, the rotund
manager of the grain elevator, who spent every Saturday night and
Sunday in the city and showed up for duty on Monday with pinkish eyes
and a rather tremulous whistle that was supposed to be reminiscent
of ecclesiastical associations; Miss Flora Grady, the dress-maker;
Doctor Simpson, the dentist, a pale young man with extremely bad
teeth and a habit of smiling, even at funerals; Miss Miller, the
principal of the school, who was content with a small room over
the kitchen at ten dollars a week, thereby permitting her to save
something out of her salary, which was fifty dollars a month; A.
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