Slop shop

“ The street is roofed in overhead with long rafters and pieces of matting, through which a dusty sunbeam straggles here{4} and there, casting patches of light upon the moving crowd. The unpaved thoroughfare—a mere narrow lane, full of ruts and watered profusely twice or thrice a day—is lined with little wooden shop fronts, like open cabinets full of shelves, where the merchants sit cross-legged in the midst of their goods, looking out at the passers-by and smoking in silence. ”

“ It is very agreeable on an idle summer morning to pursue this market-stream from the hill-top. It begins, dozingly and dully, with a few sacks of corn; starts into a surprising collection of boots and shoes; goes brawling down the hill in a diversified channel of old cordage, old iron, old crockery, old clothes, civil and military, old rags, new cotton goods, flaming prints of saints, little looking-glasses, and incalculable lengths of tape; dives into a backway, keeping out of sight for a little while, as streams will, or only sparkling for a moment in the shape of a market drinking-shop ”

“ In the street are ox-teams, mules, men, and donkeys loaded with ore, crowding each other familiarly, and sinking knee-deep in the mud. Furniture and kegs of beer, bedding and canned provisions, clothing and half-open packing-cases, and piles of raw lumber are heaped up in front of the new stores—or those still to be built—stores of canvas only, stores with canvas tops and foundations of logs, and houses with the Leadville front, where the upper boards have been left square instead of following the sloping angle of the roof. ”

“ Like the majority of blacksmith's shops at country cross-roads, it was a low, narrow shed, filled with dust and rubbish, with old wheels and new single-trees, broken plows and dilapidated wagons awaiting repairs, and at the rear of the shop stood a smaller shed, where an old gray horse quietly ate his corn and fodder, waiting to carry the master to his home, two miles distant, as soon as the sun had set beyond the neighboring mountain. ”

“ The shop is an open stone shed with a dirt floor, offering only stools to the customers; yet when the motley crowd are seated in and around it, sipping coffee and smoking the narghilehs (water-pipes) with an air of leisure as if to-day would last forever, you have a scene of Oriental luxury.
Our way lies down a winding ravine. The country is exceedingly rough, like the Wyoming hills, but without trees or verdure. The bed of the stream is a mass of rock in shelving ledges; all the rock in sight is a calcareous limestone. ”

“ In front is the brick sidewalk, the cobbled street, the bit of open space with Harrier's junk-shop on the right corner; and then the warehouses on either side, all leading down to the slip, Doty's Slip, which is flanked by noble wharves, with huge piles leaning awry and very slippery. The warehouses are roomy and full of queer smells, as if the varied merchandize of fifty years had left something for its old friends, the warehouses, to remember it by. ”

“ In the bazaar down by the river, with its maze of narrow crooked streets, its crazy wooden booths and its vile pavement, life goes on much as it did with us ages ago. Each trade has its own quarter, as in all Eastern bazaars. And narrow ways, called Mercery Street, Butchers' Row, Goldsmiths' Alley, in many an English town, still tell of the time when so it was in England, in days when timber was as cheap, streets as crooked and narrow, and pavement as bad as they are now in Skodra. ”

“ Then the Trap-Door City, which covered the slopes above the plateau at the three-thousand-foot level like a checker-board of shimmering, silken circles, would spring to febrile life as the spider monsters went streaking and leaping across the barren, distorted granite on the day's business, the hunt for food in the lowlands, and the opening of the trap-doors to gather in the heat of the day in the silken tunnel homes set in the gorges and among the boulders. ”

“ Toward the middle of the century summer fishing took the place of merchant voyages, so the sea-men turned to shoe making in the winter. Almost every house had its little 10 x 10 shoe shop, in which was room for one man on a low stool, a chair for a visitor, an iron stove, a bench with tools, the oval lap-stone to peg shoes on, with rolls and scraps of leather, withal a pungent smell. ”

“ Hurrying through shop after shop—one filled with workmen, another with workwomen, all resounding with the busy hum of labour, we at length descend into another courtyard surrounded by ranges of shopping whose windows and walls are bespattered with yellow mud flung off the grinding stones that are whirling madly round inside, amidst a steam-driven labyrinth of bands and a grating, grinding, hissing whiz that fairly sets one’s teeth on edge. Entering, we find grindstones and polishing wheels of all sorts and sizes, and behind each a workman bending closely over his work. ”

“ He was engaged enclosing a fresh field for a farmer about two miles from Caerphilly. Raising his head, and giving his arms a stretch, his attention was arrested by a noise there was no mistaking. There was a blacksmith's shop by the roadside, and almost in front of it a load of stones was being dumped down from a cart, or what then answered to the name in that wild region. It was little more than a sled, low to the ground, but running on broad wheels or rollers of solid wood, girthed with iron bands and drawn by four horses.
His curiosity was excited. A group of working men were there. ”

“ The shop itself was a primitive affair, a long, low wooden shed, built of squared logs, and not unlike in general appearance many a dwelling in the lonely valley. There were two features, however, that appealed to every one who passed by. During summer and early autumn a superb, spreading oak near the shop door cast a welcome shade, wherein the lounger was well content to linger, and a roomy fireplace with its rude forge, that defied the most earnest efforts of winter to make the place cheerless even when storms raged without. ”

“ A few timbers scattered about, a rotten old stump that had served as part of the foundation, the hopper washed up by the waters, several of the posts which had upheld the race, were all that was left of the old mill, so long the salient feature of the place that more than one mountaineer was beset with bewilderment at the sight,—the recollection of the oblique line of the roof against the mountain, the open door, the reflections in the water, having more reality than the bereft bank of the river. ”

“ The plate glass windows of every store lay in thousands of pieces below their sashes, and the entire stock of merchandise whether furniture or drapery, groceries or dairy products, had been hurled through them into the middle of the thoroughfare. Above these were piled pell-mell bedding and chairs, wardrobes and wash basins, all splintered and broken—the whole making the most pitiable conglomeration I ever hope to witness. ”

“ The main street is as rough and steep as the most neglected of [6] Alpine mule-tracks, and disfigured by heaps of filth—importunate beggars of revolting aspect, led about by young boys, assail him at every step—there is no bazaar, as in eastern towns, and the miserable shops are mere recesses, where, in an unglazed opening, little larger than a berth in a ship’s cabin, the dealer squats surrounded by his paltry wares. ”

“ In an almost incredibly short time Boom Town had its store, a long, low, rough-board shack with a sturdy roof bespeaking its owner's intention to return to his mart after the passing of the coming winter: necessary articles and provisions went over a fresh pine counter demanding and getting those prices which men do not question in a mining camp. ”

“ And to gaze on this natural wonder, the small shopkeeper will leave his place in the city bazaar where he has spent all the years of his life without a change, toil for eight days up the narrow dangerous tracks, and eventually, if he has not perished from the severe cold or is buried beneath avalanches, has the supreme joy of reaching the long-looked-for goal. ”

“ And they pushed on, on, ever more of them pouring out of the little squat stone houses, from the streets and alleys, the low-roofed bazaars and the market place, regardless of the bitter cold, of the snow that thudded down moist-hissing into the flickering torches, of elbow and fist and foot, and occasionally, pricking dagger point. ”

“ The slopes are purely pastoral, with small farm-steadings scattered over them. But down in the bottom of the dale, we see the heavy stone-and-lime mill starting up from the bare landscape, with a sprawling village of mean cottages surrounding it, giving token of an industrial life totally opposite to that which is found beside the silver streams of the Tweed and its tributaries. ”

“ There’s nothing in the lumber store superfluous or vain; you do not seek that dealer’s door fool doodads to obtain. And every time he sells a bill, improvements there will be; the coin he puts into his till helps the community. And when his goods are in demand, the better times have come, your town will flourish and expand, the wheels of commerce hum. ”

“ Over it go street cars carrying busy people, trucks laden with gravel or coal, the ever-present automobiles of people bent on pleasure. The street is lined on either side with tall buildings: stores, offices, houses, churches, museums. As we go down the avenue, we come to what was once a clearing in the forest. Instead of the simple cabin, there are now a variety of buildings: a small store whose owner, a French Canadian, carries on a thriving business ”

“ Jostling with unemployed labourers of the lowest class, ballast-heavers, coal-whippers, brazen women, ragged children, and the raff and refuse of the river, he makes his way with difficulty along, assailed by offensive sights and smells from the narrow alleys which branch off on the right and left, and deafened by the clash of ponderous waggons that bear great piles of merchandise from the stacks of warehouses that rise from every corner. ”

“ It was curious to see men at work on those steep slopes that had been scooped out into a succession of narrow shelves, and more strange yet to catch glimpses of peasants ploughing the very mountain top, picturesque figures against the sky. ”

“ Some of the shop-keepers are in front of their stores, standing about under the verandahs which cover the pathway, and lazily enjoying a pipe. At the upper end of the town the blacksmith is busily at work shoeing some farmer's horses, in front of the blazing smithy fire. Five or six diggers come slouching along, just from their work, in their mud-bespattered trowsers and their shirt sleeves, a pick or spade over their shoulders, and a tin "billy" in their hands. But for the occasional rattle [Pg 93] of a cart or buggy down the street, the town would be lapped in quiet. ”

“ First the pleasure in exploring the new surroundings and then the variety of delights. Our landscape gardener mentions that "any slope to our grounds should be welcomed.... For as we leave the level land and flee to the mountains to spend our vacation, so will a child avoid the street and seek the gutter and the bank on the unimproved lot to enjoy its pastime." Our own children have been fortunate enough to have a bank for their play, and though, unfortunately, extension of buildings has taken away much of this, we have had abundant opportunity to see the value of sloping ground. ”

“ One has but to let his imagination run riot for a few moments to see this now deserted camp a scene of the greatest activity. The many shafts and tunnels, dump-piles and prospect-holes show how busy a spot it must have been. The hills about teemed with men. At night the log store—still standing—and the saloons—tents, shacks and log houses—were crowded with those who sought in the flowing bowl some surcease from the burden of their arduous labors. ”

“ I slink away from the door, drag myself along the walls of the houses, and come out again into the light streets. As I jog along Young's Hill my brain begins to work in a most peculiar direction. It occurs to me that the wretched hovels down at the corner of the market-place, the stores for loose materials, the old booths for second-hand clothes, are really a disgrace to the place—they spoilt the whole appearance of the market, and were a blot on the town. ”

“ We land on slippery wooden stairs, and hurry across the blistering hot pavements of the street to rest for a few moments in the shade of the large warehouses and wholesale shops that crowd the lower town. ”

“ Wooded hills closed in, on either side, as the cars progressed, until we found ourselves speeding along a winding, unfenced shelf on the side of a precipice, primeval forest covering the sides of the gorge, to which the procession clung, like a string of flies to a window-pane, as it swung round corners, often with a wall of rock on one side and a sheer drop of hundreds of feet upon the other, a few inches of macadamized shelf all that interposed between the outer wheels and eternity. ”

“ Yet this modest man, with more than 30 years on the job, performs most of his work outside, shielded from the rain by only a small awning. The yard’s carpentry shop, responsible for moving large pieces of lumber as it maintains park equipment for the entire city, has only 8-foot ceilings and lacks a loading dock. ”