Then he began putting up the window-shutters.
There was a stir among the company, a scraping of chairs and stools, and a shuffling of heavy feet, and they went lingeringly out of the store.

Cyrus Robinson usually put up his shutters too early for them.
His store was more than a store--it was the nursery of the town, the place where her little commonweal was evolved and nurtured, and it was also her judgment-seat.

There her simple citizens formed their simple opinions upon town government and town officials, upon which they afterwards acted in town meeting.

There they sat in judgment upon all men who were not within reach of their voices, and upon all crying evils of the times which were too mighty for them to struggle against.

This great country store of Cyrus Robinson's--with its rank odors of molasses and spices, whale oil, and West India rum; with its counters, its floor, its very ceiling heaped and hung with all the paraphernalia of a New England village; its clothes, its food, and its working-utensils--was also in a sense the nucleus of this village of Upham Corners.