From The Topeka State Journal, October 29, 1913. By Roy K. Moulton.
The village store has changed a pile, or so it seems to me;
It’s different in stock and style from what it used to be.
The cracker barrel’s vanished now, the prunes are gone from sight,
There’s nothing left around, I vow, to tempt your appetite.
There’s no place left for us to sit, who used to haunt that store;
Our wisdom and our native wit aren’t heard there any more.
The place is all so spick and span and certified and smart,
It’s simply broken up the clan and cracked each loafer’s heart.
I know it’s making money fast since it has changed its ways;
It never made much in the past, but those were good old days.
It was the meeting place, the hub, in that glad time of yore;
It was the forum of the club—and now it’s just a store.