Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/167



HERE is a certain class of men who look like landmarks. No matter how slight may be their social importance, no matter how humble a part they may play in the active life of their town, they become identified with it. They are not necessarily men of marked appearance. It is only that a sight of one of them turning the key in his shop-door of an evening, or lingering about the church-porch after service, conveys a feeling of satisfaction. One's sense of the fitness of things is gratified, and one would rather see the bent figure and time-worn features than not.

Dr. Bennett belonged to this class of men. No more unobtrusive figure than his existed in the little manufacturing town of Westville. No citizen of the town went his ways more quietly than he. Yet his tall, stooping figure, his thin gray hair, his neat, threadbare coat, were clearly indigenous to the soil. His little shop, where he dealt in