During the hot summer months Clarence always wore loose clothing, especially his shirts. Many times I�ve seen him stand in his favorite spot behind the candy counter and while resting his head on his arm fall fast asleep. You could always tell when he was asleep because he had a most unusual snore. The first two or three times he snored he woke himself up because the noise he vocalized was quite loud. After that his snores were almost a continous hum.

  One July Doctor Williams had made a trip to New York City for a convention and had been gone the best part of a week. The day he arrived back home we were all gathered at the country store wanting to hear of the wonderful things he must have learned.

  Either Clarence wasn�t interested in what was going on or he had one of his bad nights for in a few short minutes after the doctor started talking, Clarence started snoring. At the same time Clarence started snoring so did Earl Coran. Earl had been drunk all day and instead of sitting up he had taken a prone position on the bench and was fast asleep. While the two of them were off in some far away dreamland, someone sprinkled Clarence's back with itching powder and very lightly dusted Earl�s nose and hand with sneezing powder.

   It was a really hot night and it wasn�t long before Clarence began to wiggle a little bit and as the minutes passed he wiggled more and more. Earl never moved. In about ten minutes Clarence woke up and went into a slow squirming session. He couldn�t reach his back so he went to the door and started rubbing his back against the door frame. Naturally, the harder he scratched the worse it became and soon Clarence was doing the St. Vitus dance. Earl never moved a muscle.

   Finally poor Clarence was itching so much he took off his top and discovered some of the itching powder still on his shirt. To say that Clarence had a way with bad words would be like saying it�s going to snow in Maine this winter. Clarence put his tongue in motion and it wasn�t until he had gone through his entire vocabulary of swear words that he quieted down. Earl still hadn�t moved.

  As I said before there wasn�t any water in the store so Clarence opened a bottle of ginger ale, got a rag, and asked Dr. Williams to wash his back. The doctor was glad to oblige.

   Clarence couldn�t put his top back on because there was still some itching powder on it so he stood behind his counter with a towel that he sometimes used to wipe his class counter top draped over his upper torso. Clarence was a fast thinker and his mind was working overtime. There wasn�t any place in Lubec that sold itching powder, and Doctor Williams had returned that day from New York, so the obvious scoundrel was the doctor. After Clarence had it all figured out he lit into Doctor Williams with both barrels. The poor doctor swore he hadn�t done it and the more he pleaded his innocence, the more Clarence was convinced it he was the scoundrel.

Doc. Williams had one of the better seats in the house; right in front of a window. Clarence got madder and madder and finally he reached his �throw something stage'. He reached behind him, took a can from the shelf, and heaved it full force at Doc. Williams. Doc. Williams bent over a little bit and the can passed a few inches over his head hitting the window. It sounded as loud as a cannon explosion as the window shattered into thousands of tiny pieces.

  Earl Coran jumped up as though he had been shot. He looked around the room and when he saw  what had happened he sat down. He always drooled when he slept so he wiped his mouth and brushed his nose with the hand that had the sneezing powder on it. Clarence was looking for something to put over the window and everyone in the room was waiting for Mr. Coran to let out a few good sneezes, but he never did.

   Doc. Williams felt sorry for Clarence and I felt sorry for Doc Williams.

   Back in those early days all the comic books had stuff for sale on the inside back page. I had sent away and for twenty cents I had bought a package of itching powder and a package of sneezing powder. I was the one that was playing the dumb tricks. The results from the itching powder were exactly what they were advertised to be but the sneezing powder had failed miserably. Mr.Coran was wide awake. He was sitting there wiping his face with his hands, smoothing down his hair with his hands, and doing everything except licking his fingers; but he never sneezed.

    I must have been fifteen or sixteen at the time and I was mad at the people that sold me (at a cost of ten cents) a powder that didn�t work. I left the store early and while I was walking home I opened the package of sneezing powder. I don�t know what possessed me but I took some of the sneezing powder and sniffed a little of it. That was one big mistake because I went into a fit of sneezing and thought I was going to sneeze my head off. I sneezed so hard my nose started bleeding and I feared it might fall off too. As soon as I had suffered enough I took the package of sneezing powder and the package of itching powder and dumped them both onto the ground.   When I told my grandfather what had happened he just smiled at me and said, "Stupid is as stupid does."