MISQUAH — The sign went up in the window of Sorensen Hardware at noon on Saturday — hand-lettered, taped at the corners, reading CLOSING AT 2 TODAY, FAMILY MATTER, BACK MONDAY, SORRY AND NOT SORRY — and by quarter past, the aisles were fuller than they have been for any sale in store history. The town had come, ostensibly, for last-minute hardware. It had actually come, cards in jackets and cards in purses and one card in a toolbox, for Walt and Carol.

The occasion, as the whole Chain knew and pretended it didn’t, was forty years: the Sorensens married August 1, 1986, at First Lutheran, and Walt closed the store early that day too — the only other official early close on record. The distinction matters and the record is careful about it. The store has closed early plenty of Saturdays in the fishing sense, unofficially, with Walt allegedly back by three. It has closed early on purpose, with a sign, exactly twice, and for the same reason both times, which is Carol.

The cards were the day’s revelation. For two weeks, by this newspaper’s reckoning, half the town had bought one, hidden it in a kitchen drawer, and carried the private conviction that it alone had thought of it. Saturday they all surfaced at once. They arrived tucked into shirt pockets and pressed flat in Bibles, handed over with elaborate casualness or left on the counter while Walt’s back was turned. Walt maintained throughout that he was not counting them. “He counted,” Carol said. “Twice. He used the receipt spike.”

Among the well-wishers was Yvette Boone, First State Bank’s new president, one year into town and making her first appearance at a Sorensen occasion. “I’ve worked places where forty years means a plaque from corporate,” she said, holding her card, waiting her turn like everyone. “Here it means the store closes and the whole town shows up to watch it close. I’m still learning the local math, but I can tell that adds up to more.”

At two o’clock Walt turned the sign, to applause he called “unnecessary” in a voice that needed a moment. The Sorensens spent the evening with family, including the newest of them — Eric and Kayla’s daughter, born June 24, five weeks old and one of the two names for which Earl repainted the population sign to 3,916 in June. She slept behind the counter through the entire second early close in company history, which her grandfather called “the correct response to retail.” The store reopened Monday, most of the day, as usual.