business; it was the wives you accosted, as they
sat in the middle, with their knees drawn up and their
skirts tucked close, vigilant in rusty bonnets, if you
wished to buy. Among them circulated the housewives of
Elgin, pricing and comparing and acquiring; you could
see it all from Dr Simmons's window, sitting in his chair
that screwed up and down. There was a little difficulty
always about getting things home; only very ordinary
people carried their own marketing. Trifling articles,
like eggs or radishes, might be smuggled into a brown
wicker basket with covers; but it did not consort with
elegance to "trapes" home with anything that looked
inconvenient or had legs sticking out of it. So that
arrangements of mutual obligation had to be made: the
good woman from whom Mrs Jones had bought her tomatoes
would take charge of the spring chickens Mrs Jones had
bought from another good woman just as soon as not, and
deliver them at Mrs Jones's residence, as under any
circumstances she was "going round that way."
It was a scene of activity but not of excitement, or in
any sense of joy. The matter was too hard an importance;
it made too much difference on both sides whether potatoes
were twelve or fifteen cents a peck. The dealers were
laconic and the buyers anxious; country neighbours
exchanged the time of day, but under the pressure of
affairs.
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