XXXII.
A DEMOCRATIC LUNCH.
AS soon as I could recover from the surprise any New England woman would feel at a thing like this, I saw Cousin Dempster coming toward me.
"Come, hurry up," says he. "You were so late, I thought perhaps you had misunderstood, and come directly here. This way; be careful where you step; Fulton market is not the neatest place on earth."
I was careful, and lifting the skirt of my alpaca dress between my thumb and finger, gave a nipping jump, and cleared a gutter that ran between Cousin D. and myself. Then we walked into the market, with a whole crowd of other people, and trained along between baskets and square wooden pens heaped up with oranges, and things called bananas—gold-colored, and bunched-up like sausages, but awful good to eat. Potatoes, apples, books, peanuts, chestnuts, pies, cakes, and no end of things, were heaped on high benches on each side of us wherever we turned, till at last we passed through an encampment of empty meat-stands, and from that into a wooden lane with open rooms on one hand, and piles on piles of oysters on each side the door.
Every one of these rooms had a great rousing fire burning and roaring before it, and a lot of men diving in amongst the oysters, with sharp knives in their hands.
"Let us go in here," says Cousin Dempster, turning toward one of the rooms that looked cheerful and neat as a pin. The floor was sprinkled with white sand, and the tables had marble tops, white as tombstones, but more cheerful by half. As we went in, a man by the door called out, "Tuw stews!" Then again, "One roast—one raw on half-shell!"
Another man began firing pots and pans at the heap of blazing coals before him the moment this fellow stopped for breath. All this made me so hungry that I really felt as if I couldn't wait; but I kind of started back when I saw ever so many gentlemen and ladies in the room, sitting by the tables and feeding deliciously. Some of the men had their hats on, which did not strike me as over-genteel. But, after this one halt, I entered with dignity, placed my satchel in a corner, and took an upright position on one of the wooden chairs. Cousin Dempster sat down, too. He took his hat off, which I felt as complimentary, and a touch of the aristocratic.
"Now, what shall we have?" says he.
"A stew," says I, with a feeling of thanksgiving in my mouth.