“See? Not a withered leaf, not a single leaf you could not serve on your table. Fifteen cents. Well, you can go to the dago stand round the corner and buy lettuce for eight or ten cents. My lettuce you have charged and delivered in clean baskets, by clean, respectful delivery boys, and you’ll have enough for two salads. The Italian sells you lettuce that is withered on the outside from long standing in his hot cellar, or small heads from which all the outside leaves are stripped. You pay cash, the lettuce is dusty, it is delivered by a dirty little ragamuffin who ought to be in school, and you get one salad as against two from the head bought here.
“Same way with those meat quotations. I went down to hear that lecture. I sort of felt some of my customers would be there. The man who gave what you called your meat demonstration is one of the biggest dealers in this city. He wholesales as well as retails. He does not carry a single retail charge account. He would not give credit to a woman who had traded with him ten years. Every sale is a cash transaction—no waiting, no chance of loss. Of course, he can undersell a man like me. I don’t pretend to compete with him. You can go to his market—across town—or you can order by telephone or postal card, and he will give you good meat, not fancy grades like I carry for my exclusive trade, but good meat, and you will save money. His rent is less than mine and he pays smaller wages. I am not knocking his meat; but I will say that if you take his roast at twenty-one cents a pound and mine at twenty-three cents a pound, and treat them exactly the same way, you’ll be able to tell the difference. It’s in the flavor and the tenderness and the juiciness, and of the twenty-one-cent roast Mr. Hall will probably say: ‘Roast a little dry and flat to-night, isn’t it?’”
“Then this Marketing Guide is really no guide at all?” sighed Mrs. Larry, suddenly recalling that she had meant to clean the baby’s white coat this morning, and here she was spending precious minutes unlearning what she thought she had learned so well.
“Oh, yes, it is—if you know how to use it. Take this one item alone. ‘The market is flooded with Florida oranges and grapefruit.’ That’s your chance to lay in a supply of both fruits while the wholesale prices are down. ‘Cranberry shipments are heavy and market glutted.’ That’s true, too. Cranberries have sold a few weeks back for twelve cents a quart. I am selling now for nine. It would pay you to make up some jelly and set it aside, or, if you have a cool place, you can keep the raw berries just as well as we can. Just now the manufacturers of —— bacon are cutting prices—they are overloaded. I can save you three cents a jar if you want to buy a quantity and stock up. Next week it may be back to the old price.”
“And these prices change all the time, like this? Why haven’t you told me such things before?”
“Well,” said the butcher, trying hard not to smile, “you never asked me. You usually order by phone, and—”
“You can send me the roast—the second cut at twenty-three cents—five quarts of cranberries and a dozen jars of bacon,” said Mrs. Larry out loud. Inwardly she calculated: “Fifteen cents saved on cranberries, thirty-six on bacon. Every penny cut off what it might have been, saves just a little bit more.”
Safely back on the sunlit street, Mrs. Larry and Claire glanced at each other. The faces of both were a trifle flushed.
“I’ve had more agreeable experiences,” commented Mrs. Larry, with a wry smile.
“I don’t care what happens,” said Claire, looking straight ahead, “I’m going to win out in this game. It means everything to me.”