At ten the next morning Mrs. Larry and Claire started for the people’s market. This was Mrs. Larry’s usual time for marketing.
At ten-thirty they sprang from the car, near the dull, redding-brown ferry house, and looked around for the market with the true country atmosphere. Near the recreation pier were scattered a few wagons that suggested the hucksters who sometimes dared to invade the sacred precincts of her exclusive neighborhood, with heaps of over-ripe pineapples and under-ripe apples. Here and there were push carts, such as Mrs. Larry had seen that day when she had “slummed” through the great East Side in search of a wedding gift in old Russian brass. A few rickety stands completed the background, and these were heaped with sad-looking poultry, tubs of butter, and crates of eggs, bearing striking black and white signs that announced big cuts in prices.
Hucksters, peddlers and sharp-featured tradesmen greeted them with strident price quotations. But Mrs. Larry’s glance sought in vain for the kindly farmer and his wife, the sort she could suddenly recall as handing her bits of home-made cake, pot cheese or a tiny nosegay of garden flowers in the days when she had gone to early market with her grandmother in a quiet Pennsylvania city.
A neatly dressed man, with a semi-official air, who had evidently noticed their bewilderment, raised his hat and spoke courteously:
“Is there anything special you want?”
“No; nothing special—we thought we’d like to see one of the city markets.”
“Well, you’re a little late to see the market at its best. I’ll explain, if you don’t mind. I’m on Borough President Marks’ committee and we are very anxious to interest New York housekeepers in these markets.”
“But it’s not clean,” protested Mrs. Larry, driven to frankness by her disappointment.
“It’s as clean as any open market can be kept. Everything is cleaned up and flushed every night, but you see people have been trading here since six-thirty this morning.”
“As early as that?” exclaimed the astonished Claire.