“This morning we are selling best eggs at thirty-seven cents a dozen. Yesterday you paid forty-one cents a dozen for the same eggs. To-morrow you may pay it again. To-day’s drop in price is due to a glutted market. Those eggs are perfectly fresh, and will keep in your refrigerator for a week. Here are hams at nineteen cents a pound, ordinarily sold at twenty-two. This cut is due to the fact that our firm bought a carload direct from the packer. To-day you can buy a basket of sweet potatoes for nineteen cents. To-morrow they may be twenty or twenty-two.”
Just at this moment an order boy called out: “Mrs. Blank, one quart of sweets.”
“What do they cost a quart?” asked Claire.
“Ten cents,” answered the clerk.
“And how much does the basket hold?”
“Five quarts.”
Mrs. Larry looked startled.
“Then a customer pays ten cents for one quart, and nineteen cents for five quarts? Think of paying ten cents a quart when I could get them for four cents! I have been buying them by the quart because they don’t keep well.”
“Keep your sweet potatoes in a cool place and pick them over every day. When they show spots, boil them in their jackets, set them away in the refrigerator, and they will keep indefinitely after they are boiled,” advised the clerk.
“We are having a special on certain brands of canned goods to-day—peas, tomatoes, apricots and sliced pineapple. Probably some canner found himself overloaded with certain vegetables and fruits, and our firm took advantage of the fact. If you can use a dozen cans, you will save thirty cents on the dozen, nearly three cents on each can. And you can mix your order in any way you like—three of this, four of that, two of another, etc.”