THE MARKET-SQUARE
The road to Les Andelys was crowded with their neighbours and friends bound in the same direction, and all in the same style of high carts, drawn by a single horse.
They drove beside the river that flows through the two villages, along which the washerwomen gathered when they washed their clothes. They knelt by a long plank and gossiped as they beat out the dirt with a paddle, rinsing the clothes afterward in the running water of the stream itself.
At the town they drove into the courtyard of the hotel of the "Bon Laboureur," where there were dozens of country carts like their own, from which the horses had already been taken. They left the stableman to take charge of theirs, and walked across to the market-square.
Booths, with awnings, held everything that could be imagined, from old cast-off pieces of iron, locks, keys and the like, to the newest kinds of clothing; for everything under the sun is sold at these markets, and it is here that the people do most of their shopping rather than in the shops. Laces, crockery, imitation jewelry and furniture, and most things useful to man or beast are sold here.
Big umbrellas were stuck up for protection against sun and rain. Some of them were of brilliant colours, reds, blues, and greens, some were faded to neutral tints by the weathers of many market-days—looking like a field of big mushrooms.
On one side of the square was the vegetable and fruit market, where the women in their neat cotton dresses and white caps sat under their umbrellas, with heaped up baskets of peas, beans, cauliflower, melons, and crisp green stuff for salads around them. These vegetable and fruit sellers are known as the "Merchants of the four seasons," because they sell, at various times, the products of the four seasons of the year.
Near by were the geese, ducks, and chickens packed in big basket-crates, piled one on top of the other, and all clucking and restless. Quantities of little rabbits were also there, and when a buyer wished to know if the rabbit were in prime condition, he would lift it up by the back of its neck just as one does a kitten, and feel its backbone. One does not know whether the poor rabbits like it or not, but they look very frightened, and seem glad when it is over.
Madame Lafond made her way toward the egg-market, where the eggs are displayed piled up in great baskets, stopping to speak to a friend or an acquaintance by the way. She was soon in her accustomed place, and had opened up her eggs for her customers, for eggs from La Chaumière never went begging.