The two little children of the wagon-maker joined Marie and Germaine, and the four amused themselves looking at the booths, and planning what they would buy if they had the money, or amused themselves watching the crowd that quite filled the big market-place. "There are the English," some one said, and, turning, Germaine saw her friend Mr. Carter, and his wife, the Americans who were spending the summer at the Belle Étoile, standing at one of the booths, buying a baton Normand, a rough stick of native wood, with a head of plaited leather, and a leather loop to hold it on the arm, for they are used by the peasants in driving cattle, and they frequently want to have their hands otherwise quite free. "This will make me a good walking-stick," said Mr. Carter, coming up to the little girls and shaking hands with them. "This is your sister back from school, eh? Well, when are you two going to take that ride with me?"
It had been a promise of long standing that when Marie was at home, they were to go for a day's trip in Mr. Carter's big automobile. "Well, I must fix on a day, and let M. Auguste send word to your mamma so that you and Marie can come to the Belle Étoile, and we can start from there."
"Won't it be lovely?" said Marie; "we shall feel as fine as M. Lecoq, the rich farmer who comes to market in his great auto, wearing his fur coat over his blouse, with his sabots on just as if he was in the farm wagon, riding behind his four white oxen."
All French working men wear the blouse. It is almost like a uniform, and by the colour of his blouse one can generally guess a man's trade. Painters, masons, grocers, and bakers wear the white blouse; mechanics and the better class of farmers seem to prefer black, and the ordinary peasants and labourers wear blue.
The blouse is made like a big full shirt, and reaches nearly to the knees. You will see men well dressed in black broadcloth, white shirts and neat ties, and over all the blouse. It is really worn now to protect the clothes, but is a survival of the olden times when all trades wore a livery.
At the market at Grand Andelys one could but notice the neatly dressed hair of the women folk.
All Frenchwomen, of whatsoever class, always dress their hair neatly and prettily: and as the young girls seldom wear a hat or a bonnet, it shows off to so much better advantage. This is all very well in summer, but one wonders that they do not take cold in winter. The women wear felt slippers, and thrust their feet into their sabots, when they go out, which are not so clumsy as those of the men, dropping them at the door when they come into the house. You will always see several pairs of sabots around the entrance to the home of a French working man.