“Impertinence!” snapped Mrs. Pratt, as she turned away.
Marjorie drifted on, her basket still empty. These awful Saturday mornings! They seemed to accentuate her loneliness. Of course, the cold discouraged long conversations and the exchange of tittle-tattle that makes shopping, to some people, so delightful, but she was aware of the greetings that passed between women as they met—a tip, perhaps, as to some bargain, or a brief reference to some impending social function—and she would have been grateful for even the smallest sign of friendly recognition. Frequently, she saw people who had called upon her, but evidently she had made too little impression to be remembered. How different from Pinto Plains, where everybody knew her and cordiality was mutual!
She noticed that many of the ladies who came into church richly dressed on Sundays, wore the most dreadfully shabby clothes at market, but it was not until long afterwards, she understood that this was part of a scheme for economy—for beating the farmers at their own game. They disguised themselves that they might give no hint as to the fatness of their bank account, thus implying that well-to-do shoppers were asked a higher price than those of obviously modest means. These same shabbily-clad ladies never seemed to buy very much, and Marjorie often wondered how it was worth their while to spend the morning with so little result. In those days, she didn’t realise that they had left their motors round the corner, and that their parcels were transferred, two or three at a time, to a liveried chauffeur who sat in a heated car and read stimulating items from the Eye-Opener.
Others, she learned, dragged overflowing baskets into one of the “Market Stores,” whose prices were known to be a few cents in excess of those demanded by the owners of the carts. Here, they made an insignificant purchase, thereby placing the onus of free delivery on the shoulders of the management. The degree to which this practice was employed varied with the temperament of the shopper. Those of a less sensitive nature, felt no hesitation in asking Lavalee, the aristocratic Purveyor of Sea Food and Game, to send home six dollars’ worth of marketing with a pound of smelts. Likewise, Smithson suffered the exigencies of trade, not only delivering the type of foodstuffs that he didn’t keep, but every week of the year he was asked to send home the very things that were purchasable in his own store and which had been bought for a few cents less, half a block away. Seeing the baskets of produce that were piled high on the sidewalk every Saturday morning, Marjorie wondered how it was worth while for him to carry on his business or maintain his livery, at all!
Having made a few purchases, she set off down Mosgrove Street for the tram as fast as her burden would permit, when she came for the second time upon Mrs. Pratt, still searching for a bargain in chickens.
“One seventy-five?” she was saying. “Sheer piracy! I refused a much better pair for a dollar fifty!”
“Call it a dollar fifty, ma’am,” agreed the farmer, between spasms of coughing. “The wife’ll give me the devil, but I’m ’most dead with cold, and I wanta go home.”
Pity for the man, coupled with a touch of innocent curiosity, tempted Marjorie to linger close at hand and see the end of the transaction.
“But that’s what I’m telling you,” cried Mrs. Pratt. “They’re not worth a dollar fifty. They’re miserable things. Half fed . . .” Her eyes rested upon the owner resentfully, as though emphasising a definite resemblance between him and his produce. “I’ll give you a dollar and a quarter and not one penny more!”
“Oh, lady! I’ve gotta live!”