'Funny!' mused the grocer,' looking after him. 'These geniuses never have any business sense. I give him a real opening there.'
6
Simpson Street was always crowded of a Saturday morning with thoughtful housewives. The grocers and butchers bustled about. The rows of display racks along the sidewalk were heaped with fresh vegetables and fruits.
The majority of the shoppers came afoot, but the kerb was lined with buggies, surries, neat station wagons and dog-carts, crowded in between the delivery wagons. Sunbury boasted, as well, a number of Stanhopes, a barouche or two, and several landaus. The Jenkins family, among its several members, had a stable full of horses and ponies. William B. Snow owned a valuable chestnut team with silver-mounted harness. Here and there along the street one might have seen, on this occasion, several vehicles that might well have been described as smart.
But Sunbury had never seen anything like the equipage that, at a quarter to twelve—a little late for selective shopping in those days—came rolling smoothly, silently, on its rubber-shod wheels across the tracks and past the post-office, Nelson's bakery, the Sunbury National Bank, Duneen's and Donovan's to Swanson's flower shop.
Never, never had Sunbury seen anything quite like that. Mr Berger, hurrying through to the front of his store, stopped short, stared out across the street and after a breathless moment breathed the words, 'Holy Smoke!' Women stood motionless, holding heads of lettuce, boxes of raspberries and what not, and gazed in an amazement that was actually long minutes in reaching the normal mental state of critical appraisal.
The carriage was a Victoria, hung very low, varnished work glistening brilliantly in the sunshine. It was upholstered conspicuously in plum colour. The horses were jet black, glossy, perfectly matched, checked up so high that the necks arched prettily if uncomfortably; and they had docked tails. The harness they wore was mounted with a display of silver that made the silver on William B. Snow's team, standing just below Donovan's, look outright inconspicuous.
Leaning back in luxurious comfort as the carriage came so softly along the street, holding up a parasol of black lace, overshadowing her niece, pretty little Cicely Hamlin, who sat beside her, Madame Watt, her large person dressed with costly simplicity in black with a touch of colour at the throat, square of face, with an emphatic chin, a strongly hooked nose, penetrating black eyes, surveyed the street with a commanding dignity, an assertive dignity, if the phrase may be used. Or it may have been that a touch of self-consciousness within her showed through the enveloping dignity and made you think about it. Certainly there was a final outstanding reason for self-consciousness, even in the case of Madame Watt; for on the high box in front visible for blocks above the traffic of the street, sat, in wooden perfection as in plum-coloured livery, side by side, a coachman and a footman.
At Swanson's the footman leaped nimbly down and stood rigid by the step while Madame heavily descended and passed across the walk and into the shop.
The street lifted. Women's tongues moved briskly. Trade was resumed.