“Well, say thirty-seven and a-half for four boxes, and I will take them. It is only two cents and a-half less than you ask for them.”
“Give me a fip, ma!—there comes the candy-man!” exclaimed a little fellow, pressing up to the side of the lady. “Quick, ma! Here, candy-man!” calling after an old man with a tin cylinder under his arm, that looked something like an ice-cream freezer. The lady drew out her purse, and searched among its contents for the small coin her child wanted.
“I havn’t any thing less than a levy,” she at length said.
“Oh, well, he can change it. Candy-man, you can change a levy?”
By this time the “candy-man” stood smiling beside the strawberry-woman. As he was counting out the fip’s worth of candy, the child spoke up in an earnest voice, and said —
“Get a levy’s worth, mother, do, wont you? Cousin Lu’s coming to see us to-morrow.”
“Let him have a levy’s worth, candy-man. He’s such a rogue I can’t resist him,” responded the mother. The candy was counted out, and the levy paid, when the man retired in his usual good humor.
“Shall I take these strawberries for thirty-seven and a-half cents?” said the lady, the smile fading from her face. “It is all I am willing to give.”
“If you wont pay any more, I mustn’t stand for two cents and a-half,” replied the woman, “although they would nearly buy a loaf of bread for the children,” she mentally added.
The four boxes were sold for the sum offered, and the woman lifted the tray upon her head, and moved on again. The sun shone out still hotter and hotter as the day advanced. Large beads of perspiration rolled from the throbbing temples of the strawberry-woman, as she passed wearily up one street and down another, crying her fruit at the top of her voice. At length all were sold but five boxes, and now it was past one o’clock. Long before this she ought to have been at home. Faint from over-exertion, she lifted her tray from her head, and placing it upon a door-step, sat down to rest. As she sat thus, a lady came up, and paused at the door of the house as if about to enter.