"Dear me," sighed Mrs. Larry, "cooperative stores present a very complicated problem."
"Indeed, they do," admitted Mrs. Moore. "All economic questions are more or less complicated, and it's a great pity that we women are rarely educated to see financial administration in our homes as anything deeper than what we pay for actual groceries, meat, vegetables, etc., at the actual time of purchase."
"You must not expect Dahlgren equipment and decorations in this cooperative store," suggested Mrs. Moore as she led the way through the crisp sunlight down Montclair's well-kept streets to 517 Bloomfield Avenue. "Dahlgren adds the cost of mirrors and white marble to your cuts of meat, while a cooperative store is run without frills, at the least possible expense."
Thus prepared for simplicity, if not down-right unattractiveness, in the cause of economy, the New York quartet almost gasped on entering the store of the Montclair Cooperative Society. If there was an absence of glittering mirrors and obsequious clerks in
