Page:Adventures in Thrift (1916).djvu/86

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At ten-thirty they sprang from the car, near the dull, redding-brown ferry house, and looked around for the market with the true country atmosphere. Near the recreation pier were scattered a few wagons that suggested the hucksters who sometimes dared to invade the sacred precincts of her exclusive neighborhood, with heaps of over-ripe pineapples and under-ripe apples. Here and there were push carts, such as Mrs. Larry had seen that day when she had "slummed" through the great East Side in search of a wedding gift in old Russian brass. A few rickety stands completed the background, and these were heaped with sad-looking poultry, tubs of butter, and crates of eggs, bearing striking black and white signs that announced big cuts in prices.

Hucksters, peddlers and sharp-featured tradesmen greeted them with strident price quotations. But Mrs. Larry's glance sought in vain for the kindly farmer and his wife, the sort she could suddenly recall as handing her bits of home-made cake, pot cheese or a tiny nosegay of garden flowers in the days when