11. XI.
MARKET MORNING.
Hurrah! this is market day,
Up, lads, and gaily away!
—Old Comedy.
On market mornings there is a roar and
a crash all about the corner of Kinsman
and Pittsburgh streets. The market building,
so called we presume because it don't
in the least resemble a market building, is
crowded with beef and butchers, and almost
countless meat and vegetable wagons,
of all sorts, are confusedly huddled together
all around outside. These wagons
mostly come from a few miles out of town,
and are always on the spot at daybreak.
A little after sunrise the crash and jam
commences, and continues with little cessation
until 10 o'clock in the forenoon.
There is a babel of tongues, an excessively
cosmopolitan gathering of people, a roar of
wheels, and a lively smell of beef and vegetables.
The soap man, the head-ache
curative man, the razor man, and a variety
of other tolerable humbugs are in full blast.
We meet married men with baskets in
their hands. Those who have been fortunate
in their selections look happy, while
some who have been unlucky wear a dejected
air, for they are probably destined
to get pieces of their wives' minds on their
arrival home. It is true, that all married
men have their own way, but the trouble is
they don't all have their own way of having
it! We meet a newly married man. He
has recently set up house-keeping. He is
out to buy steak for breakfast. There are
only himself and wife and female domestic
in the family. He shows us his basket,
which contains steak enough for at least
ten able-bodied men. We tell him so, but
he says we don't know anything about war,
and passes on. Here comes a lady of high
degree, who has no end of servants to send
to the market, but she likes to come herself,
and it won't prevent her shining and
sparkling in her elegant drawing-room this
afternoon. And she is accumulating muscle
and freshness of face by these walks to
market.
And here is a charming picture. Standing
beside a vegetable cart is a maiden
beautiful, and sweeter far than any daisy in
the fields. Eyes of purest blue, lips of
cherry red, teeth like pearls, silken, golden
hair, and form of exquisite mold. We
wonder if she is a fairy, but instantly conclude
that she is not, for in measuring out
a peck of onions she spills some of them,
a small boy laughs at the mishap, and she
indignantly shies the measure at his head.
Fairies, you know, don't throw peck-measures
at small boys' heads. The spell was
broken. The golden chain which for a
moment bound us fell to pieces. We meet
an eccentric individual in corduroy pantaloons
and pepper-and-salt coat, who wants
to know if we didn't sail out of Nantucket
in 1852 in the whaling brig fasper Green.
We are compelled to confess that the only
nautical experience we ever had was to
once temporarily command a canal boat on
the dark-rolling Wabash, while the captain
went ashore to cave in the head of a miscreant
who had winked lasciviously at the
sylph who superintended the culinary department
on board that gallant craft. The
eccentric individual smiles in a ghastly
manner, says perhaps we won't lend him a
dollar till to-morrow; to which we courteously
reply that we
certainly won't, and
he glides away.
We return to our hotel, reinvigorated
with the early, healthful jaunt, and bestow
an imaginary purse of gold upon our African
Brother, who brings us a hot and excellent
breakfast.
