ith a nobly featured squaw
in chocolate effigy who held her draperies under her chin with one hand
and outstretched a packet of cigars with the other.

The passage staircase between Scott's and Mickie's had a hardened look,
and bore witness to the habit of expectoration; ladies, going up to Dr
Simmons, held their skirts up and the corners of their mouths down. Dr
Simmons was the dentist: you turned to the right. The passage itself
turned to the left, and after passing two doors bearing the law firm's
designation in black letters on ground glass, it conducted you with
abruptness to the office of a bicycle agent, and left you there.
For greater emphasis the name of the firm of Messrs Fulke, Warner &
Murchison was painted on the windows also; it could be seen from any
part of the market square, which lay, with the town hall in the middle,
immediately below. During four days in the week the market square was
empty. Odds and ends of straw and paper blew about it; an occasional
pedestrian crossed it diagonally for the short cut to the post-office;
the town hall rose in the middle, and defied you to take your mind off
the ugliness of municipal institutions. On the other days it was a scene
of activity. Farmers' wagons, with the shafts turned in were ranged
round three sides of it; on a big day they would form into parallel
lanes and cut the square into sections as well. The produce of all Fox
County filled the wagons, varying agreeably as the year went round.
Bags of potatoes leaned against the sidewalk, apples brimmed in bushel
measures, ducks dropped their twisted necks over the cart wheels; the
town hall, in this play of colour, stood redeemed. The produce was
mostly left to the women to sell. On the fourth side of the square
loads of hay and cordwood demanded the master mind, but small matters of
fruit, vegetables, and poultry submitted to feminine judgement. The men
"unhitched," and went away on their own business; it was the wives you
accosted, as they sat in the middle, with their knees drawn up and their
skirts tucked close, vigilant in rusty bonnets, if you wished to buy.
Among them circulated the housewives of Elgin, pricing and comparing and
acquiring; you could see it all from Dr Simmons's window, sitting in
his chair that screwed up and down. There was a little difficulty always
about getting things home; only very ordinary people carried their own
marketing. Trifling articles, like eggs or radishes, might be smugg