to seize the
nearest fabric at hand,--the sheet from the bed, the cloth from the
table,--and use it as a traveling trunk.

The Finns at the market were not to be mistaken for Russians. Their
features were wooden; their expression was far less intelligent than
that of the Russians. The women were addicted to wonderful patterns in
aprons and silver ornaments, and wore, under a white head kerchief, a
stiff glazed white circlet which seemed to wear away their blond hair.
These women arrived regularly every morning, before five o'clock, at the
shops of the baker and the grocer opposite our windows. The shops opened
at that hour, after having kept open until eleven o'clock at night, or
later. After refreshing themselves with a roll and a bunch of young
onions, of which the green tops appeared to be the most relished, the
women made their town toilet by lowering the very much reefed skirt of
their single garment, drawing on footless stockings, and donning shoes.
At ten o'clock, or even earlier, they came back to fill the sacks of
coarse white linen, borne over their shoulders, with necessaries for
their households, purchased with the proceeds of their sales, and to
reverse their toilet operations, preparatory to the long tramp homeward.
I sometimes caught them buying articles which seemed extravagant
luxuries, all things considered, such as raisins. One of their
specialties was the sale of lilies of the valley, which grow wild in the
Russian forests. Their peculiar little trot-trot, and the indescribable
semi-tones and quarter-tones in which they cried, "_Land-dy-y-y-shee!_"
were unmistakably Finnish at any distance.

The scene at the market was always entertaining. Tzarskoe is surrounded
by market gardens, where vegetables and fruits are raised in highly
manured and excessively hilled-up beds. It sends tons of its products to
the capital as well as to the local market. Everything was cheap and
delicious. Eggs were dear when they reached a cent and a half apiece.
Strawberries, huge and luscious, were dear at ten cents a pound, since
in warm seasons they cost but five. Another berry, sister to the
strawberry, but differing from it utterly in taste, was the _klubnika_,
of which there were two varieties, the white and the bluish-red, both
delicious in their peculiar flavor, but less decorative in size and
aspect than the strawberry.

The native cherries, small and sour, make excellent preserves, with a
spicy flavor, which are