e to live the life he liked
in quiet ease and comfort. He was a kindly man in his ways, and in his
talk gently cynical; so that, although you might be quite sure as to
what he would do, you were never as safe as to what he would say;
wherefore to know him a little was to dislike him, but to know him well
was to love him. There was a liking between him and Wholesome, but each
was more or less a source of wonderment to the other. Nor was it long
before I saw that both these men in their way were patient lovers of the
quiet and pretty Quaker dame who ruled over our little household, though
to the elder man, Mr. Schmidt, she was a being at whose feet he laid a
homage which he felt to be hopeless of result, while he was schooled by
sorrowful fortunes to accept the position as one which he hardly even
wished to change.

It was on a warm sunny morning very early, for we were up and away
betimes, that Mr. Schmidt and I and Wholesome took our first walk
together through the old market-sheds. We turned into Market street at
Fourth street, whence the sheds ran downward to the Delaware. The
pictures they gave me to store away in my mind are all of them vivid
enough, but none more so than that which I saw with my two friends on
the first morning when we wandered through them together.

On either side of the street the farmers' wagons stood backed up against
the sidewalk, each making a cheap shop, by which stood the sturdy owners
under the trees, laughing and chaffering with their customers. We
ourselves turned aside and walked down the centre of the street under
the sheds. On either side at the entry of the market odd business was
being plied, the traders being mostly colored women with bright chintz
dresses and richly-colored bandanna handkerchiefs coiled turban-like
above their dark faces. There were rows of roses in red pots, and
venders of marsh calamus, and "Hot corn, sah, smokin' hot," and
"Pepperpot, bery nice," and sellers of horse-radish and
snapping-turtles, and of doughnuts dear to grammar-school lads. Within
the market was a crowd of gentlefolks, followed by their black servants
with baskets--the elderly men in white or gray stockings, with
knee-buckles, the younger in very tight nankeen breeches and pumps,
frilled shirts and ample cravats and long blue swallow-tailed coats with
brass buttons. Ladies whose grandchildren go no more to market were
there in gowns with strangely short waists and broad gypsy-bonnets, with
t