they must be sold now, quickly. When the leaves began to wilt, when the edges of the cauliflower heads curled ever so slightly, turned brown and limp, their value decreased by half, even though the heads themselves remained white and firm.
Down the street came the buyers—little black-eyed swarthy men; plump, shirt-sleeved, greasy men; shrewd, tobacco-chewing men in overalls. Stolid red Dutch faces, sunburned. Lean dark foreign faces. Shouting, clatter, turmoil.
“Heh! Get your horse outta here! What the hell!”
“How much for the whole barrel?”
“Got any beans? No, don’t want no cauliflower, Beans!”
“Tough!”
“Well, keep ’em. I don’t want ’em.”
“Quarter for the sack.”
“G’wan, them ain’t five-pound heads. Bet they don’t come four pounds to the head.”
“Who says they don’t!”
“Gimme five bushels them.”
Food for Chicago’s millions. In and out of the wagons. Under horses’ hoofs. Bare-footed children, baskets on their arms, snatching bits of fallen vegetables from the cobbles. Gutter Annie, a shawl pinned across her pendulous breasts, scavengering a potato there, an onion fallen to the street, scraps of fruit and green stuff in the ditch. Big Kate buying carrots, parsley, turnips, beets, all slightly wilted
