Photo by Emil P. Albrecht 



MOTHER AND DAUGHTERS SHOPPING 



The mulberry-tree was a bit saddening, 

 so we hurried back to the market. Be- 

 sides its church and town-hall, Goes has 

 few buildings of great note save a quaint 

 hofje, where live numerous old men and 

 women in tiny houses ranged about a 

 flower-filled court ; but it has curious, 

 winding streets filled on market days with 

 picturesque shoppers and a very pretty 

 promenade upon the site of its old walls. 



Its market is a general one. The far- 

 mers and their wives bring in the prod- 

 ucts of their meadows ; the peddlers set 

 up booths or spread their wares upon the 

 stones of the market-place to catch the 

 boer's (farmer's) or bo erin's eye. It is not 

 the cups and saucers, the bits of lace and 

 gay chintzes, the ropes and twine, the 

 cutlery or picture postal cards, the pigs, 

 poultry, butter, eggs, and chickens, which 

 rivet our attention, but the buyers and 

 sellers, whose quaint costumes seem bet- 

 ter fitted to a comic opera than a very 

 material scene. 



A PAR.ADISE OF QUAINT COSTUMES 



Zeeland is a paradise of quaint cos- 

 tumes. Every island, almost every town, 



once had its own distinctive dress, and 

 many still retain it. 



The butter market at Middelburg has 

 a pretty setting. The wagons and chaises 

 roll up to the two gateways in endless 

 procession, and the fair Walcheren dames 

 descend with much shaking of volumi- 

 nous skirts and aprons, much patting of 

 caps and adjusting of coral necklaces, to 

 set their baskets of golden butter and 

 pearly eggs in even rows upon the long 

 benches within before trotting off to the 

 inevitable shopping. 



The product of dairy and chicken-coop 

 belongs exclusively to the farmers' wives 

 in Zeeland. It is they who do the selling, 

 they who spend the earnings. You may 

 find the men at the grain market ; on the 

 corners where pigs, calves, or sheep are 

 for sale; in the cafes about the market 

 square smoking and drinking with their 

 fellows, and upon the days of great cattle 

 markets very busy indeed driving shrewd 

 bargains. 



But the butter market is left to their 

 dames. When the farmer (boer) has 

 lifted down the last basket to his buxom 

 wife or daughters, his duties there are 



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