New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-09-01
Il NOVELIST IN FRANCE.
Katharine TynarSs Notes on Her
Holiday.

H0nddy.
From The Pail Mall Gazette.
| To be sure 1t was a great enterprise for us TO
| take cottage in a French fishing village, we
| having little French and to import an English
| cook who had no French at all. Our French
speaking friends raised their hands at our dar-
| ing. You VIII be frightfuy cheated they
assured us. How earth are you going to do
| your marketing? Why, you don't even know
the value of French money!
| That true, of course. We had to begin
! by letting the vendors help themselves to their
| payments but that for day or two only.
| Our friends moderated our intelligence, but we
found the decimal coinage easy of understand
ing, and puzzled only when some OF the
more unsophisticated skipped from centimes TO
sous with a startling rapidity
Even here there is a season, which begins
about the last week in July. We arrived in the
third week. and perturped to find that a
week later prices suddenly jumped up. That
was because the big hotel was filling with Eng
Hsh Apparently the French visitors have no
influence on the season. for the chalets were full
of French people when we came; but or course
Madame knows the full value of what she buys.
and it would be quite useless to name an eX-
tortionate price with her. Indeed. we noticed
at first that when Madame came to purchase at
the carts at the same time as we were purchas-
ing prices We're mentioned in a whisper How
ever, that was before we learned to do without
rather than to pay cvermuch When we had
come to that point began TO be treated with
respect But before arrived there Zelie, the
f1shwoman, had made a tremendous haul out of
US. We had paid her five francs TOR SIX sIia III
fish the result Of Stupefaction rather than or
anything else. Since then we have ceased 10
deal with Zelie
Fish there is in abundance, and fresh out of
the sea, very often ''All alive, Or We generally
dismiss two or three fish sellers before break
fast. The early hours are a disadvantage' we
are on the ground floor. and the hall door, with
its screen of pierced ironwork. is at our bed
head. 1t is disquieting when cry OF Des
moules madame. sly vous plait, pierces ones
ear o o'clock in the morning. You may puy
seven basinfus of mussels for threepence as
our cook did yesterday, but one is not
prepared for the marketing at so early an hour
After bathing you may buy cells on the sanos
and carry them home. writing, In whatever
happens TO be handy. Also as you SIT at meals
It is no uncommon thing to have Gran or a
lobster thrust through the open WINDOW, each
quite ready show fight. After we nave
bought them they promenade round the kitchen
to the amusement of cook, whom we suspect
of a French descent We also buy fiat, thick:
white fish, which is very sweet and deIlcate OF
a variety unknown to US. Then there is glitter
ing silver fish very like a salmon which they
cali bar" and for which they charge salmon
prices 1t eats rather like mflder kind OF sal
mon Can it be barbel?
MAIDEN oiselle who sells our fruit ana
vegetables comes out from Boulogne market.
She has a little ass and cart and stout dog TO
assist 'lanesse' up the hills and down. she
has beautiful peaches and melons ana plums ana
tomatoes, and all manner Of vegetables. AS she
sits on her cart. with her handsome dark face
she is the centre of a most pleasing picture;
We like her the better that 'Fanesse' Is wen
fed and accustomed TO sugar, and that the dog
turns UP his at mere bread Still, she mas
picked over the peaches for US, giving US the
least mature while the French mesdames select
ed the ripest and roundest- How Impossible II
is to demonstrate when one has little french
Then there day when she can speak
only in a whisper and has her throat sWathed
I'D with bandages. We present her with some
tabIoids of chorate of potash The next time
she comes she thanks volubly-at least we
take ii be thanks-and we notice that she
lays aside selection Of a caterpfliar-rlddeI
lettuce for better one AT TUESDAY s market
she takes charge of US We see her watching over
us from afar. Not any longer does she pick for
us the hardest and greenest peaches
There is a delightful little old woman who
comes from Cape Grisnez with a donkey cart
full Of butter and eggs. The butter. swathed IN
cabbage leaves under white cloth, Is delicious,
past the best Devon of London shops. The
eggs are bro wn and new laid Sometimes a child
comes the door with three or four warm eggs
on platter, asking few sous
Again. there those who appear at the door
with shrieking and miserable puliet or DUCK
with its legs tied together. Or the baker, IKE q
conjurer. will produce a rabbit from amid his
long brown loaves. Or, again, there is the
woman with gateaux her little brown face in
its wide frilled white cap as brown. golden
brown her wares
Once there is a misunderstanding. The boy
of the knife grinder has been hanging enrapt-
ured over the oyster man as he opens the oys-
tiers for his customers. Presently the boy APP
pears in our open door ''Combien pour une
douzaine?" we say in our halting French. I'm
franc quarante,'' he replies. Very cheap, we
say to each other approvingly and straightWay
order two dozen. I'VE have not got them, he
says shaking his bewildered head. We produce
a long dish and thrust 1t under his nose. His
bewilderment but increases. Pantomime fails.
He leaves us at last still shaking his head.
Those mad English, he says to himself. doubt
less II Is only when see him trudgng by
the knife grinders cart that realize our mis-
take.
We have favorites among those itnerant mer-
chants those whom it is hard TO turn away, so
that we sometimes rather load ourselves up
with cells or eggs and butter because we cannot
say No the little mahogany faced old
women
Occasionally we get other things than pro-
visions Yesterday II was a couple of plausible
fellows gypsy faced children of the sun with a
long cart full of chairs the new varnish all
cleaning in the sun. They leap on the chairs to
prove that they tres sode," and an eX-
ceIlent test ii is. for they are great and brawny,
even by those sons of Anak, our fishermen
Or ii is tied up bundle OF silk bedspreads and
embroidered table centres, costly and beautiful.
We have to to the bottom of the bundle, al
though we know full well that we shall not buy.
Madame seems to find IT pleasure TO make the
display. When at last we convey our apologies
she answers cheerfully that ii is all in the way
of business "Merci bien madame" she says.
going out Certainly they sweeten life those
excellent manners of our French neighbors.
KILLED BY FALL FROM ENGINE.