It is generally conceded that to practice properly the art of
shopping in any place at any time requires leisure and experience,
and if this is true of the great stores, it is infinitely more pithy
in regard to many of the smaller establishments on the East Side. To
decide on the style and quality one wants and on the price one is to
pay may be the only tasks of the well-to-do shopper, but in
out-of-the-way parts of the city the element of bargaining enters
into the transaction further to complicate the affair. The would-be
purchaser must have not only a clear idea of what he wants, but also
a knowledge of the value of the various prices of goods which are
set before him. The price asked storekeeper is certainly not what be
willing to accept under proper moral suasion, and it is necessary
for the buyer to judge just how far it is safe to push the seller
without bringing on himself a torrent of abusive language and
prematurely closing the deal. In many of the East Side shops it is
safe to assume that the seller will accept about one-half price he
asks at first. To accomplish however, great tact and patience is
required. The worm is likely to turn, and, after all, time, even on
the East Side, has a certain value.
It is not uncommon to see two men in some small shop haggling for
ten or fifteen minutes over the price of a suit of clothes, for
instance. Eight dollars is the price demanded by the shopkeeper. The
buyer laughs pleasantly and suggests the means four dollars. With
indignation in his honest eye the storekeeper states emphatically
that he means what he said, he sells his goods as cheaply as
anybody, and that the clothes cost him $7.50, anyway. Automatically,
the customer repeats "Four dollars," and he gazes calmly while the
man rages. This sort of thing will be kept up for ten minutes or so.
Finally the situation is that the one has gone up to $4.50 and the
other has come down to $6. About this time the customer will shake
his head, apparently wondering at the depravity of traders in
general, and will leave the place. Then the storekeeper rushes the
door and shouts, "Five an' a half!" The departing purchaser, whose
walk has be suspiciously slow, will return and say, with an engaging
smile, "Five," and the deal will be closed.
The whole transaction, irrespective of the choosing of the suit, has
taken perhaps fifteen minutes. Neither grudges the time for the
whole thing is sport to them - a case of finding foemen worthy of
their steel - and they have enjoyed the combat. The "one-price"
stores are tame in comparison; anybody can shop in them, even the
women from uptown, who always hand over what is asked and have no
spirit of sportiness discernible. Some good citizens of the East
Side come, in time, to win a local reputation for their bargaining
ability, and are sought after by their friends when there is any
purchasing to be done.
Besides the bargaining, East Side shopping has much that is
picturesque to recommend it. The vast majority of small shops have
at the back a room or two in which the family lives. Without any
eavesdropping it is possible to see much of the family life; indeed,
not to see it one would have to be deaf and blind. On winter days,
when the entrance of a breath of fresh air has been guarded against
as if it entailed the plague, the odors of the last week's meals
make a detective of another sense as well. In some of the shops,
especially in neighborhoods which cherish the herring and the
national sauerkraut, intending purchasers who may have some slight
prejudice against these honest articles of diet have to make their
purchases between gasps, as it were, retreating to the door like
whales, when it is absolutely imperative to draw breath. The worst
of it is that to any person sentimentally inclined the poverty of
the little household and its evident need of every cent that can be
coaxed its way overbalances the discomfort of such shopping and lure
the feet of dwellers on the East Side into these strongholds of
unsavoriness.
It is not true that all these tiny shops are unpleasant to visit.
In some of them one gets delightful glimpses of a well ordered and
happy household. One shoe store, in particular, is a spot for
pessimists to visit when they despair of humanity. A settlement
woman discovered the place and spread the knowledge of it among her
friends. She had taken a boot there for some mending, being of an
economical turn of mind, and the keeper of the store had said that
the work would cost 25 cents, which seemed entirely reasonable. When
she returned for the boot she put down the quarter and was struck
dumb with astonishment to have the man hand her a nickel, with the
remark: "There wasn't as much work on it as I thought there would
be. 'Taint worth a quarter." As she said afterward, it seemed like
spoiling an idyl to make him take the money; so she pocketed the
nickel and went on her way wondering.
Of course, virtue had its reward, and some evil-minded persons
suggest that the man knew he would secure her patronage forever and
a day at the cost of a nickel. She stoutly maintains that this is a
libel, for he could not possibly have realized the extent of the
sentimentality of the person with whom he was dealing. It is a
trifle uncomfortable at times to be restricted to one small East
Side shoe shop, but she declares that she feels quite like a
criminal if she wanders away to the abodes of fashion on the West
Side. The honesty of the proprietor is not the only attraction she
has found in the little shop. The wife is a comfortable woman of
generous proportions, and the name of her family is legion. As she
tries on the shoes of the customers, she shouts directions of a
domestic nature back into the obscurity of the rear room, and she
never fails to accompany the order with a term of endearment. "Keep
that baby away from the stove, my love," she will direct, and a
sweet little maiden will appear and grasp the wandering youngest
scion of the house. Or it will be "Julius, dear, look that the soup
won't burn," and so on. Everybody is invariably cheery and
affectionate. It is a real tonic to a jaded soul just to step into
the small shop.
One woman who has shopped a good deal on the East Side says there is
more occasion for gratified vanity in an hour among these small
shops than in any other occupation she knows of. "You walk in," she
explained, "and you say, in a queenly fashion, that you want an
umbrella, adding, 'The best in the store,' and every member of the
family will run to look at you and to seek the desired umbrella,
making you feel like the most bloated kind of aristocrat. When the
umbrella comes, you pay $1.69 and go away covered with glory. In the
same way you step into a shop which is not one-price, ask for a
handkerchief or two, and pay 15 cents apiece for them without the
slightest haggling, which brings blessings on your head and gives
you a fine sense of superiority. There is nothing like it."
Certainly one extracts more amusement out of shopping on the East
Side than in wandering through the great stores which don't expect
you to beat down the price of a paper of pins, and in which you are
merely one of the crowd.
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