Amanda laughed. "That's part of the romance. It proves they are human."
The following Saturday Amanda accompanied Millie to the Lancaster
market to help dispose of the assortment of farm products the Reist
stall always carried.
Going to market in Lancaster is an interesting experience. In addition
to the famous street markets, where farmers display their produce along
the busy central streets of the city, there are indoor markets where
crowds move up and down and buy butter, eggs and vegetables, and such
Pennsylvania Dutch specialties as mince meat, cup cheese, sauerkraut,
pannhaus, apple butter, fresh sausage and smear cheese. While lovers of
flowers choose from the many old-fashioned varieties--straw flowers,
zinnias, dahlias.
The Reist stall was one of the prominent stalls of the market. Twice
every week Millie "tended market" there. On the day before market
several members of the Reist household were kept busy preparing all the
produce, and the next day before dawn Uncle Amos hitched the horse to
the big covered wagon and he and Millie, sometimes Amanda and Philip,
drove over the dark country roads to the city.
Amanda enjoyed the work. She arranged the glistening domes of cup
cheese, placed the fresh eggs in small baskets, uncovered one of the
bags of dried corn untied the cloth cover from a gray earthen crock of
apple butter, and then stood and looked about the market house. She
felt the human interest it never failed to waken in her. Behind many
stalls stood women in the quaint garb of the Church of the Brethren or
Mennonite. But quaintest of all were the Amish.
The Amish are the plainest and quaintest of the plain sects that
flourish in Lancaster County. Unlike their kindred sects, who wear
plain garb, they are partial to gay colors in dress. So it is no
unusual sight to see Amish women wearing dresses of such colors as
forest green, royal purple, king's blue or garnet. But the gay dress is
always plainly made, after the model of their sect, generally partially
subdued by a great black apron, a black pointed cape over the shoulders
and a big black bonnet which almost hides the face of its wearer and
necessitates a full-face gaze to disclose the identity of the woman.
The strings of the thick white lawn cap are invariably tied in a flat
bow that lies low on the chest.
The Amish men are equally interesting in appearance. They wear broad-
brimmed hats with low crowns. Their clothes are so extremely plain that
buttons, universally deemed indispensable, are taboo and their place is
filled by the inconspicuous hook-and-eye, which style has brought upon
them the sobriquet, "Hook-and-eye people."
However, interesting as the men and women of the Amish faith are in
their dress, they are eclipsed in that aspect by the Amish children.
These are invariably dressed as exact replicas of their parents. Little
boys, mere children of three and four years, wear long trousers, tight
jackets, blocked hair and broad-brimmed, low-crowned hats. Little girls
of tender years wear brightly colored woolen dresses, one-piece aprons
of black sateen or colored chambray, and the picturesque big stiff
bonnets of the faith.