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304 SKETCHES.
firm as a rock, but also iron health. Our market-women
have generally neither the one nor the other.
They who in the course of the day first make their exit
from the market-place after the milk-women, are the fish-
women and the potato families; then the vegetable, and
lastly the meat-women. A few meat and vegetable stalls
remain, however, until the evening. Those who sell fruit
and bread remain the longest. In the afternoon a number
of men with brooms, and large flocks of sparrows, come
regularly to sweep away and feast upon the remains of the
day’s sale. A dog amuses himself now and then with
hunting the winged scavengers, and when he sees a flock
of them he makes a desperate rush at them; but they are
off like lightning, aud he stands still, disconcerted, until he
espies another flock, at which he again makes a rush, with
the same result. The place becomes gradually more and
more empty and desolate; there a blind fiddler is led about
by a boy, to play outside the various public houses; the
brooms and the sparrows are at last masters of the field;
only on Saturday nights the sales-women remain until a
late hour, and we see the light of their small lanterns
gliminer through the darkness in which the whole scene is
shrouded.
On Sundays the square is totally deserted, but thousands
of sparrows appear to hold an animated and spirited com-
merce, while the dogs amuse themselves with sparrow-
hunting.
As regards the buying population of the market-place,
it offers to the beholder little that is characteristic : it re-
sembles the market-place customers of all other Swedish
towns. The neat servant-maids, with woolen shawls and
black silk handkerchiefs on their heads, and a basket on
their arm; the homely housewife with cloak and bonnet,
carefully examining the various goods before buying them ;
the old gentleman, who wants a tidbit for his own and
his family’s dinner, and who carries off a bird and some
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