Yet it was not so surprising, perhaps, when one
considered her teacher. She learned as only a woman can
learn who is brought into daily contact with the outside
world. It was not only contact: it was the relation of
buyer and seller. She learned to judge people because she
had to. How else could one gauge their tastes,
temperaments, and pocketbooks? They passed in and out of
Brandeis' Bazaar, day after day, in an endless and varied
procession--traveling men, school children, housewives,
farmers, worried hostesses, newly married couples bent on
house furnishing, business men.
She learned that it was the girls from the paper mills who
bought the expensive plates--the ones with the red roses and
green leaves hand-painted in great smears and costing two
dollars and a half, while the golf club crowd selected for a
gift or prize one of the little white plates with the faded-
looking blue sprig pattern, costing thirty-nine cents. One
day, after she had spent endless time and patience over the
sale of a nondescript little plate to one of Winnebago's
socially elect, she stared wrathfully after the retreating
back of the trying customer.
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