Read "The Postmaster of Market Deignton" by E. Phillips Oppenheim online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It is market-day in the little county town which has become my temporary abode. Out in the cobble-paved, straggling square are half a dozen stalls laden with prints and calicoes, cheap hats, fruit, picture-books, legs of mutton, sides of beef, and many other such uninteresting articles. There seems to be plenty of everything except customers, and they are scarcely expected yet. The housewives of the place are still busy with their weekend's cleaning, and their lords and masters are away toiling on the land. Later, when the day's work is over and the oil-lamps are lit, they will come out together to make their little purchases, dressed most likely in their Sunday clothes, and washed to a degree of shininess which, until I came to Market Deignton, I should have thought incredible.
At present most of the stall-holders are engaged displaying their goods, the larger portion of which, by the by, are carried out from the little shops which front the market-place. Strangers are not much fancied at this sleepy, old-world town. It is my friend Mr. Holmes, the linen-draper, who is hanging up a row of felt hats above that wonderful pile of calicoes and cheap sateens, and my worthy friend Mr. Smith, the greengrocer, is likewise engaged in transferring his stock of cabbages, potatoes, and apples to the stall in front of his shop.