The Market, Miss Eleanor had said, was the place to meet everybody and hear all the news. So to the Market she would go—tomorrow. Scarlett would have been happier if it wasn’t necessary to go so early, at six o’clock. But needs must. I have to say this for Charleston, she thought sleepily, it’s plenty busy, and I like that. She was only halfway through a yawn when she fell asleep.


The Market was the perfect place for Scarlett to begin the life of a Charleston lady. The Market was an outward, visible distillation of Charleston’s essence. From the city’s earliest days it had been the place where Charlestonians bought their food. The lady of the house—or, in rare cases, the man—selected and paid for it, a maid or coachman received it and placed it in a basket hung over the arm. Before the War the food was sold by slaves who had transported it from their masters’ plantations. Many of the vendors were in the places they had been before, only now they were free, and the baskets were carried by servants who were paid for their service; like the vendors, many of them were the same people, carrying the same baskets they had before. What was important to Charleston was that the old ways hadn’t changed.

Tradition was the bedrock of society, the birthright of Charleston’s people, the priceless inheritance that no carpetbagger or soldier could steal. It was made manifest in the Market. Outsiders could shop there; it was public property. But they found it frustrating. Somehow they could never quite catch the eye of the woman who was selling vegetables, the man selling crabs. Black citizens were as proudly Charlestonian as white ones. When the foreigner left, the whole Market rang with laughter. The Market was for Charleston’s people only.


Scarlett hunched her shoulders to lift her collar higher on her neck. A cold finger of wind got inside it despite her efforts, and she shivered violently. Her eyes felt full of cinders, and she was sure her boots must be lined with lead. How many miles could there be in five city blocks? She couldn’t see a thing. The street lamps were only a bright circle of mist within mist in the ghostly gray pre-dawn halflight.

How can Miss Eleanor be so cursed cheery? Chattering away as if it wasn’t freezing cold and black as pitch. There was some light ahead—way ahead. Scarlett stumbled towards it. She wished the miserable wind would die down. What was that? In the wind. She sniffed the air. It was! It was coffee. Maybe she’d live after all. Her steps matched Mrs. Butler’s in an eager, accelerated pace.

The Market was like a bazaar, an oasis of light and warmth, color and life in the formless gray mist. Torches blazed on brick pillars that supported tall wide arches open to the surrounding streets, illuminating the bright aprons and headscarves of smiling black women and highlighting their wares, displayed in baskets of every size and shape on long wooden tables painted green. It was crowded with people, most of them moving from table to table, talking—to other shoppers or to the vendors in a challenging, laughing ritual of haggling obviously enjoyed by all.

“Coffee first, Scarlett?”

“Oh, yes, please.”

Eleanor Butler led the way to a nearby group of women. They held steaming tin mugs in their gloved hands, sipping from them while they talked and laughed with one another, oblivious to the din around them.

“Good morning, Eleanor . . . Eleanor, how are you? . . . Push over, Mildred, let Eleanor get through . . . Oh, Eleanor, did you hear that Kerrison’s has real wool stockings on sale? It won’t be in the paper until tomorrow. Would you like to come with Alice and me? We’re going after dinner today . . . Oh, Eleanor, we were just talking about Lavinia’s daughter. She lost the baby last night. Lavinia’s prostrate with grief. Do you think your cook could make some of her wonderful wine jelly? Nobody does it the way she does. Mary has a bottle of claret, and I’ll supply the sugar . . .”

“Morning, Miz Butler, I saw you coming, your coffee’s all ready.”

“And another cup for my daughter-in-law, please, Sukie. Ladies, I want you to meet Rhett’s wife, Scarlett.”

All chattering stopped and all heads turned to look at Scarlett.

She smiled and inclined her head in a little bow. She looked apprehensively at the group of ladies, imagining that it must be all over town, what Ross said. I shouldn’t have come, I can’t stand it. Her jaw hardened, and an invisible chip settled on her shoulder. She expected the worst, and all her old hostility to Charleston’s aristocratic pretensions returned in a flash.

But she smiled and bowed to each of the ladies as Eleanor introduced her . . . yes, I just love Charleston . . . yes, ma’am, I am Pauline Smith’s niece . . . no, ma’am, I haven’t seen the art gallery yet, I’ve only been here since night before last . . . yes’m I do think the Market’s real exciting . . . Atlanta—more Clayton County actually, my folks had a cotton plantation there . . . oh, yes, ma’am, the weather is a real treat, these warm winter days . . . no, ma’am, I don’t think I met your nephew when he was in Valdosta, that’s quite a ways from Atlanta . . . yes’m, I do enjoy a game of whist . . . Oh, thank you so much, I’ve been positively aching for a taste of coffee . . .

She buried her face in the mug, her job done. Miss Eleanor’s got no more sense than a pea hen, she thought mutinously. How could she just pitch me in to the middle like that? She must think I’ve got a memory like an elephant. So many names, and they all mix up together. They’re all looking at me as if I was an elephant, too, or something else in a zoo. They know what Ross said, I know they do. Miss Eleanor might be fooled by their smiling, but I’m not. Bunch of old cats! Her teeth ground against the rim of the mug.

She wouldn’t show her feelings, not if she went blind to keep from crying. But her cheeks were stained with high color.

When she finished her coffee, Mrs. Butler took her mug and handed it, with her own, to the busy coffee-seller. “I’ll have to ask you for some change, Sukie,” she said. She held out a five dollar bill. With no waste motion, Sukie dipped and swirled the mugs in a big pail of brownish water, set them on the table at her elbow, wiped her hands on her apron, took the bill and deposited it in a cracked leather pouch hanging from her belt, withdrawing a dollar bill without looking. “Here you is, Miz Butler, hope you enjoyed it.”

Scarlett was aghast. Two dollars for a cup of coffee! Why, with two dollars you could buy the best pair of boots on King Street.

“I always enjoy it, Sukie, even though I have to do without food on the table to pay for it. Don’t you ever feel ashamed of yourself for being such a robber?”

Sukie’s white teeth flashed against her brown skin. “No ma’am, I surely don’t!” she said, rumbling with amusement. “I can swear on the Good Book that ain’t nothing disturbing my sleep.”

The other coffee drinkers laughed. Each of them had had a similar exchange with Sukie many times.

Eleanor Butler looked around until she located Celie and her basket. “Come along, dear,” she said to Scarlett, “we have a long list today. We’ll have to get to it before everything’s gone.”

Scarlett followed Mrs. Butler to the end of the Market hall where the rows of tables were crowded with dented galvanized washtubs filled with seafood that emitted a strong acrid odor. Scarlett’s nose wrinkled at the reek, and she looked at the tubs with disdain. She thought she knew fish well enough. Ugly, whiskered, bone-filled catfish were plentiful in the river that ran alongside Tara. They’d had to eat them when there was nothing else. Why anyone would actually buy one of the nasty little things was beyond her, but there were lots of ladies with one glove off poking into the tubs. Oh, bother! Miss Eleanor was going to introduce her to every single one of them. Scarlett readied her smile.

A tiny white-haired lady raised a big silvery beast of a fish from the tub in front of her. “I’d love to meet her, Eleanor. What do you think of this flounder? I was planning on sheepshead, but they’re not in yet, and I can’t wait. I don’t know why the fishing boats can’t be more punctual, and don’t talk to me about no wind for the sails. My bonnet nearly blew right off my head this morning.”

“I really prefer flounder myself, Minnie, it takes to a sauce so much better. Let me present Rhett’s wife, Scarlett . . . This is Mrs. Wentworth, Scarlett.”

“How do, Scarlett. Tell me, does this flounder look good to you?”

It looked disgusting to her, but Scarlett murmured, “I’ve always been partial to flounder myself.” She hoped that all Miss Eleanor’s friends wouldn’t ask her opinion. She didn’t even know what flounder was, for pity sakes, much less if it was any good or not.

In the next hour, Scarlett was introduced to more than twenty ladies, and a dozen varieties of fish. She was receiving a thorough education in seafood. Mrs. Butler bought crabs, going to five different sellers until she had accumulated eight. “I suppose I seem awfully picky to you,” she said when she was satisfied, “but the soup’s just not the same if it’s made with he-crabs. The roe gives it a special flavor, you see. It’s a lot harder to find she-crab this time of year, but it’s worth the effort, I think.”

Scarlett didn’t care a bit what gender the crabs were. She was appalled that they were still alive, scuttling around in the tubs, reaching out their claws, making nervous rustling noises as they climbed on top of one another trying to reach up the sides to get out. And now she could hear them in Celie’s basket, pushing at the paper sack that held them.

The shrimp were worse, even though they were dead. Their eyes were horrible black balls on stalks, and they had long trailing whiskers and feelers and spiky stomachs. She couldn’t believe that she’d ever eaten anything that looked like that, much less enjoyed it.