It made her bold, cunning, even while it
maddened. She stopped at this counter and demanded a slice of
summer sausage. It was paper-thin, but delicious beyond belief.
At the next counter there was corned beef, streaked fat and lean.
Jennie longed to bury her teeth in the succulent meat and get one
great, soul-satisfying mouthful. She had to be content with her
judicious nibbling. To pass the golden-brown, breaded pig's feet
was torture. To look at the codfish balls was agony. And so
Jennie went on, sampling, tasting, the scraps of food acting only
as an aggravation. Up one aisle, and down the next she went. And
then, just around the corner, she brought up before the grocery
department's pride and boast, the Scotch bakery. It is the store's
star vaudeville feature. All day long the gaping crowd stands
before it, watching David the Scone Man, as with sleeves rolled
high above his big arms, he kneads, and slaps, and molds, and
thumps and shapes the dough into toothsome Scotch confections.
There was a crowd around the white counters now, and the flat
baking surface of the gas stove was just hot enough, and David the
Scone Man (he called them Scuns) was whipping about here and there,
turning the baking oat cakes, filling the shelf above the stove
when they were done to a turn, rolling out fresh ones, waiting on
customers.
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