FIFTEEN DOLLARS A WEEK
My first thought when I received my advance in pay was that I could
now relieve Ruth of some of her burdens. There was no longer any need
of her spending so much time in trotting around the markets and the
department stores. Nor was there any need of her doing so much
plotting and planning in her endeavor to save a penny. Furthermore I
was determined that she should now enjoy some of the little luxuries
of life in the way of better things to wear and better things to eat.
But that idea was taken out of me in short order.
"No," she said, as soon as she recovered from the good news. "We
mustn't spend one cent more than we've been spending."
"But look here," I said; "what's the good of a raise if we don't use
it?"
"What's the good of a raise if we spend it?" she asked me. "We'll use
it, Billy, but we'll use it wisely. How many times have you told me
that if you had your life to live over again you wouldn't spend one
cent over the first salary you received, if it was only three dollars
a week, until you had a bank account?"
"I know that," I said. "But when a man has a wife and boy like you and
Dick--"
"He doesn't want to turn them into burdens that will hold him down all
his life," she broke in. "It isn't fair to the wife and boy," she
said.
I couldn't quite follow her reasoning but I didn't have to. When I
came home the next Saturday night with fifteen dollars in my pocket
instead of nine she calmly took out three for the rent, five for
household expenses and put seven in the ginger jar. I suggested that
at least we have one celebration and with the boy go to the little
French restaurant we used to visit, but she held up her hands in
horror.
"Do you think I'd spend two dollars and a half for--why, Billy, you
wouldn't!"
"I'd like to spend ten," I said. "I'd like to go there to dinner and
buy you a half dozen roses and get the three best seats in the best
theater in town," I said.
She came to my side and patted my arm.
"Thank you, Billy," she said. "But honest--it's just as much fun to
have you want to do those things as really do them."
I believe she meant it. I wouldn't believe it of anyone else but for a
week she talked about that dinner and those flowers and the theater
until she had me wondering if we hadn't actually gone. Dick thought we
were crazy.
And so, just as usual, after this she'd take her basket and start out
two or three mornings a week and walk with me as far as the market.
She'd spend an hour here and then if she needed anything more she'd go
down town to the big stores and wander around here for another hour.
But Saturday nights was her great bargain opportunity. If I couldn't
go with her she'd take Dick and the two would plan to get there at
about nine o'clock. From this time on she often picked up for a song
odd ends of meat and good vegetables which the market men didn't want
to carry over to Monday. In fact they _had_ to sell out these things
as their stock at the beginning of the week had to be fresh. I suppose
marketing at this time of day would be a good deal of a hardship for
those living in the suburbs but it was a regular lark for her. Most
everyone is good natured on Saturday night if on no other night. The
week's work is done and people have enough money from their pay
envelopes to feel rich for a few hours anyway. Then there were the
lights and the crowd and the shouting so that it was like twenty
country fairs rolled into one.
After the excitement of coming home Saturdays with so much money wore
off, I began to forget that I _was_ earning fifteen instead of nine.
If Ruth had spent it on the table I'm sure I'd have forgotten it even
more quickly. I was getting all I wanted to eat, was warm and had a
good clean bed to sleep in and what more can a man have even if he's
earning a hundred a week? I think people are very apt to forget that
after all a millionaire can spend only about so much on himself. And
after the newness of fresh toys has worn off--like steam yachts and
private cars--he is forced to be satisfied with just what I had, no
matter how much more money he makes. He has only his five senses and
once these are satisfied he's no better off than a man who satisfies
these same senses on eight dollars a week. Generally he's worse off
because in a year or so he has probably dulled them all. Rockefeller
himself probably never in his life got half the fun out of anything
that I did in just crawling into my clean bed at night with every
tired muscle purring contentedly and my mind at rest about the next
day. I doubt if he knows the joy of waking up in the morning rested
and hungry. The only advantage he had over me that I can see is the
power he had to help others. In a way I don't believe he found any
greater opportunity even for that than Ruth found right here.
For those interested in the details I'm going to give another
quotation from Ruth's note book. But to my mind these details aren't
the important part of our venture. The thing that counted was the
spirit back of them. It isn't the fact that we lived on from six to
eight dollars a week or the statistics of how we lived on that which
makes my life worth telling about if it _is_ worth telling about. In
the first place prices vary in different localities and shift from
year to year. In fact since we began they have almost doubled. In the
second place people have lived and are living to-day on less than we
did. I give our figures simply to satisfy the curious and to show how
Ruth planned. But no one could do as she did or do as we did merely by
aping her little economies, or accepting the result of them. Either
they would find the task impossible or look upon it as a privation and
endure it as martyrs. In this mood they wouldn't last a week. I know
that people who read this without at least a germ of the pioneer in
them will either smile or shrug their shoulders. I've met plenty of
this sort. I met them by the dozen down here. As I said, you can find
them in every bread line, in every Salvation Army barracks or the
Associated Charities will furnish you a list of as many as you want.
You'll find them in the suburbs or you'll find them marching in line
the next time there is a procession of the unemployed.
But give me true pioneers such as our own forefathers were, such as
the young men out West are to-day, such as every steamer lands here by
the hundreds from foreign countries every week and I say you can't
down that kind, you can't kill them. I don't say that it's right to
raise the price of necessities. I don't think it is, though I don't
know much about it. But I do say that if you double the cost of food
stuffs and then double it again, though you may cruelly starve out the
weaklings, you'll find the pioneers still on their feet, still
fighting.
It seems strange to me that men will go to Alaska and contentedly
freeze and dig all day in a mine--not of their own, but for wages--and
not feel so greatly abused or unhappy; that they will swing an axe all
day in a forest and live on baked beans and bread without feeling like
martyrs; that they will go to sea and grub on hard tack and salt pork
and fish without complaint and then will turn Anarchists on the same
fare in the East. It seems strange too that these men keep strong and
healthy, and that our ancestors kept strong and healthy on even a
still simpler diet. Why, my father fought battles--and the mental
strain must have been terrific--and did more actual labor every day in
carrying a rifle and marching than I do in a week, and slept out doors
under a blanket--all on a diet that the average tramp of to-day would
spurn. He did this for four years and if the sanitary conditions had
been decent would have returned well and strong as many a man did who
didn't run afoul typhoid fever and malaria. Men who do such things
have something in them that the men back East have lost. I call it the
romantic spirit or the pioneer spirit and I say that a man who has it
won't care whether he's living in Maine or California and that
whatever the conditions are he will overcome them. I know that we
three would have lived on almost rice alone as the Japanese do before
we'd have cried quit. That was because we were tackling this problem
not as Easterners but as Westerners; not as poor whites but as
emigrants. Men on a ranch stand for worse things than we had and have
less of a future to dream about.
So I repeat that to my mind the house details don't count here for any
more than they did in the lives of the original New England settlers,
or the forty-niners, or those on homesteads or in Alaska to-day.
However, I'll put them in and I'll take the month of May as an
example--the first month after I was made foreman. It's fairer to give
the items for a month. They are as follows:
Oatmeal, .17
Corn meal, .10
About one tenth barrel flour, .65
Potatoes, .35
Rice, .08
Sugar, .40
White beans, .16
Pork, .20
Molasses, .10
Onions, .23
Lard, .50
Apples, .36
Soda, etc., .14
Soap, .20
Cornstarch, .10
Cocoa shells, .05
Eggs, .75
Butter, 1.12
Milk, 4.48
Meats, 1.60
Fish, .60
Oil, .20
Yeast cakes, .06
Macaroni, .09
Crackers, .06
Total $12.75
This makes an average of three dollars and nineteen cents a week. With
a fluctuation of perhaps twenty-five cents either way Ruth maintained
this pretty much throughout the year now. It fell off a little in the
summer and increased a little in the winter. It's impossible to give
any closer estimate than this. Even this month many things were used
which were left over from the week preceding and, on the other hand,
some things on this list like molasses and sugar and cornstarch went
towards reducing the total of the month following.
This left say a dollar and seventy-five cents a week for such small
incidentals as are not accounted for here but chiefly for sewing
material, bargains in cloth remnants and such things as were needed
towards the repair of our clothes as well as for such new clothes as
we had to buy from time to time. I think we spent more on shoes than
we did clothes but Ruth by patronizing the sample shoe shops always
came home with a three or four dollar pair for which she never paid
over two dollars and sometimes as low as a dollar and a half. The boy
and I bought our shoes at the same reduction at bankrupt sales. We
gave our neighbors this tip and saw them save a good many dollars in
this way.
On the whole these people were not good buyers; they never looked
ahead but bought only when they were in urgent need and then bought at
the cheapest price regardless of quality. They would pay two and two
and a half for shoes that wouldn't last them any time at all. Whatever
Ruth bought she considered the quality first and the price afterwards.
Then, too, she often ran across something she didn't need at the time
but which was a good bargain; she would buy this and put it away. She
was able to buy many things which were out of season for half what the
same things would cost six months later. It was very difficult to make
our neighbors see the advantage of this practice and their blindness
cost them many a good dollar.
We also had the advantage of our neighbors in knowing how to take good
care of our clothes. The average man was careless and slovenly. In a
week a new suit would be spotted with grease, wrinkled, and all out of
shape. He never thought of pressing it, cleaning it or of putting it
away carefully when through wearing it. The women were no better about
their own clothes. This was also true of their shoes. They might
shine them once a month but generally they let them go until they
dried up and cracked. In this way their new clothes soon became
workday clothes, their new shoes, old shoes, and as such they lasted a
very few months.
Dick and I might have done a little better than our neighbors even
without Ruth to watch us, but we certainly would not have had the
training we did have. Shoes had to be cleaned and either oiled or
shined before going to bed. If it rained we wore our old pairs whether
it was Sunday or not or else we stayed at home. Every time Dick or I
put on our good clothes we were as carefully inspected as troops on
parade. If a grease spot was found, it was removed then and there. If
a button was missing or a bit of fringe showed or a hole the size of a
pin head was found we had to wait until the defect was remedied. Every
Sunday morning the boy pressed both his suit and mine and every night
we had to hang our coats over a chair and fold our trousers. If we
were careless about it, the little woman without a word simply got up
and did them over again herself.
These may seem like small matters but the result was that we all of us
kept looking shipshape and our clothes lasted. When we finally did
finish with them they weren't good for anything but old rags and even
then Ruth used them about her housework. I figured roughly that Ruth
kept us well dressed on about half what it cost most of our neighbors
and yet we appeared to be twice as well dressed as any of them. Of
course we had a good many things to start with when we came down here
but our clothing bill didn't go up much even during the last year when
our original stock was very nearly exhausted. She accomplished this
result about one-half by long-headed buying, and one-half by her
carefulness and her skill with the needle.
To go back to the matter of food, I'll copy off a week's bill of fare
during this month. Ruth has written it out for me. You'll notice that
it doesn't vary very much from the earlier ones.
Sunday.
Breakfast: fried hasty pudding with molasses; doughnuts, cocoa
made from cocoa shells.
Dinner: lamb stew with dumplings, boiled potatoes, boiled onions,
cornstarch pudding.
Monday.
Breakfast: oatmeal, baked potatoes, creamed codfish, biscuits.
Luncheon: for Billy: brown bread sandwiches, cold beans,
doughnuts, milk; for Dick and me: boiled rice, cold biscuits,
baked apples, milk.
Dinner: warmed over lamb stew, baked apples, cocoa, cold biscuits.
Tuesday.
Breakfast: oatmeal, milk toast, cocoa.
Luncheon: for Billy: cold biscuits, hard-boiled eggs, doughnuts;
for Dick and me: warmed over beans, biscuits.
Dinner: hamburg steak, baked potatoes, graham muffins, apple
sauce, milk.
Wednesday.
Breakfast: oatmeal, griddle-cakes with molasses, cocoa shells.
Luncheon: for Billy: sandwiches made of biscuits and left over
steak, doughnuts; for Dick and me: crackers and milk, hot
gingerbread.
Dinner: vegetable hash, hot biscuits, gingerbread, apple sauce,
milk.
Thursday.
Breakfast: oatmeal, fried hasty pudding, doughnuts, cocoa shells.
Luncheon: for Billy: hard-boiled eggs, cold biscuits, gingerbread,
baked apple; for Dick and me: baked potatoes, apple sauce, cold
biscuits, milk.
Dinner: lyonnaise potatoes, hot corn bread, Poor man's pudding,
milk.
Friday.
Breakfast: smoked herring, baked potatoes, oatmeal, graham
muffins.
Luncheon: for Billy: herring, cold muffins, doughnuts; for Dick
and me: German toast, apple sauce.
Dinner: fish hash, biscuits, Indian pudding, milk.
Saturday.
Breakfast: oatmeal, German toast, cocoa shells.
Luncheon: for Billy: cold biscuits, hard-boiled eggs, bowl of
rice; for Dick and me: rice and milk, doughnuts, apple sauce.
Dinner: baked beans, new raised bread.
To a man accustomed to a beefsteak breakfast, fried hasty pudding may
seem a poor substitute and griddle cakes may seem well enough to taper
off with but scarcely stuff for a full meal. All I say is, have those
things well made, have enough of them and then try it. If a man has a
sound digestion and a good body I'll guarantee that such food will not
only satisfy him but furnish him fuel for the hardest kind of physical
exercise. I know because I've tried it. And though to some my lunches
may sound slight, they averaged more in substance and variety than the
lunches of my foreign fellow-workmen. A hunk of bread and a bit of
cheese was often all they brought with them.
Dick thrived on it too. The elimination of pastry from his simple
luncheons brought back the color to his cheeks and left him hard as
nails.
I've read since then many articles on domestic economy and how on a
few dollars a week a man can make many fancy dishes which will fool
him into the belief that he is getting the same things which before
cost him a great many more dollars. Their object appears to be to
give such a variety that the man will not notice a change. Now this
seems to me all wrong. What's the use of clinging to the notion that a
man lives to eat? Why not get down to bed rock at once and face the
fact that a man doesn't need the bill of fare of a modern hotel or any
substitute for it? A few simple foods and plenty of them is enough.
When a man begins to crave a variety he hasn't placed his emphasis
right. He hasn't worked up to the right kind of hunger. Compare the
old-time country grocery store with the modern provision house and it
may help you to understand why our lean sinewy forefathers have given
place to the sallow, fat parodies of to-day. A comparison might also
help to explain something of the high cost of living. My grandfather
kept such a store and I've seen some of his old account books. About
all he had to sell in the way of food was flour, rice, potatoes, sugar
and molasses, butter, cheese and eggs. These articles weren't put up
in packages and they weren't advertised. They were sold in bulk and
all you paid for was the raw material. The catalogue of a modern
provision house makes a book. The whole object of the change it seems
to me is to fill the demand for variety. You have to pay for that. But
when you trim your ship to run before a gale you must throw overboard
just such freight. Once you do, you'll find it will have to blow
harder than it does even to-day to sink you. I am constantly surprised
at how few of the things we think we need we actually _do_ need.
The pioneer of to-day doesn't need any more than the pioneer of a
hundred years ago. To me this talk that a return to the customs of our
ancestors involves a lowering of the standard of living is all
nonsense; it means nothing but a simplifying of the standard of
living. If that's a return to barbarism then I'm glad to be a
barbarian and I'll say there never were three happier barbarians than
Ruth, the boy and myself.