CHAPTER III

“The price for this cut today is—”

“The price for this cut today is—”

A great hustling for seats and advantageouspositions, whipping out of note-books and pencils, then respectful silence.

Deftly one helper cut and sawed while the butcher held up cut after cut and explained their food values and their prices. Invariably he said: “The price for this cut to-day is—” showing the variability of the market.

Mrs. Larry listened almost breathlessly, glancing now and then at the oblong diagram of a side of beef furnished by Mr. Richard Webber, the dealer who had arranged the demonstration. The different sections of the beef were colored like states on a map.

“This, ladies, is the chuck steak at sixteen cents a pound.”

Mrs. Larry looked at it with disapproving eyes. That would not do for Larry. He must have the best and most nutritious beef.

“Just as tender if properly cooked and just as nourishing as sirloin,” announced the butcher. “But it lacks a certain flavor which both sirloin and porterhouse have.”

He was handling more familiar cuts now.

“First and second ribs, twenty-four cents a pound because they are most in demand. ButI consider the second cut, third, fourth and fifth ribs just as good at twenty-two cents a pound. The seventh and eighth ribs, known as the blade, have a fine flavor and are more economical at eighteen cents. Use the bones and blade for soup—and have the rest rolled and skewered.”

Mrs. Larry nibbled her pencil and frowned. A difference of six cents a pound between the first cut and the last—and she had never asked her butcher which rib it was. Last Sunday’s roast had cost twenty-six cents a pound, and she had not known whether that was the right price on beef or not.

“Here is what I call one of the most economical cuts—if you can get your butcher to make it for you. Some do not handle it. It’s the ninth and tenth ribs, boned, known as the inside and outside roll roast, tender as porterhouse steak, solid meat, no waste, at twenty-five cents a pound. Five pounds of this are equal in nutritive and cash value to eight pounds of the usual rib roast.”

Mrs. Larry’s pencil fairly flew.

“Here is the most economical cut for a largefamily. The cross rib at twenty-one cents a pound. Average weight fourteen pounds. But be sure you get the best grade of beef if you try this cut. If it weighs less than fourteen pounds, you are getting poor quality of beef. Note the fat, creamy yellow, not a bit of dead white.

“Now, have your butcher cut off two steaks first—Saturday night’s dinner! The next piece makes a fine pot roast for Sunday and Monday, and the balance a big pot of soup stock. From the pot roast you will have some cold meat for hash.”

“Suppose you want just those two juicy steaks,” suggested a well-dressed woman near the platform.

“Well, see that the butcher cuts them off the right end,” readily replied the butcher.

“But,” exclaimed Claire, as the result of watching her mother’s household management, “suppose you order by telephone—”

The butcher and his helper looked at each other and grinned. As one voice, the other women cried, “Oh, don’t do it!”

“Never buy meat by telephone,” emphasizedMrs. Heath, the national president, “go to market—it pays.”

Claire was blushing furiously. Of course, everybody would guess that she was unmarried and inexperienced. In reality, her question was already forgotten. The audience was absorbed in watching the butcher carving the hind quarter of the beef.

“You ladies scorn the flank,” he explained, as he held up a long thin cut of beef, “but the inside cut, with a pocket to be filled with poultry dressing, makes a fine pot roast. And now for the steaks,—”

Delmonico, porterhouse, sirloin and round—he explained their points clearly, and then a young bride brought up the question:

“What is minute steak?”

“You’ll have to ask the chef,” replied the butcher, nodding to a stout mustached man on the edge of the crowd. “We thought you might ask questions like this, so we brought him along.”

“Minute steak,” explained the chef, “is any good cut, without bone, sliced very thin. Itgets its name from the short time required to cook it.”

Zip, the saw, knives and hatchet gleamed in and out of the red flesh, and the pages of Mrs. Larry’s note-book bristled with facts and figures. When the demonstration was over, she snapped a rubber band around the little book, thrust it into her bag and walked thoughtfully to the elevator.

“Did you enjoy it, honey?” Teresa Moore linked arms with Mrs. Larry and rang for the elevator.

“Well, if there’s any enjoyment in learning how little you know, I must have had a perfectly splendid time!” replied Mrs. Larry, not without slight sarcasm.

“Fine! I felt the same way—once. Now go a-marketing while it is all fresh in your mind. Put the fear of God in the heart of your butcher. You won’t have to do it but once, I venture to assure you.”

“I will,” said Mrs. Larry firmly, as they parted at the corner. Then suddenly she stopped and stared in dismay at an unoffending,overtrimmed pincushion in a shop window. Memory turned a blur of red beef, white bone and creamy yellow fat.

“I don’t believe I’ll ever recognize those different cuts when I see them.”

“I will,” said Claire Pierce firmly. “I mean to have a talk with our butcher, too. No doubt father has paid him thousands of dollars, and now he can pay back some of the overcharge by teaching me how to buy meat properly. Let’s go into that shop; I want to buy a note-book like yours.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Larry thoughtfully, as they waited for Claire’s parcel and change, “they do say that meat is cheaper in Kansas City than in New York.”

“There’s always a reason for high prices, and it’s well worth finding out.” —H. C. OF L. PROVERB NO. 3.

Mr. Larry, settling his stalwart shoulders into his overcoat, stopped and looked down with a smile at the pink-tipped finger peeping through the buttonhole in his left-hand lapel. He had come to recognize certain wifely signs. Mrs. Larry’s finger attached to this particular buttonhole indicated that Mrs. Larry’s gray matter was twisting itself into an interrogation point.

“Well?” he prompted.

“Um-m!” she murmured; then, with sudden accession of courage: “Larry, when you went to South Bethlehem looking for a new foundry to buy castings, what did the old man say?”

“The old man?” echoed Mr. Larry.

“Yes, the man where you had been buyingthem before. Didn’t he want you to keep right on buying from him? Didn’t he sayanything?”

“Did he? Why, as soon as he heard we were dickering with new people, he had half a dozen of his best men camping on our trail, cutting prices. That’s the game—play one concern against the other.”

“Thank you, dear,” murmured Mrs. Larry, with a far-away look in her eye.

Mr. Larry caught the pink-tipped finger as it slipped from the mooring in his buttonhole.

“What’s up, sweetheart? Been hearing a lecture on ‘Every Wife Her Husband’s Partner’? Going into business?”

“That’s just it, Larry, Iamyour partner, and I ought to make a business of it.”

Mr. Larry drew her close, looking a trifle anxious.

“I don’t want you any different. I love you just as you are.”

“Yes, but you might love me better——”

“I couldn’t.”

“Yes, you could—if I were a better manager. Larry, we eat too much. I mean, I don’t market efficiently.”

Her husband groaned.

“I don’t want an efficient wife, the kind that counts her steps and moves, and has charts and signs hanging all over the house.”

“I’m not going to do any of those things; but I do want to buy for our home as closely as you buy for your firm. I’m afraid that Mr. Dahlgren, my butcher, is overcharging me. I’ve bought meat there, and vegetables and fruit ever since we moved into this apartment; we’ve paid him hundreds and hundreds of dollars, and—well, I think I ought to talk to him.”

Mr. Larry kissed the pink finger-tip, and several more, before he answered.

“Before you make any statements about his overcharging, you must know the prices elsewhere.”

“Oh, I do,” and she held up a sheet of paper covered with figures, some newspaper clippings and aHousewives’ Marketing Guideof the current week. “I got these at the Housewives’ League meeting.”

The clock in the living-room struck the half hour and Mr. Larry reached for his hat.

“That’s right—you hand it to the old boy, straight—and tell me about it to-night.”

When the door had closed on Mr. Larry, his wife tripped to the telephone and called up Claire.

“I’m going to have it out with my butcher,” she announced very firmly. “If you’ve remembered anything that I’ve forgotten, now’s your chance to help me.”

“I’ll be over in half an hour,” answered Claire briskly. “Mother wants me to answer some invitations for her, and then I’ll be free for the morning. It’s dear of you to take me on your adventures. By-by.”

Mrs. Larry stood looking at the now silent telephone. Certainly Claire was taking the thing splendidly. If only Jimmy knew what was going on! Yes, decidedly, Jimmy ought to know. Having settled this matter to her satisfaction, Mrs. Larry proceeded to act with characteristic promptness. She took her pen in hand—

“Dear Jimmy:

“Clearing out a drawer this morning, I cameupon the program of the Monday Night Dance. Didn’t we have a wonderful time? If you are as good a lawyer as you are a dancer, you’ll be famous before long.

“So sorry you did not have dinner with us before you left. You must never treat us that way again.

“Can’t write any more, because I am going over to my butcher’s to take my second lesson in reducing the high cost of living. Claire is going with me. Of course, she’ll write and tell you all about our adventures in thrift. I suppose we’ll have some wild experiences. But when you really, truly love a man, you don’t mind what you go through for him. Not even if this means stalking that ogre, ‘High Prices,’ to its darkest lair.”

She sealed and stamped the envelope with an affectionate little pat.

“It’s just as well not to take any chances on some catty Kansas City girl discovering that Jimmy’s heart has had a wound that she might heal. I’ve heard a lot of strange things about the way a man’s heart acts on the rebound.”

Nevertheless, she was very careful not to allow Claire to see the address on the letter, which she mailed in the first box they passed.

When Mrs. Larry, armed with market quotations, entered the Dahlgren market, with its glittering marble slabs, its white-coated cutters, and its generally up-to-the-minute air, she felt a sudden sinking in the region of her heart. “Jud,” the rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed cutter, who always took her order, came forward, book in hand.

“What is it this morning?”

“A roast of beef——”

“Two ribs or three?” he suggested, already writing the order.

“I think I’d like to see it.”

“Certainly. Bill, let me have that prime rib, rolled. No, the other cut.”

A helper produced a roast, beautifully rolled, all crimson flesh, flecked with rich, creamy-white fat. Jud tossed it on the scales, and in a flash had it off again.

“Not quite eight pounds—two dollars and thirty-two cents. Can’t be beat for slicing downcold. Anything else?” he added. “We have an unusually fine pair of sweetbreads to-day. Some chops for lunch?”

Mrs. Larry was doing mental arithmetic. Claire had been using her pencil. “Two-thirty-two—That’s thirty cents a pound.”

“What cut is that?” Mrs. Larry asked, with a fine assumption of firmness and indicating the rolled roast, which Jud had tossed into the basket, as if the sale were made.

“That?” echoed the wondering cutter. “That’s a Delmonico roast—fancy.”

“Haven’t you—haven’t you a third or fourth rib roast, something cheaper than this?”

“Well, of course, I can give you any cut you want,” said the amazed attendant, accustomed to filling unqualified telephone orders. “But I’d advise you to take this—no waste.”

Mrs. Larry looked up from her quotations.

“The second cut is only twenty-one cents a pound, to-day. I’ll take that.”

“Certainly,” acquiesced Jud; “but you won’t find much saving in that piece, what with bones and tailings.” He had flung another roast, unrolled,on the scales. “Seven pounds—one dollar and sixty cents. Mebbe you’d rather have three ribs than two?”

Again Claire’s pencil moved to the rhythm of figures.

“If it’s twenty-one cents a pound, it ought to be only one dollar and forty-seven cents.”

“This cut is twenty-three cents a pound.”

“But the market quotations say twenty-one cents,” murmured Mrs. Larry.

Jud’s good-humored face clouded. Here was an experience practically unheard of in the Dahlgren market, and plainly beyond his jurisdiction.

“I guess you’d better talk to the boss.”

Mr. Dahlgren stepped forward solicitously.

“Nothing wrong, I hope?”

Mrs. Larry felt her color rising. The few women in the market, like herself, were well-groomed, well-tailored. They turned and stared at her and Claire. Price-haggling in a shop of this class suddenly seemed cheap and common. And yet she was determined to put into practise the lessons in meat buying she had learnedat the Monday morning meeting of the Housewives’ League.

“I don’t quite understand why this cut, the third and fourth ribs, is twenty-three cents a pound when the Housewives’ League price says twenty-one cents,” she explained, proffering Mr. Dahlgren the printed sheet.

The butcher’s shrewd experienced glance swept the line of quotations.

“Ah—hem—yes, I see. U’m—Quite so. Twenty-one cents to twenty-three. That’s right. Twenty-three cents—and that’s what we’re charging you.”

“But,” murmured Mrs. Larry, trying to look severe, “why do you charge me the top price instead of the bottom one? I am a regular customer. I pay my bill weekly, which is as good as cash, my husband says.” Being launched, she felt quite courageous. Surely this was the way Larry would talk to competing firms!

“I have been marketing here for three years and have paid you hundreds of dollars.”

“I appreciate all that,” said Mr. Dahlgren good-naturedly, “and I want to hold your trade;but we do not carry the twenty-one-cent grade. See?”

Decidedly Mrs. Larry did not “see,” and her puzzled face betrayed the fact.

“The difference between twenty-three cents and twenty-one cents does not represent the whim of the butcher, Mrs. Hall, but the grade of the beef sold, and I might say, also the expenses of store management—what your husband would call overhead expenses. This particular roast, cut from the Argentine beef mentioned in yourMarketing Guide, could be sold by some butchers at twenty-one cents a pound, because the Argentine beef wholesales at ten to ten and a half a pound. But I handle only fancy, native, stall-fed beef, which wholesales from fourteen and a half to fifteen and a half cents per pound. Our prices here are regulated by what I pay, which is always top notch for selected meats, and by the expense of running the shop. Cleanliness, modern equipment, highly paid clerks, good telephone and delivery service all come high. Then, of course, in a shop like this heavy accounts are carried——”

“Oh—then I pay not only for the meat I buy,but must make up your losses from charge customers who do not pay. I really gain nothing by paying my bill weekly.”

A great light illuminated Mrs. Larry’s marketing vision. Mr. Dahlgren looked uncomfortable.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Mrs. Hall; but the sort of custom I have, what we call A-1 charge trade, demands the best——”

“It can,” asserted Mrs. Larry significantly, “if it does not pay.”

“I can’t offer you seconds in meat, poultry or vegetables. Now, take this lettuce——”

He picked out a head of choice lettuce and pulled the leaves apart.

“See? Not a withered leaf, not a single leaf you could not serve on your table. Fifteen cents. Well, you can go to the dago stand round the corner and buy lettuce for eight or ten cents. My lettuce you have charged and delivered in clean baskets, by clean, respectful delivery boys, and you’ll have enough for two salads. The Italian sells you lettuce that is withered on the outside from long standing in his hot cellar, or small heads from which all theoutside leaves are stripped. You pay cash, the lettuce is dusty, it is delivered by a dirty little ragamuffin who ought to be in school, and you get one salad as against two from the head bought here.

“Same way with those meat quotations. I went down to hear that lecture. I sort of felt some of my customers would be there. The man who gave what you called your meat demonstration is one of the biggest dealers in this city. He wholesales as well as retails. He does not carry a single retail charge account. He would not give credit to a woman who had traded with him ten years. Every sale is a cash transaction—no waiting, no chance of loss. Of course, he can undersell a man like me. I don’t pretend to compete with him. You can go to his market—across town—or you can order by telephone or postal card, and he will give you good meat, not fancy grades like I carry for my exclusive trade, but good meat, and you will save money. His rent is less than mine and he pays smaller wages. I am not knocking his meat; but I will say that if you take his roast at twenty-one cents a pound and mine at twenty-threecents a pound, and treat them exactly the same way, you’ll be able to tell the difference. It’s in the flavor and the tenderness and the juiciness, and of the twenty-one-cent roast Mr. Hall will probably say: ‘Roast a little dry and flat to-night, isn’t it?’”

“Then thisMarketing Guideis really no guide at all?” sighed Mrs. Larry, suddenly recalling that she had meant to clean the baby’s white coat this morning, and here she was spending precious minutes unlearning what she thought she had learned so well.

“Oh, yes, it is—if you know how to use it. Take this one item alone. ‘The market is flooded with Florida oranges and grapefruit.’ That’s your chance to lay in a supply of both fruits while the wholesale prices are down. ‘Cranberry shipments are heavy and market glutted.’ That’s true, too. Cranberries have sold a few weeks back for twelve cents a quart. I am selling now for nine. It would pay you to make up some jelly and set it aside, or, if you have a cool place, you can keep the raw berries just as well as we can. Just now the manufacturers of —— bacon are cutting prices—theyare overloaded. I can save you three cents a jar if you want to buy a quantity and stock up. Next week it may be back to the old price.”

“And these prices change all the time, like this? Why haven’t you told me such things before?”

“Well,” said the butcher, trying hard not to smile, “you never asked me. You usually order by phone, and—”

“You can send me the roast—the second cut at twenty-three cents—five quarts of cranberries and a dozen jars of bacon,” said Mrs. Larry out loud. Inwardly she calculated: “Fifteen cents saved on cranberries, thirty-six on bacon. Every penny cut off what it might have been, saves just a little bit more.”

Safely back on the sunlit street, Mrs. Larry and Claire glanced at each other. The faces of both were a trifle flushed.

“I’ve had more agreeable experiences,” commented Mrs. Larry, with a wry smile.

“I don’t care what happens,” said Claire, looking straight ahead, “I’m going to win out in this game. It means everything to me.”

Whereat Mrs. Larry felt an inward glow. She hadn’t made any mistake in writing to Jimmy Graves.

“If you feel that way about it, I’ll telephone you my plans every day.”

“Do,” said Claire, as she hurried away.

Frequently, when Mrs. Larry discoursed on the happenings of the day to her husband, she felt that Mr. Larry was not so deeply interested in domestic problems as a carefully chosen father might be. But on the memorable evening after her discovery that the same cut of beef might sell for twenty-one or twenty-three cents a pound, and for a very sufficient and convincing reason Mr. Larry gave her remarks flattering attention.

After he had studied theMarketing Guideand gone over Mrs. Larry’s figures, he drew her down into the great chair that had been built for two and which faced the sputtery gas log.

“Tell you, little woman, you are all right! I supposed it cost just so much to keep up our table, and there was no use fighting the highcost of living, but I believe you are on the right track. Finding the cause of high prices is the way to begin.”

“And, Larry, one cause of our high prices is the neighborhood in which we live.”

“Well, we’re not going to move out of it. I won’t raise my children in an undesirable neighborhood just to save two cents a pound on meat.”

“I have an idea!” remarked Mrs. Larry, snuggling closer in the arm that seemed always waiting for her. “If the cheap markets can’t come to our neighborhood because of the high rents, I’m going to them. All of them deliver. The man who talked to the League said so; I don’t suppose the East Side butchers would come over here more than once a day.”

“And his system of delivery at all hours is one of Mr. Dahlgren’s heavy overhead expenses, remember.”

“And you’re not to complain, understand, if sometimes there is a shortage in tenderness or juiciness of roasts.”

“I’ll be the best little victim of your experimentsin thrift that ever was,” said Mr. Larry assuringly.

“Oh, Larry, that’s the very idea! Every day will brings its adventure in thrift. I’ll have my next trip in the morning.”

“Why don’t you start with the open market?” suggested Mr. Larry.

“I thought they were just for the poor.”

“They are run by the city for the people—and we are the people, aren’t we?”

“Well, notjustpeople—when you have the darlingest and most understandingest of husbands—”

“And the most calculating and parsimonious of wives.”

“Now you’re making fun of me. But I’ll try the city market to-morrow. There’s one at the end of the Broadway car line.”

“Yes; at the old Fort Lee Ferry. You ought to catch some New Jersey farmers there, with fresh butter and eggs.”

At ten the next morning Mrs. Larry and Claire started for the people’s market. This was Mrs. Larry’s usual time for marketing.

At ten-thirty they sprang from the car, near the dull, redding-brown ferry house, and looked around for the market with the true country atmosphere. Near the recreation pier were scattered a few wagons that suggested the hucksters who sometimes dared to invade the sacred precincts of her exclusive neighborhood, with heaps of over-ripe pineapples and under-ripe apples. Here and there were push carts, such as Mrs. Larry had seen that day when she had “slummed” through the great East Side in search of a wedding gift in old Russian brass. A few rickety stands completed the background, and these were heaped with sad-looking poultry, tubs of butter, and crates of eggs, bearing striking black and white signs that announced big cuts in prices.

Hucksters, peddlers and sharp-featured tradesmen greeted them with strident price quotations. But Mrs. Larry’s glance sought in vain for the kindly farmer and his wife, the sort she could suddenly recall as handing her bits of home-made cake, pot cheese or a tiny nosegay of garden flowers in the days whenshe had gone to early market with her grandmother in a quiet Pennsylvania city.

A neatly dressed man, with a semi-official air, who had evidently noticed their bewilderment, raised his hat and spoke courteously:

“Is there anything special you want?”

“No; nothing special—we thought we’d like to see one of the city markets.”

“Well, you’re a little late to see the market at its best. I’ll explain, if you don’t mind. I’m on Borough President Marks’ committee and we are very anxious to interest New York housekeepers in these markets.”

“But it’s not clean,” protested Mrs. Larry, driven to frankness by her disappointment.

“It’s as clean as any open market can be kept. Everything is cleaned up and flushed every night, but you see people have been trading here since six-thirty this morning.”

“As early as that?” exclaimed the astonished Claire.

“Yes, the farmers are early birds. They are the first to arrive and the first to leave. They sell out in no time. One man brought intwo loads weighing about five tons each, solid produce, and his wagons were empty in two hours. Among other things he sold six hundred bunches of celery at ten per cent. less than you can buy it at your fancy grocery store. He sold small heads of cabbage for four cents, large for eight, solid as rock and fine for cold slaw. You may pay the same in your store, but the heads are soft and wasteful. His cooking apples brought ten cents for a two-quart basket that grocers sell at fifteen or twenty, according to the customer. We’ve got rid of eight hundred pounds of fresh fish, brought direct from Monmouth, New Jersey, by a real fisherman. On Friday we’ll sell one thousand eight hundred pounds caught by the same man and his neighbors.”

“Then these,” murmured Mrs. Larry, indicating the straggling wagons and push carts, “are not farmers?”

“No; these are hucksters, mostly, or small dealers. You could buy for the same prices at your door or at their stands down-town. We group the farmers under signs: ‘FARMERS’ WAGONS,’ and discourage hucksterswho fix wagons to look like the real farm article.

“We have a representative of the Department of Weights and Measures to receive complaints, and to test weights and measures. This morning we ordered off a push cart man because his fruit and vegetables were not fresh. We are doing everything in our power to protect housewives and encourage them to patronize the open market, because that means more farmers will come here. And we are aiming to bring about direct connection between producer and consumer—farmer and housewife.”

“But what of that wagon,” inquired Claire, indicated a huge delivery wagon bearing the name of a prominent down-town department store, “does that firm sell fresh food?”

“No; staple groceries which they can buy in huge quantities, like five pounds of granulated sugar at twenty-three cents, when your grocer and mine are charging us at the rate of three and one-half pounds for eighteen cents. This firm delivers orders. The farmers, the hucksters and stand men can not. But we arrange for that by having a man who will deliver theordinary market basket from any of our open markets at ten cents.”

“Then the delivery is extra and cuts into the saving on prices?”

“Not enough to notice if you buy in good quantities. Now figure this up for yourself. What are you paying for potatoes?”

“Twenty-five cents a basket.”

“How big a basket; how many pounds?”

Mrs. Larry stared.

“Pounds?—I never weighed them.”

“But that’s the only honest way to sell potatoes. Big potatoes leave huge air holes in the basket that weigh nothing. Well, here are seven pounds for ten cents. The same quantity by measure would cost you at least fifteen cents. This head of cabbage at six cents would cost ten in your store; six bunches of beets here for ten cents, two bunches in your store. Two quarts of onions five cents, ten in your store. Three fine rutabagas for eight cents; I paid eight cents for one like these down-town. You can afford ten cents for delivery on a list like that.”

“I would save about thirty cents. Ten centswould go for delivery, ten for car fare—and my time—”

“Well, of course, you have not bought much, considering that you must have them delivered and you must pay car fare. Women like you from the distance must either buy in larger quantities or carry things home on the car.”

“Carry them!” exclaimed Mrs. Larry.

“Yes; women come here with old suit-cases and bags. Women with babies bring the babies in the carriages and fill the front with vegetables, etc. Mothers of older children use the little express wagons. They don’t spend ten cents for deliveries.”

“Do—do many ladies come here?”

“Say, if you want to see ladies marketing, you go over to the market under Queensboro Bridge to-morrow morning—early.”

Mrs. Larry laughed joyously over her recital that night.

“Evidently the early bird has come back into style,” was her husband’s comment. “Are you game for the early market?”

“Indeed I am,” declared Mrs. Larry. “Just think! I didn’t save a penny to-day—lost timeand money—because I didn’t know enough to dig out your old suit-case. Anyhow, I think it is cowardly to market with a bag or suit-case. My grandmother and aunts carried a market basket, and so shall I.”

“Hurrah!” shouted Mr. Larry. “A fig for convention-bound neighbors. But do you own one?”

“I just do,” responded Mrs. Larry proudly. “Aunt Myra sent it to me last fall, packed with pickles and jelly.”

And the next morning, after wafting a kiss to the sleeping Mr. Larry and stealing a glimpse at the rosy-cheeked small Larrys, she drank a cup of hot coffee, munched a roll, and by eight o’clock was at the Queensboro Bridge market.

But she was not accompanied by Claire on this trip. The girl’s enthusiasm was beautiful to see, but Mrs. Larry was a cautious person. She did not want to kill it by drawing on it at sevenA. M.The family of Pierce were not early risers.

“Ah, this is something like,” she sighed as she saw the groups of farm wagons from LongIsland, with tanned lean men handling poultry, eggs and vegetables. She bought with enthusiasm fowl that she knew were fresh killed and picked, at the price often charged for cold storage poultry; vegetables that were firm and fresh; fruits at close to wholesale prices. The farmers and dealers helped her pack her basket compactly. All around her were comfortable-looking, well-dressed women. Beyond the line of wagons, push carts and stands was a second line of automobiles, many of whose owners were marketing at her elbow.

“It’s the automobile folks that are saving money,” said a farmer’s helper, as he packed a crisp head of lettuce into the last corner of her basket. “You’d die to see how it riles their chauffeurs to have to come for the baskets.”

The baskets, of course—and Mrs. Larry suddenly realized that her arm throbbed like the proverbial toothache. She had a full block to walk to the car, a transfer to make, and two blocks to walk at the other end of the line. The prospect was not cheering. She sought out the man who had contracted to deliver baskets at ten cents each.

“What time shall I get these goods?” she asked.

“Before nightfall,” answered the man.

“But this chicken is for dinner,” she said. “I must have it by two o’clock.”

“Then you had better take it with you,” said a by-stander, a competent-looking woman.

Mrs. Larry unpacked the basket, had the fowl, some sweet potatoes and celery done up in a big paper sack which she could carry, and turned the balance of her marketing over to the delivery men.

Why in the world hadn’t she thought of this and let Claire bring them both over in the Pierce limousine? Well, she’d know better the next time. And she turned over the silver lining of this particular domestic cloud so quickly that the young bride, sitting opposite her on the cross-town car simply had to smile back. After which they fell into conversation.

“I’ve just about decided,” the younger woman remarked, as she looked at Mrs. Larry’s great bag of provisions, “that you’ve got to pay the high cost of living either in money or time or strength. I bought four dollars’ worthof produce this morning for about two dollars and seventy-five cents. That is, I save about one dollar and twenty-five cents on what you’d pay to the grocer on your block, or your regular butcher. But it takes two hours of my time, and then we can’t tell how long these city markets will last. If they are to be open in winter, the city will have to lay floors of concrete, my husband says, and provide better protection all round. That means the city will have to charge the dealers for rent, and then—up will go the prices. Seems like you have to pay somebody his price or give a lot of yourself in saving.”

“It is discouraging,” said Mrs. Larry. “The chief trouble I have is in taking care of goods in quantity after I buy them. You have no cellar or pantry in an apartment-house. There are closets and bins enough in my kitchen, but winter and summer it’s too hot, vegetables and fruit spoil.”

“And that eats up what you save going to market. Buying in small quantities comes high. Now if a lot of women could go together and buy and then divide up, they could save money.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that system. They’re called ‘Marketing Clubs,’ I believe there’s one in Brooklyn. Suppose we look into it,” she added.

“I’ll have my husband get the president’s address. He knows some newspaper men and the club has been written up lots of times. Oh, yes, I remember the president’s name is Mrs. Bangs.”

So they exchanged cards, and, much to their amusement, discovered that they lived on the same block. The little bride’s name was Mrs. Norton, and, as they parted at her door, she bound herself to join Mrs. Larry, Teresa Moore and Claire Pierce on their adventures in thrift.

“It’s so much nicer to travel in pairs than in odd numbers,” said Mrs. Larry.

“It’s awfully good of you to let me come,” answered Mrs. Norton. “None of my intimate friends are particularly interested in this sort of thing, but I’ve just got to be.”

Mrs. Larry shifted the heavy parcel to the other arm.

“Every wife would be happier if she wasinterested. I’m beginning to think that she really can’t be happy if she isn’t—efficient, though my husband hates that word.”

“So does mine,” said Mrs. Norton, and having found that their husbands were of one mind, they decided that it was a real bond between them.

“A wise woman knows that economy in money isn’t always real economy.”—H. C. OF L. PROVERB NO. 4.

Mr. Larrytasted the second mouthful of lemon pie and glanced at Mrs. Larry. Then he plunged into the business of finishing off its yellow and white sweetness, just as if it had been Mrs. Larry’s very best brand of dessert.

“Oh, Larry dear, don’t—don’t eat it. It’s simply fearful—and I bought it at the exchange, too. I guess she put too much corn-starch in it—or didn’t cook it enough.”

There was the hint of tears in her voice, and her chin quivered just enough to deepen the dimple that cleft it. Down went Mr. Larry’s after-dinner coffee cup, and in two strides he was round the table, throwing his arms about her. He spoke very tenderly:

“What is the matter, dearest? Are you sick?”

“No—honey—I’m just a little fool!” And now the tears flowed frankly and unchecked.

“You’re nothing of the sort, and one lemon pie—”

“It’s not the pie, Larry, it’s—it’severything! Ever since I started to cut down our table expenses, I’ve been losing money in other ways. I can’t be in two places at once, can I?”

Mr. Larry shook his head.

“And so—when I’m chasing all over town looking for cheaper markets, things go wrong here at home. While I was picking up bargains in poultry and vegetables in the city market last Saturday, Lena broke one of my best goblets—they cost me forty-five cents each—there went all I saved on vegetables. I never let Lena wash the fine glass and china when I’m home.

“Then this afternoon I went to Mrs. Norton’s to talk about organizing a marketing club to buy in quantities, and suddenly remembered I had made no dessert. The exchange charged sixty cents for that apology for a pie. I could make the real thing for twenty.”

“You bet you could,” remarked Mr. Larry, heartily if inelegantly.

“And the cleaner charged me one dollar for cleaning baby’s coat. I’ve always done it myself with a quarter’s worth of gasoline. So here I am, trying to work out some method of reducing household expenses, but neglecting my house and cooking and wondering whether in the end I’ll have saved even a single penny.”

“Experiments are sometimes costly, but if they develop into labor savers or expense reducers, they are well worth while. You remember Maguire, who insisted that if the firm would give him time to experiment he could make one of our machines double its capacity? The firm agreed and paid his salary for two years. Then suddenly he turned the trick, and cut down expenses in that particular line of output about one-third. That paid, didn’t it?”

“Oh, Larry, you aresocomforting. I do think there must be something in cooperation, in buying directly from producers in large quantities, because everybody is talking about it.”

“Then stop worrying about the little leaksand stick to it till you find out where the big saving lies,” said Mr. Larry.

“And, by the way, here’s a letter I found under the door and forgot to give you before dinner. Of course, I’m not jealous—but I have a natural curiosity to learn what Kansas City man dares write my wife.”

Mrs. Larry reached for the letter, worry vanishing before the sunny smile.

“Jimmy Graves! Give it to me instanter!”

Mr. Larry retained his grip on the letter and looked at her accusingly.

“Now, little woman, don’t you try to understudy destiny. It’s ticklish business to patch up a quarrel between sweethearts. Better let them work out their own salvation.”

Mrs. Larry possessed herself of the envelope, patted the hand that relinquished it, and replied:

“Did you ever think, honey, how many young couples, blinded by anger, self-pity or pride, can not see the road which leads to the salvation of their happiness? Well, I just painted a sign-board, not another thing, Larry, so let’s see whether Jimmy read it aright.”

“Dear Mrs. Larry,” ran the letter—“It certainly was good of you to write me so kindly after I rushed out of town without so much as telephoning, but, manlike, I left a lot of things till the very last minute. And it was jolly to hear of the adventure in thrift which you and Claire are sharing. You know the sort of girl she is, too modest to let even the man who loves her know how thorough and earnest she is. She hasn’t written me a word about it, and perhaps she won’t, so if you have time to drop me an occasional line about your jaunts, I sure would enjoy it. And when you’ve done all the stunts, perhaps I might come on and blow you both to a dinner, reward of virtue and all that sort of thing. That is, if you think it wise for me to come.

“My regards to old Larry and chuck both the kiddies under the chin for their adopted Uncle Jimmy.

“P. S.—Don’t let Claire overdo the thing. Remember I am trusting you with the biggest thing in my life.”

Mrs. Larry raised shining eyes to her husband’s face.

“Oh, my dear, can you read between the lines? He doesn’t admit that anything has happened between them—man creature that he is—but he is starving for a word of her.”

“Well, why don’t you tell her?”

“Honey, she’d never speak to me again. No—I shall just write an occasional sign-board for Jimmy. Claire doesn’t deserve one.”

“Don’t be so hard on Claire, dear. Remember, she didn’t have your advantages—a sane home life—a fine wholesome mother who believed in marriage for love—”

“To say nothing of a man worth waiting and working for—” interrupted Mrs. Larry.

“Outside the question, madam. Claire has been raised in the atmosphere of personal luxury and in the belief that there is nothing worse than having to do for herself and for others. If she wasn’t vastly different from her pleasure-loving mother, Jimmy Graves never would have had a chance with her. It would have been a millionaire or nothing for her.”

“And as she has turned her back on millionaires, I propose to do my part in steering her toward happiness with the common or gardenvariety of husband. But, of course, this must be done tactfully. So, when she comes for the conference to-night—you are to act as if she just dropped in accidentally and we insisted on her staying to see the fun.”

“Fun! Um-m—” murmured Mr. Larry. “If this conference is on the practical question of reducing the cost of living, and Claire betrays interest, I fear she will rouse the suspicions of sharp-eyed, clever Teresa Moore. Why can’t you women play the game of being in love, like we men do, open and above aboard?”

“Because, dearest husband, for generations we have been taught that a ‘nice’ girl does not flaunt love. Your grandmothers might have died of love, but admit it—never. However, at the present rate of liberation, we’ll soon be proposing—”

“Do you really believe that men propose? Why—”

“Now, Larry Hall, don’t you dare start that moth-eaten argument. You did—”

“Of course, butyouwere an exceptional girl—”

Having admitted that such might be the caseand having escaped from her husband’s enfolding arms, Mrs. Larry outlined the evening’s plans.

“You remember that dear little Mrs. Norton I met coming from the Queensboro market? Well, she and I decided that on this block are enough housekeepers to form a market club—”

“No doubt the lady across the hall, with the chestnut locks and the five hundred dollar Pekinese, will be deeply interested in such a project.”

“Now, Larry, don’t be discouraging. We have been looking over our neighbors, and we’re going to start with the ones that take their own babies for an airing on the drive.”

“Wise and observant lady!”

“I wrote to Mrs. Bleecker Bangs, president of the Brooklyn Market Club, for suggestions, and she answered right away. Her letter with the clippings she enclosed will help us outline our plans.”

“And who are ‘we’?”

“Mrs. Norton, Teresa, Claire—”

“Then I’m expected to furnish a valid excuse for spending the evening away from home?”

“No, indeedy. You stop right here. Mr. Norton and Mr. Moore are coming. You men can help us organize. You ought to help. It’s your money we’re trying to save.”

“Quite so;” responded Mr. Larry, with sudden gravity. After all, these investigations did seem to mean quite a lot to the men who earned the money.

So at eight o’clock, Mrs. Larry faced her little audience of six, Mrs. Bleecker Bangs’ letter in hand:

“400 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y.

“My Dear Mrs. Hall—I would be very glad to supply you with suggestions for organizing your club, but my time is taken with writing. Ladies by dozens are asking me how to organize and should be instructed. So I send you newspaper clippings, interviews with me, which will do just as well. Follow the suggestions in these articles and you will have great success, I am sure.

“Sincerely,“Charlotte R. Bangs.”

“Explicit and to the point,” remarked Mr. Larry. “And now for the clippings.”

“‘On Friday evening,” Mrs. Larry continued, “every member of the club comes to see me and brings a list of the things she would like to have purchased for her. She also brings her money, because everything is cash, and I have to have the money to pay as soon as I have made my purchase. I go to the market about eight o’clock, because the busiest time is over then, and I can pick up bargains. That is the whole secret of saving by this plan—buying bargains which are going for almost nothing. For instance, a broken basket of fine Hubbard squashes will be offered at a very great reduction, because the busy time is over.

“‘I purchase to the best advantage I can. The things are delivered at my home early in the afternoon, and all the housekeepers come over and take their things home, and settle the account then and there.

“‘The rules of the club are not many nor very complicated. We hold business meetings once a month for the purpose of making a scheduleof buyers. That means four members each twenty-eight days; two trips to market for each member. When it is inconvenient for a member, she gives her reasons, and usually some other member is ready to step in and exchange with her. Of course, each club member knows who is to buy that week. Monday and Thursday nights each member of the club sends in a list of the things she wants, with the quantity and the money. The marketer combines these lists to get the quantity as well as the articles.

“‘What happens if only one person wants a small quantity of one particular item? That article is crossed from their list, and they are warned, so they can get it from the greengrocer. We had a lot of that when the club first started; now it seldom happens. Even when it did happen, and the various members bought one or more items each week from the greengrocer, they saved so much on the staple items bought wholesale that we have never had one who willingly withdrew from the club.’”

Mrs. Larry paused dramatically, and Mrs. Norton murmured, “Lovely!”

“Does she give any actual comparison betweenher prices and what the ordinary housewife pays?” asked Mr. Moore.

“Oh, yes,” answered Mrs. Larry. “Here’s a table:

“‘Besides, we pick up bargains by getting in after the rush is over. Only last week I bought beautiful lettuce at a cent a head. Earlier in the day it had sold at two and a half cents the head to greengrocers, who retailed it at ten cents.

“‘Do we save as much as that, the difference between two and a half and ten cents on everything? On a good many things, yes!’

“Imagine! Last Thanksgiving she bought white grapes by the keg,” interrupted Mrs. Larry; “sixty pounds at eight cents a pound, when all retailers were asking us eighteen and twenty cents. Just listen:

“‘At the end of each year the secretary makes her report, showing approximately how much the members of the club have saved. The difference is between the wholesale and retail prices of food supplies. Last year’s report showed a saving of nearly sixty per cent. That was our banner year, but we have never run below forty per cent. At first I counted on saving forty per cent.; now we think it safe to say we save fifty-five per cent.’

“Now, Teresa, isn’t that great?”

“It is, my dear—too great to be practical or to last. I investigated the Brooklyn Market Club when it was first started several years ago, and found it was practically only for Mrs. Bangs and her particular little group. In that group were her own married daughters and a very few intimate, tried friends, who understood one another and worked out the plan systematically. Then, for months Mrs. Bangs gaveherself over to running the club. She had no children at home, nothing to interfere with the successful management of that little organization. In fact, when I asked her whether any one else would take up the work if she dropped it, she said she was quite sure no one could. And any organization which demands an enthusiast, a fanatic, as its manager is not practical.”

“But, my dear woman,” remarked Mrs. Norton briskly, “surely any of us could train ourselves for the work.”

“Any one who does must be paid for it, must make a business of it, because it will take all her time. I don’t want to throw cold water on your lovely plan, Mrs. Larry,” she said affectionately, “but I don’t want you chasing rainbows. Let us analyze some of Mrs. Bangs’ figures and compare them with our own needs. You speak of organizing a club of six. Well, let us say ten, if we are to buy in such quantities. Very well. Mrs. Bangs buys sixty pounds of white grapes in order to secure a keg at the rate of eight cents a pound. What would you and I do with six pounds of grapes? How couldwe keep them until they were used, in our little apartments? And do you know what lettuce at two and three cents a head means? Buying a sack or crate of it. We’d receive about eight heads, each one of us—and how much would we have to throw away when it spoiled on our hands? My husband won’t live on lettuce!

“And then there is the question of delivery. I have bought fruit wholesale for preserving, and paid from twenty-five cents to a dollar for having it delivered. At the lower figure, you wait till the expressman pleases to deliver it. Then comes the question of distributing it from the apartment at which it is delivered. How would your kitchen look if it was the delivery center, and we divided up sacks of potatoes, barrels of apples, kegs of grapes and crates of lettuce?

“And can you see us, all creeping home after nightfall with our supplies, leaving you and your girl to clean up the mess? Not for my kitchen, Mrs. Larry.”

A silence followed these few spirited remarks.

“That does put it in a new light,” said Mrs.Norton at last. “But it looked so lovely on paper.”

Claire echoed the sigh.

Mrs. Larry, her shoulders drooping pathetically, was folding up the clippings.

“Don’t let me discourage you,” continued practical Mrs. Moore. “If you think you can organize and secure ten women willing to give a great deal of time and put up with considerable inconvenience in order to save, perhaps, ten per cent. in the final accounting, go ahead and try it; but I thought you ought to know that I had thoroughly investigated Mrs. Bangs’ plan and found just where it fails us women in small apartments. I do not think her club even exists now, but it served an excellent purpose—it made Mrs. Bangs an authority on household economics and marketing, and she is very busy writing for publication.”

“Well, then, it helped some one,” remarked Mr. Larry, trying to speak lightly, and wishing he could pat Mrs. Larry’s hand without being caught in the act.

“Oh, yes, each of these cooperative plans has its good points,” continued Mrs. Moore. “I havetwo friends living in Chicago who belong to such an organization, and they save a great deal, but they deal directly with the producers.”

“How?” asked Mr. Norton, deeply interested.

“By parcel post, express and correspondence. Their organization grew out of the old Fifty-first Street Food and Market Club, formed to clean up the markets and groceries and stands in their neighborhood. From cleaning up food, they naturally turned their attention to cutting down prices. One of the leading spirits of this club, which is little more than a group of practical, earnest neighbors, is Mrs. J. C. Bley, president of the famous Chicago Clean Food Club, and active in all the good works done by the household economic department of the equally famous Woman’s Club.

“This little band of economists buys potatoes, apples, butter, eggs, poultry, etc., direct from farmers. One of their number acts as purchasing agent and general secretary. She carries on the correspondence with farmers, has all goods shipped to her house and sends for her coworkers when fresh consignments arrive. She is practically the middleman for the rest ofthe club, and receives a small commission from the members. And she is worth it, because she conducts their business admirably, and saves them as much as one-third on their supplies.

“Mrs. Bley, a most practical woman, is deeply interested in the experiment, and hopes to extend the movement until farmers’ wives and city housekeepers know each other better and are mutually useful. When I visited her home last she was making a special study of cartons for the parcel-post service for her club members. I call that practical.”

“But how do they get in touch with the farmers?” inquired Mr. Norton.

“Through the granges and their secretaries. All farmers’ societies are encouraging direct sales by parcel-post system. That is the hope of the woman in the small city apartment or modern cottage, deprived of cellar, pantry or storage space.

“For the more fortunate woman who can still boast a cellar with dry bins, or a huge pantry, I imagine that the cooperative league, run by Mrs. Ellms of Cincinnati, would be ideal. I can not give you the particulars, but mycousin, Emily Tyler, can, because she was a member of the organization when she lived in Cincinnati. Wouldn’t you all like to come round to our house Friday night and meet her?”

The invitation was accepted with enthusiasm, after which Mr. Larry rolled back the rugs and Mrs. Larry turned on the phonograph for one-stepping, while Lena appeared with a fruit punch and little cakes. For, as Mrs. Norton philosophically remarked—“What’s the use of taking economy so hard that you get to hate it?”

Mrs. Tyler, formerly of Cincinnati, now of Flushing, New York, proved to be a plump and friendly young matron, with deep blue eyes that took on a violet tint when she talked earnestly on cooperative buying.

“You see, I’ve brought the documents in the case,” she said smilingly, as she pointed to a quantity of printed matter on Mrs. Moore’s library table. “But you must stop me the minute you feel bored. I’m so homesick for my Cooperative League that it is a joy to talk about it.”

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