The Project Gutenberg eBook ofAdventures in Thrift

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofAdventures in ThriftThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Adventures in ThriftAuthor: Anna Steese RichardsonIllustrator: C. S. CorsonRelease date: June 30, 2020 [eBook #62530]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Charlene Taylor, Wayne Hammond and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES IN THRIFT ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Adventures in ThriftAuthor: Anna Steese RichardsonIllustrator: C. S. CorsonRelease date: June 30, 2020 [eBook #62530]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Charlene Taylor, Wayne Hammond and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

Title: Adventures in Thrift

Author: Anna Steese RichardsonIllustrator: C. S. Corson

Author: Anna Steese Richardson

Illustrator: C. S. Corson

Release date: June 30, 2020 [eBook #62530]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Charlene Taylor, Wayne Hammond and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Thisfile was produced from images generously made availableby The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES IN THRIFT ***

“Pounds! I never weighed them”

“Pounds! I never weighed them”

Copyright 1915The Crowell Publishing CompanyCopyright 1916The Bobbs-Merrill CompanyPRESS OFBRAUNWORTH & CO.BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERSBROOKLYN, N. Y.

The incidents, the stores, the organizations and the individuals described in this book are real, not fictitious. At the time that this book goes to press, each one of the societies mentioned is actively engaged in the task of reducing the cost of living for its members. The National Housewives’ League has its headquarters at 25 West Forty-fifth Street, New York City. Mrs. Julian Heath, a real flesh and blood woman, is president of the organization. The Housewives’ Cooperative League is still working actively toward cooperative buying and no doubt for several years to come can be reached through its efficient secretary, Miss Edna O. Crofton, Norwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, from which city the organization directs its work.

The Cooperative Store at Montclair is a flourishing reality. The Experimental Farm at Medford, Long Island, is still encouraging local farmers to sell direct to the housewives of Greater New York and vicinity by parcel post and express. Even Mrs. Larry and her friend, Claire Pierce, exist under other names, and they participated in the adventures herein described.

This explanation is given because when the chapters appeared originally in theWoman’s Home Companion, the author received many letters containing queries of this nature: “Is there such an organization as the National Housewives’ League, the Housewives’ Cooperative League, a Cooperative Store in Montclair?” “Is there such a farm as you describe under the title of the Experimental Farm at Medford? If so, I want to get in touch with its superintendent.”

The material in this book, which is of profound interest to all home-makers present or prospective, is presented in fiction form because the writer, being a housekeeper, realizes that household routine is so much a business of facts and figures that studies in thrift are more acceptable to busy women when brightened by the little touch of romance that goes so far in leavening the day’s work of the home-maker.

A. S. R.

“Luxury is attained through thrift.”—H. C. OF L. PROVERB NO. 1.

“Luxury is attained through thrift.”—H. C. OF L. PROVERB NO. 1.

“Luxury is attained through thrift.”

—H. C. OF L. PROVERB NO. 1.

Mrs. Larryfolded her veil with nice exactitude and speared it with two invisible hairpins. Then she bent her hat one-fourth of an inch on the right side, fluffed up her hair on the left and tucked her gloves under her purse. These pre-luncheon rites completed, she reached for the program of music. But, glancing casually at Claire Pierce on the other side of the table, she dropped the square of cardboard, with its Pierrot silhouettes, and studied the girl curiously.

When one has picked up a remnant of chiffon taffeta in a most desirable shade, at two-thirds the price asked at the regular counter, and has ordered a tidy luncheon of chicken-saladsandwiches and chocolate with whipped cream, in the popular restaurant of Kimbell’s very popular department store, one has cause to look cheerful. And Claire’s expression was anything but cheerful. She had removed neither veil nor gloves, but, with her hands folded in her lap, she sat staring through the window which overlooked one of New York’s busiest corners.

“My dear, what has happened?”

Claire transferred her gaze from the roof-tops to the pattern in the tablecloth which she outlined mechanically with a finger-tip.

“I—I’ve—broken with Jimmy, and—and—he went back to Kansas City last night.”

“Oh, you poor lamb! Whatever went wrong between you two? Why, you were just made for each other.”

“That’s what Jimmy said,” murmured the girl in a choking voice.

The great restaurant, with its chattering shoppers, faded away. They two seemed quite alone. Mrs. Larry reached out a warm impulsive hand and gripped Claire’s fingers, cold even through her heavy gloves.

“Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Telling doesn’t help.”

“Oh, yes, it does, my dear. Do you suppose that if I had known, I would have dragged you from one sale to another, boring you with such unimportant details as trimmings and findings? No, indeedy! We’d have gone home to my apartment and talked about Jimmy, and cuddled the baby.”

Claire covered her eyes quickly with a shaking hand.

“Oh, I couldn’t have stood that. This has been much better. It’s helped me to forget for a little while.”

Mrs. Larry shook her head.

“Oh, no, it hasn’t. You’re not the kind to forget. You’re too sweet and womanly and loyal, and you’re going to tell me what happened,—why you sent Jimmy away.”

“Because I love him too well to marry him.”

Mrs. Larry’s pretty oval face clouded. She was essentially a normal, single-minded woman. To her way of thinking, if you loved a man, you married him and made him happy. You did not send him off to another city to liveamong strangers, quite probably in some fussy, musty boarding-house. Subtleties of this sort positively annoyed her. They seemed so unnecessary, so futile. However, she cloaked her real feelings and threw an extra sympathetic note into her next speech.

“Well, tell me the worst! I’m bromidic, I know, but perhaps I can help. Marriage does help one to understand the male creature!”

Nobody could withstand Mrs. Larry in this mood. Mrs. Larry was not her real name. She was Mrs. Lawrence Hall, born Gregory, christened Elizabeth Ellen, but from the day of her marriage she had been nick-named “Mrs. Larry” by all those fortunate enough to count themselves as friends or acquaintances. And she loved the name. She said it made her feel so completely married to Larry. For be it known that Mr. Larry was the planet round which Mrs. Larry, Larry Junior, Baby Lisbeth, and even Lena, the maid of all work in the house of Hall, revolved as subsidiary stars. Unhappy wives, bewildered husbands, uncertain bachelors and all too certain young women confided their love-affairs to Mrs. Larry and lefther presence cheered, if not actually helped in the solution of their particular problems.

So she was quite sure that Claire would open her heart when the proper moment arrived. It came when the white-uniformed waitress, having served the sandwiches and the chocolate, hurried away to collect payment on a luncheon check. The words were not gracious, but the tone in which they were uttered would have moved a heart of stone. They fairly set Mrs. Larry’s quivering.

“Well, if you must know, it was this—and this—and this——” wailed Claire, as she poked the tip of her spoon into the top of her sandwich, the whipped cream on her chocolate and the powdered sugar heaped in the silver bowl.

“The high cost of living—money, dirty, sordid, hideously essential money. We can’t live on Jimmy’s income, and he’s too proud to let father give me even my ridiculous little allowance after we are married. He says he’ll support his own wife and his own house, or he doesn’t want either. And, do you know, he doesn’t draw any more money out of the firm each month than my father pays for the upkeepof our limousine? Can you picture me trying to stretch forty dollars a week to provide everything—everything—for Jimmy and me?”

“You could learn, dear,” suggested Mrs. Larry, with a secret thrill at the thought of her own housewifely abilities.

“That’s what Jimmy said, but when we figured it all out, from house rent to cravats for Jimmy, crediting me incidentally with being the experienced housewife I amnot, there wasn’t five cents left for insurance, the savings fund or the simplest recreation, let alone luxuries. In his profession, Jimmy’d just have to keep up appearances on the outside, if we had to live on oatmeal gruel and dried apples in the privacy of our apartment. I tried to persuade Jimmy to let father loan him a few thousand, just for the good of his career. He accused me of trying to weaken his character. He said I could learn how to manage, if I really loved him. And I told him if he waited until I knew how to manage a house on forty dollars a week, he’d forget how to love me.”

Claire made a fine pretense of choking overher hot chocolate. Anything was better than allowing even so sympathetic a person as Mrs. Larry to see that she was shedding tears over a certain party now speeding in the direction of Kansas City. Mrs. Larry drew her smooth brows together in a frown.

“But, Claire, dear, there are women who keep nice little homes on twenty dollars a week.”

“Their husbands are not ambitious and coming lawyers. No, dear woman, I recognize my own limitations, and I love Jimmy too well to interfere with his future—to—to wreck his dear life. But it does seem as if mother might have realized that one of us girls might fall in love with some one besides a rich man. She might have taught me something about the value of money and the management of a house.”

Mrs. Larry, reaching for her purse, pictured the easy-going, money-spending life of the Pierce household, with its inherited and well invested money and its irresponsible wife and mother. But she said in her cheeriest voice:

“Well, my dear Claire, there is always a way out of such a situation, when there’s nothing more serious at stake than the high cost of living.And nothing in the world would shake the loyalty of a man like Jimmy Graves. You see—in his very next letter——”

“But there won’t be any next letter——” Claire extended a ringless hand.

Mrs. Larry gasped.

“Claire Pierce, you didn’t!”

“Yes, and what’s more—he—he took it. Of course, I expected him to insist upon my keeping it.”

Mrs. Larry was so amazed, so shocked that she almost forgot to leave a tip on the tray for the waitress. She even rose without adjusting her veil.

“Let’s go down to the concert hall,” she murmured. “They usually have an organ recital in the afternoon. I can always think better to music.”

They threaded their way between the tables and under the broad archway to the foyer connecting the elevators and the smaller dining-room used for afternoon tea. Here they were approached by a well-mannered salesgirl, carrying small announcements, which she offered with an ingratiating smile.

“Wouldn’t you like to stop for the lecture this afternoon? It will begin in ten minutes.”

Claire and Mrs. Larry accepted the printed announcements mechanically, their gaze fixed on the tea room, which was already half full. On the platform, bustling employees of the store were arranging what looked like an exhibit, bolts of cloth and silk, ready-made garments, shoes, gloves, linens, perfumes. The saleswoman followed their curious glance.

“Those are the heads of departments and the buyers. They are going to answer questions after the lecture.”

“What’s the subject of the lecture?” inquired Mrs. Larry.

The salesgirl actually chuckled and pointed to the card in Mrs. Larry’s hand—

“‘What Do You Do With Father’s Money?’”

Other women had gathered round, sensing the unusual.

“Itisa funny title, isn’t it?” exclaimed the girl, quite thrilled by her small but interested audience. “A lady from one of the magazines is holding a conference here all this week for housekeepers and mothers.”

“Yes,” interrupted Mrs. Larry, “but what does she mean by such a title, ‘What Do You Do With Father’s Money?’”

“Oh,” answered the girl brightly, “she’s going to tell you, first, how women who don’t know how to shop, waste the money their men folks earn; and then the different buyers are going to tell you how to know the difference between good goods and bad.”

An elevator discharged fifteen or eighteen women, who, with note-books in hand, hurried toward the lecture room. Some of them nodded to the salesgirl as they passed.

“Lots of the ladies have been here every afternoon, but I think this is going to be the biggest meeting of all. That title’s made a hit: ‘What Do You Do With Father’s Money?’”

Mrs. Larry gripped Claire’s arm feverishly and fairly dragged her toward the lecture room.

“My dear, I told you there’d be a way out. Talk about providence,—to think of our stumbling, first thing, on a lecture about getting your money’s worth. You ought to take this as an omen!”

They found seats near the platform andwatched with interest the operations of the buyers arranging their exhibits and the movements of the competent-looking woman with a short maternal figure, snapping bright eyes and a friendly way of addressing the women in the audience who plainly regarded her as their leader. Claire, still benumbed by the departure of Jimmy Graves, sat gazing in preoccupied fashion at figures which were just so many manikins. Gregarious Mrs. Larry turned to the woman on her left.

“Have you been to the other meetings?”

“Indeed, yes, and you wouldn’t believe how much I have learned.”

“About what?” asked Mrs. Larry.

“Oh, about taking care of yourself before the baby comes, feeding babies, diet for older children, discipline, and lots of things that puzzle young mothers like me. It’s funny, isn’t it, how we girls marry without knowing a single thing about handling children, when they are the biggest thing in our lives after marriage.”

“Except our husbands,” was Mrs. Larry’s mental reservation. “Yes,” she said aloud. “I had lots of trouble with my first baby. I managedbetter with the second. But who bears the expenses of this conference? We didn’t pay any admission!”

“Oh, it’s done by the Kimbells. My husband says it’s a very clever way to bring women into the store. And you just want to buy everything the doctors and the lecturers tell you about.”

The brisk-looking leader had mounted the platform. An expectant hush fell upon the audience.

“Yesterday afternoon, when I announced the subject of to-day’s lecture, ‘What Do You Do With Father’s Money?’ a good many of you laughed. Some of you shook your heads, because you know how hard it is to make father’s money go around. And one reason why it is so hard to stretch the family income is this: You don’t know what you are getting for the money you spend,—how much nourishment it contains, if it is for food; how long it will wear, if it is clothing. You take a chance. You guess. But you don’tknow. And because you don’t know, quite a little of father’s money goes to waste.

“Now, this isn’t your fault. It is becauseeconomic and domestic conditions have changed or progressed, but the training of women has not changed nor progressed in the same way. We are still trying to economize by concocting dishes out of left-overs in the refrigerator, and turning and dyeing clothes, when it is far more important that we should know the true value of food and fabrics when we buy them.

“A few generations back, your ancestors and mine, both husbands and wives, raised together in the field, the pasture and the garden, most of the foodstuffs required for the family. And in the great kitchen were woven most of the fabrics required for clothing the family. What could not be raised on the land or made in the home was traded for at the country store. Quite generally, these negotiations were conducted by the men of the family. The women knew how much sugar would be brought home for each dozen of eggs, how many pounds of butter they must send to the store for a pair of shoes.

“Then farms were cut up into towns, towns were swallowed by cities and the family loom disappeared before the advancing factory. The daughter of the woman who had dried apples,cherries and corn on the tin roof of her lean-to kitchen served at her table the product of canneries. And everybody whose ancestors had traded butter and eggs and cheese and smoke-house ham for drygoods had money to spend instead. Some of them had a great deal of money—more than was good for them. The country passed through a period of prosperity and suddenly acquired wealth, but nobody thought to teach this new generation of women the value of money or how to spend it to best advantage. No one even realized that while extravagant habits were gripping American women, nobody warned them concerning the lean days that would come with financial panic, and nobody observed the quiet but steady increase in the cost of living.

“Then the deluge! Greedy corporations cornered food supplies. The high cost of living became a bitter reality. And behold, press and public bewailing the extravagance of the American woman and comparing her unfavorably with her housewifely sisters across the sea!

“This is unjust. Give the American woman lessons in thrift along the modern lines of incomeand expenditure, and she will work out her splendid salvation. Throw light on food values, on fabrics and their adulteration. Teach the woman how to buy as well as how to utilize what she buys, and she will be able to solve, in her own way, the much discussed problem of the high cost of living. She will know what to do with father’s money.

“It is not possible in one short afternoon to discuss food values and modern methods of marketing, but when you have heard what these ladies and gentlemen have to say,” indicating the buyers in charge of their respective exhibits, “you will realize what you can save by knowing more about what you buy. I take pleasure in introducing Mr. Jones, the linen buyer.”

Mr. Jones, an elderly man, took his place beside a table piled high with towels, table and bed linen.

“As each one of us is limited to a few minutes,” he explained, while the more experienced women in the audience opened their note-books, “I will take up just one point in the buying of linens, the difference between real linen andmercerized cotton. It is on this one point that shoppers are most often deceived and cheated. Do not misunderstand me. Mercerized cotton is worth the price an honest firm asks for mercerized cotton. But it is not worth the price asked for linen. When you buy mercerized cotton at the price for which you should receive honest linen, then you are wasting fifty per cent. of father’s money; throwing away fifty cents out of every dollar, twenty-five cents out of every fifty.

“Mercerized cotton wears just as long as linen, but it does not wear in the same way. Properly laundered, it shines quite as highly as good linen damask, but there is this difference—the first time mercerized cotton is laundered it begins to shed a fine fuzz or lint which settles on your clothing. No doubt you have noticed this, when you have dined at a restaurant and discovered lint from the tablecloth or napkin on your tailored suit. Most of the linen used in restaurants is not linen at all—it is mercerized cotton. The lint which sticks to your clothes is the same lint that rises like a haze in a cotton mill. But when I visit a big linenmill in Ireland, Belgium, Flanders or Germany, there is no lint in the air. Flax, from which real linen is made, does not give forth lint.

“Buy mercerized cotton for your dining-room table or your bedding, if you want, but pay just what it is worth and no more. To be quite explicit, as mercerized cotton fabrics are worth just half what pure linen is worth, if you pay for mercerized cotton the price asked for pure linen, you are wasting father’s money.

“I have here two bolts of table ‘linen’ in exactly the same chrysanthemum design. One of these is real linen, value one dollar and fifty cents per yard; the other is mercerized cotton, value seventy-five cents per yard. I am quite sure that when these two bolts are passed around, you will not be able to tell the linen from the mercerized cotton. My own salesmen can not tell them apart without applying some sort of a test. Down in our basement you can buy the mercerized cotton at seventy-five cents a yard. If you will launder it carefully, rinsing it finally in very thin starch water, iron it very dry with heavy irons, you can get exactly the same gloss possible for linen damask, and youwill get its full value of seventy-five cents a yard.

“The real linen sells at one dollar and fifty cents per yard, in our linen department on the second floor. If you want to spend a dollar and a half a yard for table linen, just make sure that you are getting linen and not mercerized cotton, that you are getting a dollar in fabric value for every dollar of father’s money.”

Several clerks started to carry the bolts of linen through the audience. Instantly an eager woman was on her feet.

“But how are we to know the difference between mercerized cotton and linen, if your own clerks do not recognize it?” she demanded.

“By asking the clerk to test what you are buying, in front of your eyes. Have the material moistened on the right side. If the moisture shows almost immediately on the wrong side you may be reasonably sure that it is linen damask. If, however, the moisture does not show quickly on the wrong side, you may be pretty sure that it is cotton so highly mercerized or finished that the polish or finish withstands moisture. Or you can have it rubbedwith a damp cloth. Linen will remain smooth; mercerized cotton will roughen.

“Moreover, as soon as the salesman finds out that you know how to buy linen, he will tell you the truth rather than be caught in an attempt to deceive you. Don’t say to a salesman, as some of our customers do, ‘I don’t know anything about linens, except the kind of pattern I like, so I’ll have to depend on you about quality,’ Don’t confess ignorance and invite deception when you can so easily possess knowledge.”

When the linen had been passed from one part of the audience to another, and the excitement had subsided, the buyer of cotton dress goods took the floor to explain the difference in price and values between imported and domestic goods. Like the linen buyer, he contended that the cheaper goods of domestic manufacture wear quite as well and hold their colors quite as long as their imported cousins, the difference being largely in sheerness and in design. There could be no doubt, he admitted, that foreign cotton goods, like mulls, organdies, lawns, veilings, etc., are more finely wovenfrom more distinctive designs than those made in American mills. But from economic reasons and not from patriotism, he urged the woman of limited means to buy summer fabrics of American manufacture.

“In preferring foreign fabrics,” he added, “you are only indulging a taste for luxury, satisfying your desire to have fabrics of more exclusive color and design than your neighbor. You won’t get one more day’s wear for spending thirty per cent., even fifty per cent. more, of father’s money.”

On the other hand, the buyer of woolens advised shoppers, especially those who sought material for tailored suits, separate skirts and one-piece serge dresses for hard wear, to give the preference to foreign weaves, as these would withstand all bad weather conditions.

The buyer for flannels next took the floor, and many women were surprised to learn that the all-wool flannel for petticoats and binders for the layette, the all-wool shirts and stockings for the new baby, represented a waste of father’s money. Wool and cotton mixed or wool and silk will shrink less, wear longer andgive more comfort to the wearer than the coveted all-wool.

“Only don’t pay for fine cotton and wool what you would pay for all-wool or silk and wool,” exclaimed the buyer, as she carried samples of the different weaves from aisle to aisle.

The shoe buyer discussed the wearing qualities of different leathers and explained how cheap shoes that did not fit are more expensive in the end than higher priced shoes properly fitted. Also how the foot changes at different ages and how the health and working capacity of human beings are affected by so simple a factor as the shoes they wear. But most interesting of all, to the average woman, was the illuminating talk given by the buyer of suits, coats and blouses.

“You women who buy ready-made clothes think that when you have undone the parcel, paid the balance due on it, and shaken out the garment, it is quite ready for you to wear. You have bought it ready-made to escape visits to the dressmaker or the annoyance of a seamstress in the house, or any tax on your ownlimited abilities as a sewer. All you have to do now is to wear the dress. What is more, you figure that it is much cheaper to buy a taffeta house dress for sixteen dollars and seventy-five cents than to have one made at the dressmaker’s or in the home at twenty dollars or twenty-five dollars. On the surface, you are right. You do pay out less money, but I will tell you a little secret. If you don’t go over a ready-made garment, even at sixteen dollars and seventy-five cents, you have wasted several dollars of father’s money, and I will explain why.

“In order to turn out clothing in quantities large enough to yield a profit and at prices low enough to have popular appeal, a manufacturer must depend upon certain employees to inspect the output of the factory. These women and girls work rapidly and sometimes miss defects. For a few inches, one side of a seam may slip from under the machine; a tired girl may catch a button or hook with a single thread when she should use three or four; a bit of lace may not be fastened tight. Now, if on receipt of this garment you take time to go overit carefully, you can lengthen its life one-third. If a seam is not deep enough at a point where there is considerable strain, rip it for a few inches and take a deeper seam by hand. If you see that a piece of lace is almost loose, re-sew it before it begins to fray, or you will have to set in a new piece of lace at your own expense. It pays to fasten on buttons, bows, ornaments and buckles. You can’t expect the workers in a great factory to take the same individual pains that your dressmaker or seamstress would take. It costs money to renew trifles like these which drop from a ready-made garment. Sometimes you can not match them at all and your dress is spoiled.

“I’ve known women who, in their haste to wear a pretty new blouse, neglected so simple a thing as sewing in shields. If your dressmaker or the home seamstress had spent enough time to make a satisfactory gown, you may rest assured she would not forget the shields. A self-toned braid, at ten or fifteen cents, will lengthen the life of a ready-made skirt. Fashionable tailors never send out a high-priced suit without suggesting braid forthe skirt. For ten cents and a little time, you can add this exclusive and economical touch to your ready-made skirt.”

Long before the different buyers had finished their talks, Claire Pierce was roused from her lethargy of near-despair. She was beginning to understand, to a small degree, why her efficient, optimistic lover had been so sure that she would master the intricacies of household expenditure. All around her were women who knew how to be happy on small incomes or who were there to find the road to such contentment. She felt sudden contempt for the careless way in which she and her sisters had always ordered their gowns, without even demanding itemized bills for the father who paid them so cheerfully.

As for Mrs. Larry, she had leaned forward in the receptive attitude of a child watching its first Punch and Judy show. And now that the buyers were retiring behind their exhibits, the conference leader once more mounted the platform.

“I know we have all learned a great deal this afternoon about better values for father’smoney, and I hope that each one of us will use this knowledge in our homes, not only to save father’s money, but to bring to ourselves greater contentment with our lot, and, in the end, little luxuries which we must now deny ourselves. For in efficiency there is contentment, and through true economy do we attain luxuries. I believe in what is commonly called luxuries. I believe in the right of every refined, intelligent wife to enjoy these luxuries.

“I wonder how many of you women are weary of petty economies, of making over clothes, of trying to stretch a chicken to cover the meat course for three meals?”

A wave of laughter passed over the room, but it was not free from hysteria. The speaker continued.

“I know just how you feel. You turn and you twist, you warm up and you conjure new dishes out of next to nothing, and, still, at the end of the year, you realize how little money has gone into the savings bank, or how much is still due on the mortgage. You wonder if you will ever be able to buy a complete new dress; whether you can ever spare enough money forNellie to go to dancing school, or for you and your husband to hear a good concert. I hope these talks will help you to solve just such problems. I’d like to think of each one of you having just one thing that you have always denied yourself, and to have it by learning how to get the most for father’s money.”

On the applause which followed, Claire Pierce rose, new vitality straightening the figure that had drooped at the luncheon table. It was Mrs. Larry who sat quite still, looking beyond the platform with its group of buyers, its exhibit of purple and fine linen, and the cheery conference leader, far, far up-town into a certain apartment where reposed certain manila envelopes known to herself and Mr. Larry as “The Budget.”

As Claire Pierce touched her elbow, she drew a deep sigh and rose.

“Oh, dear,” said Claire, “if only I’d heard this talk before I said what I did to Jimmy!”

Mrs. Larry came to with a start.

“Jimmy? Oh, yes, Jimmy! Forgive me. I’d forgotten him. You see, I was thinking of my Larry.”

“There is nothing in high finance more excitingly uncertain than just trying to get your money’s worth!”—H. C. OF L. PROVERB NO. 2.

Mrs. Larrysat at the old mahogany secretary which had been Great-aunt Abigail’s wedding gift, her elbows planted in a litter of papers covered with figures and her despairing gaze fixed on a row of small manila envelopes.

It was the second day after the lecture at the Kimbell store on “What Do You Do With Father’s Money?”. Mrs. Larry had attacked her account book and budget envelopes in a fine spirit of enthusiasm. With an intelligent knowledge of true fabric values, she would be able now to transfer from the two envelopes marked “Operating Expenses” and “Clothing,” to the one marked “Luxuries,” at least ten dollars a month.

But, alas, she found that the fund for luxuries amounted to exactly one dollar and thirteen cents, while there existed no immediate need for renewing linen or clothing at the promised reduction. On the other hand, a month’s rent was due, and a dentist’s bill had arrived that very morning. Both expenses were imperative and non-reducible. She shook out the dimes, nickels and pennies from the envelope marked “Luxuries” and arranged them in a geometrical design.

“It can’t be done!” she groaned, and shook a rebellious fist at the smug-looking envelopes. Then suddenly she swung round in her chair, startled by an unexpected yet strangely familiar sound.

She glanced sharply at the clock. Its tick was strictly businesslike and the hands pointed to twenty minutes past two. Yet surely that had been the click of Larry’s key in the front door, and now Larry’s never-to-be-mistaken step coming down the hall.

Only an emergency, very bad news or very good, would bring Larry home in the middle of a crisp autumn afternoon.

Now he was in the doorway, looking quite commonplace and natural, except for a sharp frown above the eyes which usually smiled at sight of her.

“Hello, little woman,” he said, drawing her close with that little air of proprietorship which never failed to thrill her, “I’m leaving for South Bethlehem at five—back Thursday—wonder if you could pack my bag while I take a nap? Head aches.”

He was out of his coat and shoes with the last word.

“Put in a soft shirt,” he added as he sank on the couch and reached for the rug.

“Has anything happened?” asked Mrs. Larry, adjusting the rug to his feet in the way he liked best.

“I should say so,” he answered drowsily. “Directors couldn’t declare any dividend this quarter. Had all of us on the carpet this morning. Seems up to me and Duggan to reduce expenses. I’ve got to cut about ten thousand dollars in my department this year. Call me at three-thirty, will you, dear?”

And he was off!

Mrs. Larry stood like a statue, staring down an this wonderful creature who, confronted by the task of reducing expenses by ten thousand a year, could fall off asleep in a few seconds.

That’s what came of being a man, she decided—a man, privileged to deal in big figures, hundreds, thousands, instead of dollars, quarters and dimes! Her glance traveled back to the hated sheets of papers and the accusing envelopes, labeled: “Rent,” “Operating Expenses,” “Food,” “Clothing,” “Savings,” “Care and Education,” “Luxuries.”

Something very like hysterical laughter rose in her throat. Larry could sleep with a weight of ten thousand on his mind, and she would lie awake nights figuring how to save ten dollars a month. She looked down at her husband.

How strong and capable, even in his sleep, this man who worked day after day, year in and year out, for her and the babies, who turned over to her all that he earned. The beauty of his unquestioning trust brought a different sort of choke to her throat. Ofcourse, she would find a way to save that extra ten each month—for Larry’s use or pleasure.

Then she tiptoed out of the living-room, closing the door behind her, lest the children, coming in from their walk, should fall upon their father like the Philistines they were. But as she packed his bag and laid out his clean linen, her mind turned over and over the troublesome question, and the lines reappeared in her broad white forehead.

She was tabulating the luxuries which they denied themselves. First, there was Larry’s love for music. From the day of their engagement they had subscribed annually to a certain series of orchestral concerts. When it had come time this year to renew the subscription, she had had to tell Larry that the family budget would not admit of the expenditure. Larry, Junior’s, measles, her dentist’s bill, and the filling out of their dinner set from open stock, had overdrawn the envelopes marked “Care and Education” and “Operating Expenses,” leaving a vacuum in the one labeled “Luxuries.”

She did not care so much for herself—twice during the last season she had been too tired really to appreciate the symphonies, but Larry rested and recuperated through music. He had pretended not to care, and had suggested that they might buy an occasional ticket for the very best concerts; but she knew that giving up the subscription tickets had marked the biggest sacrifice of Larry’s married life.

Then for herself there was the day when Belle Saunders had told her that, being in mourning, she would sell her blue fox set for fifteen dollars. And Mrs. Larry, looking into the envelope marked “Clothing” had realized that one must go without furs—as well as subscription tickets, but a fox set at fifteen dollars was an opportunity.

It was utterly absurd, she agreed with the lecturer, that a husband and wife with two babies could not enjoy an occasional luxury of this sort on an income of two hundred dollars a month. It was unthinkable that on this income she might not take advantage of an opportunity like Belle Saunders’ fox set. She was tired of skimping and saving, tired of self-denialin this city of New York, where at every turn was the temptation to buy that which would beautify one’s home or brighten one’s life. And then suddenly a sharp pain shot through her heart.

If she were dissatisfied with what they were getting out of life, how must Larry feel? If she irked at spending everything on stern necessities, how must he, who earned it all, rebel?

There was no doubt about it! She must reform her management of their income. A new envelope marked “Larry” must be started and filled—ten dollars a month, one hundred and twenty dollars a year—her little labor of love for Larry’s pleasure, no, not selfish pleasure, but for both of them a little joy in living that would lift them above the mere sordid effort to make both ends meet and to educate the children.

“Larry,” she inquired, as he brushed his hair with the vigor of one who has enjoyed a well-deserved nap and is the better for it, “why are you and Mr. Duggan expected to save all the money for the company?”

“Because we have the two departments where it can be done. Duggan is superintendent of employees. He must reduce the force or the wages, or increase the output of his workers. This will lessen the cost of production, through better management—efficiency, we call it. I must buy to better advantage, for less money, and still give the firm the same quality of raw material to work with.”

“But you can’t do that, Larry. If you get cheaper material it’s bound not to be so good.”

“Not necessarily,” said Larry, slipping on his coat. “It’s up to me to study the market more closely, to find new markets, if I can. That’s why I’m going to South Bethlehem—if you’ll let me.”

He smiled down on her, loosening the hands that clasped his arm so closely.

“Don’t take it so seriously, little woman. I’ve been up against stiffer jobs than this, and always found a way out. Kiss the kiddies for me. If I don’t get through to-morrow night, I’ll wire.”

The door banged behind him and Mrs. Larry shook herself impatiently. What in the worldhad she started to call after him? That the wire would cost a quarter and he must not waste the money!

The thought of it made her dizzy and faint. No matter where Larry went, how long he was gone, he had always kept in touch with her by night lettergrams, and she had come to begrudge him this comfort! Could it be that she had taken the lecturer at Kimbell’s too seriously? Or was there something radically wrong with the plan of her budget, with her household management; she had tried so hard to be thrifty.

“Thrift!”

What did the word mean?

She reached for her dictionary.

Thrift—care and prudence in the management of one’s resources.

Well, Larry’s salary was their one resource—and there was no increasing it. The seven little envelopes were as inevitable as the rising and the setting of the sun.

What had Larry said? It was up to Duggan to reduce the force of workers or cut their wages. She had long since parted with a generalhousekeeper who represented waste in the kitchen. Now she was doing her own cooking, with Lena, a young Swedish girl, at three dollars a week to help in the kitchen, wash dishes and take the children for their daily airing on Riverside Drive, and a laundress one day in the week. No, there was no reducing the force or wages.

And what had Larry said about the purchasing department?

“Buy to better advantage. Find a new market.”

She shuddered at the thought. Had she not bought a lot of canned goods at a department store sale, only to find that they were “seconds” and tasteless? Hadn’t Aunt Myra induced her to buy poultry, eggs and cheese from the man who ran Uncle Jack’s farm on shares, with the result that one-third of the eggs were broken through poor packing, and they had to live on poultry for days interminable—or have it spoil on their hands?

And Mr. Dorlon, the grocer, was so clean and convenient and obliging. She simply could not change, she told herself firmly. And yet,the lecturer insinuated that a housewife wasted money when she did not know food values. She had decided that the very foundations of her household management were shaking, when the telephone bell rang and she hurried down the hall to answer it.

“Can’t you and Larry come over to dinner to-night?” Teresa Moore inquired. “The Gregorys are stopping over on their way to California.”

“Oh,” sighed Mrs. Larry. “Larry’s just left for South Bethlehem. I’m so sorry.”

“Well, you can come. I’ll telephone Claire Pierce and Jimmy Graves. Jimmy met the Gregorys last summer.”

“Claire might come, but Jimmy’s gone back to Kansas City. Invite Claire and I’ll drop out.”

“Not for a minute,” answered Mrs. Moore. “I’ll phone my brother to fill Larry’s place. It’s all very informal. We’ll just make it seven instead of eight. We’ll all take you home and stop somewhere to trot a bit. Do come. Larry would want you to.”

“All right,” said Mrs. Larry, almost blithely.She stopped at the secretary long enough to thrust the bothersome envelopes into a drawer. At Teresa Moore’s there never seemed any question about giving a little dinner or going to the theater, and yet George Moore earned only fifty dollars more a month than Larry did. To be sure, the Moores had only one baby—and Teresa’s mother gave her an occasional frock. Still, some day she would ask Teresa for a little inside information on budget-building.

It was Teresa’s bachelor brother who made the opening for Mrs. Larry that very evening at dinner. He looked with undisguised admiration upon a baked potato which had just been served to him by the trim maid.

“Teresa, I take my hat off to your baked potatoes. There isn’t a club chef in New York who can hold a candle to you when it comes to baking these.”

“It isn’t the baking, my dear boy, it’s the buying of them. A watery potato won’t bake well.”

“Ah—and how, pray, do you know a waterypotato from a dry one?” inquired her brother with something akin to respect in his voice.

“By breaking them open, silly boy,” she answered with a gay little laugh. “As runs one, so, generally speaking, runs the whole basket. I don’t look at the size or smoothness of the skin, but at the grain of the broken potato.”

“Are they Maine or Long Island potatoes?” asked Mrs. Larry suddenly.

“Maine,” answered Mrs. Moore. “There isn’t a Long Island potato on the market to-day.”

“But, Mr. Dorlon—”

“Told you so! Yes, and they always will, if you ask for Long Island potatoes. I don’t take any one’s word for food. The only safeguard is to know your market for yourself and ask no information of the dealer.”

“Then you think there are no honest dealers?” asked Mr. Gregory.

“Lots of them,” replied his brisk hostess, “but we women put a premium on misinformation and trickery by demanding what the market does not offer. We demand fresh countryeggs when only the dealers in certified eggs can furnish them, and so we get cold storage eggs labeled ‘country,’ We demand Long Island potatoes when the market is sold out, and we get Maine potatoes at a slightly higher figure than they should bring, because the dealer does not dare tell us the truth. If he does, we go to another dealer who knows us better.”

“In Boston,” remarked Mrs. Gregory, “we have a little marketing club and study prices and market conditions. It takes time, but it saves us all quite a little.”

Mrs. Larry ate mechanically, hardly knowing what was served. This was what the lecturer had meant about studying food values—what Larry had meant by finding a new market. But both of them had missed the mark. She would combine the two, study the old markets and find new ones.

Mrs. Moore was warming up to the topic and everybody was interested. “New York is headquarters for the National Housewives’ League. We have district branches and leaders, and we are shaking up the dealers just beautifully. Last week our district leader announcedthat there had been a drop in bacon and ham. One of the nationally advertised brands of bacon in jars was selling at several cents less a jar. I asked my grocer why he had not reduced the price. He said this was the first he’d heard of it. The next day he started a sale on this particular brand, and I bought a dozen jars. He knew all the time that the firm had cut the price, that ham and bacon were down, but he did not give his customers, who did not know the same thing, the advantage of the wholesale cut. Other grocers gave it and announced it as a special or leader.

“That’s why I belong to the National Housewives’ League. Grocers and butchers may argue with an individual woman who has read about food prices in the papers, but when a committee bears down upon them, they listen respectfully and admit the truth about prices.”

“Then you believe that the old ogre H. C. of L., otherwise known as the High Cost of Living, can be reduced by an organization of housewives who agitate for lower prices?” inquired Mr. Gregory.

“I believe in education first, and organizationafterward. An organization of women who do not know food values or market conditions will start a sensational campaign against cold storage eggs or poultry, and then subside. What we need under existing food conditions is women educated as buyers, not as cooks. It’s no use to economize in the kitchen and waste in the market.”

Mrs. Larry glanced round the table. Even the bachelor brother was listening intently. Of course—she had heard rumors of his attentions to that pretty Murray girl. As for Claire Pierce, her face bore the expression of one who sat at the feet of wisdom and understood.

“What does it avail a woman to have thirty-five recipes for utilizing the remains of a roast, if she does not know how to buy a roast in the beginning? Our grandmothers, yes, and even our mothers, used to devise means of making what was grown on the farm go as far as possible. To-day, our men folks grow nothing. We women in the cities and the towns and the villages must go out and buy so wisely that we rival in this new housekeeping the frugality of our ancestors. It’s all in the buying.”

Mrs. Larry, nibbling a salted almond, thought of her own burning zeal in using up left-overs, and almost sighed. No doubt Teresa Moore and the lecturer were both right. It was all in the buying. And her patient industry in the kitchen had probably been undone and set at naught by the trickery of grocer or butcher. She had been paying the old price for bacon and ham. She had been paying the price of Long Island potatoes for the Maine brand. She—

Goodness gracious! Larry had gone to South Bethlehem to find a better market—andshehad only to turn the corner.

Again she glanced round the table, her eye resting now on Teresa Moore’s new bonbon dish, which she had bought at a mid-summer sale, and at Mrs. Gregory’s fresh, straight-from-the-shop black chiffon. Of course they could have new things. They had found the right market, through organization and education. She wanted to laugh aloud, did Mrs. Larry. She wanted to go right out and send a telegram about that new envelope marked—no,not “Larry,” but “A little pleasure as we go along.”

However, as the conversation had drifted from food values to a new play, she pulled herself together and chatted with the rest. But as she parted with her hostess a few hours later, she said:

“Teresa, give me the address of the Housewives’ League.”

“Going to join, honey?” asked Mrs. Moore.

“Yes,—I’m starting on an adventure—in thrift.”

“I’ll go with you,” laughed Teresa. “Meet me at the headquarters of the Housewives’ League, 25 West Forty-fifth Street, Monday morning. We’re having a demonstration of meat cuts—by a butcher.”

“I’ll be there,” replied Mrs. Larry promptly.

She did not go alone. Claire had insisted on accompanying her.

“So long as Teresa doesn’t know about—about—Jimmy’s going away as he did, we won’t have to tell her. And—and—even if I never did marry and, of course, I wouldn’t marry any one but Jimmy—I might want todo work among the poor and this would help me.”

Mrs. Larry nodded her head. She was wise enough not to insinuate that welfare work would never supplant love for Jimmy in Claire’s heart. The all-important thing just now was to act as if nothing had happened between the two young people.

“I love to have you with me, Claire. Perhaps I’m a little stale in the domestic light. Your fresh view-point will help me amazingly.”

Stepping from the elevator they found themselves in a huge undecorated auditorium covering an entire floor of a great office building. Just ahead was a desk, where they registered in the National League, paying ten cents each and receiving in return a small button, with a navy blue rim and lettering on a white ground, “Housewives’ League.”

“Wear this whenever you market,” said the secretary. “It commands respect.”

Beyond the desk was a space given over to desks, tables and bookcases filled with free bulletins and literature on food values and food preparations, easy chairs and settees.

Teresa Moore came bustling forward to greet them.

“This,” she explained, “is the first club-room ever opened exclusively for housekeepers. Here may come any housekeeper, member of the League or not, New Yorker or suburbanite, to read our bulletins and magazines, to rest, to write notes on League stationery, to meet friends. We want to educate home-makers to the club idea, to put housekeeping on a club basis.

“Way over there in the corner is the desk of our national president, Mrs. Julian Heath. Across the room is the gas demonstration, cooking, ironing, etc. And now we must hurry if we are to see the meat demonstration.”

One side of the great auditorium was filled with camp chairs and groups of interested eager women. On a platform, a force of butchers and helpers were hanging up a great side of fresh beef. Near the platform were two blocks on which the meat could be cut into pieces.

“Now, ladies, this is the fore-quarter—”

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