I talked this over with Ruth and we both decided that somehow, in some
way, we must save some money every year. We started in by reducing our
household expenses still further. But it seemed as though fate were
against us for prices rose just enough to absorb all our little
economies. Flour went up and sugar went up, and though we had done
away with meat almost wholly now, vegetables went up. So, too, did
coal. Not only that but we had long since found it impossible to keep
to ourselves as we had that first year. Little by little we had been
drawn into the social life of the neighborhood. Not a month went by
but what there was a dinner or two or a whist party or a dance.
Personally I didn't care about such things but as Ruth had become a
matron and in consequence had been thrown more in contact with the
women, she had lost her shyness and grown more sociable. She often
suggested declining an invitation but we couldn't decline one without
declining all. I saw clearly enough that I had no right to do this.
She did more work than I and did not have the daily change. To have
made a social exile of her would have been to make her little better
than a slave. But it cost money. It cost a lot of money. We had to do
our part in return and though Ruth accomplished this by careful buying
and all sorts of clever devices, the item became a big one in the
year's expenses.

I began to look forward with some anxiety for the next raise. At the
office I hunted for extra work with an eye upon the place above; but
though I found the work nothing came of it but extra hours. In fact I
began to think myself lucky to hold the job I had for a gradual change
of methods had been slowly going on in the office. Mechanical adding
machines had cost a dozen men their jobs; a card system of bookkeeping
had made it possible to discharge another dozen, while an off year in
woollens sent two or three more flying, among them the man who had
found me the position in the first place. But he hadn't married and he
went out west somewhere. Occasionally when work picked up again a
young man was taken on to fill the place of one of the discharged men.
The company always saved a few hundred dollars by such a shift for the
lad never got the salary of the old employee, and so far as anyone
could see the work went on just as well.

While these moves were ominous, as I can see now in looking back, they
didn't disturb me very much at the time. I filled a little niche i