t many unnecessary things."

"Not for the last few weeks, anyhow," I said.

"Those don't count. But before that I mean. For instance there's
coffee. It's a luxury. Why we spent almost thirty cents a week on that
alone."

"I know but--"

"There's another but. There's no nourishment in coffee and we can't
afford it. We'll spend that money for milk. We must have good milk and
you must get it for me somewhere up town. I don't like the looks of
the milk around here. That will be eight cents a day."

"Better have two quarts," I suggested.

She thought a moment.

"Yes," she agreed, "two quarts, because that's going to be the basis
of our food. That's a dollar twelve cents a week."

She made up a little face at this. I smiled grandly.

"Now for breakfast we must have oatmeal every morning. And we'll get
it in bulk. I've priced it and it's only a little over three cents a
pound at some of the stores."

"And the kind we've always had?"

"About twelve when it's done up in packages. That's about the
proportion by which I expect to cut down everything. But you'll have
to eat milk on it instead of cream. Then we'll use a lot of potatoes.
They are very good baked for breakfast. And with them you may have
salt fish--oh, there are a dozen nice ways of fixing that. And you may
have griddle cakes and--you wait and see the things I'll give you for
breakfast. You'll have to have a good luncheon of course, but we'll
have our principal meal when you get back from work at night. But you
won't get steak. When we do get meat we'll buy soup bones and meat we
can boil. And instead of pies and cakes we'll have nourishing puddings
of cornstarch and rice. There's another good point--rice. It's cheap
and we'll have a lot of it. Look at how the Japanese live on it day
after day and keep fat and strong. Then there's cheap fish; rock cod
and such to make good chowders of or to fry in pork fat like the bass
and trout I used to have back home. Then there's baked beans. We ought
to have them at least twice a week in the winter. But this summer
we'll live mostly on fish and vegetables. I can get them fresh at the
market."

"It sounds good," I said.

"Just you wait," she cried excitedly. "I'll fatten up both you and the
boy."

"And yourself, little woman," I reminded her. "I'm not going to take
the saving out of you."

"Don't you worry about me," she answered. "This will be easier than
the other life. I shan't have to worry about clothes