Dr. Lively--potatoes; that is, mostly. How much do I pay out
a month for help? A half cent? Not a quarter of it. How much is wasted
in my housekeeping? Not a single crumb. It would keep any common woman
busy cooking for that boy. I tell you, Dr. Lively, I can't economize
any more than I do and have done. I might wring and twist and screw
in every possible direction, and at the year's end there wouldn't be a
nickel to show for all the wringing and twisting and screwing. There's
only one way in which the purse can be made up--there's only one way
in which economy is possible. You can save that money, Dr. Lively:
you're the only member of the family who has a luxury."

"Hang me with a grapevine if I've got any luxury!" said the doctor
with something of an amused expression on his face.

"Tobacco," suggested Napoleon.

"Yes, it's tobacco. You can give up the nasty weed, the filthy habit."

"Do it?" asked Napoleon.

"Don't think I shall," replied the doctor coolly.

"Then I'll save the money," responded Mrs. Lively with heroic voice
and manner. "I had forgotten: there is one other way. Dr. Lively, I'm
housekeeper, laundress, cook, everything to your family. And what do
I get for it? Less than any twelve-year-old girl who goes out to
service. I have the blessed privilege of lodging in this old Mormon
rat-hole, and I have just enough of the very cheapest victuals to
keep the breath in my body; and one single, solitary thing that is not
absolutely necessary to my existence--one thing that I could possibly
live without."

"What?" asked Napoleon, gaping and staring.

"It is sugar--sugar in my coffee. I'll drink my coffee without sugar
till that sixty dollars is made up. I'll never touch sugar again till
that money is made good--never!" and into the kitchen sailed Mrs.
Lively with her pan of dishes.

"Sugar, please," demanded Napoleon the next morning at the
breakfast-table. Dr. Lively passed over the sugar-bowl.

"How can you have the heart to take so much?" said the mother,
watching Napoleon as he emptied one heaping spoonful and then another
into his coffee-cup. "But I might have known you'd leave your
mother to bear the burden all alone. All the economizing, all the
self-denial, must come on my shoulders. And just look at me!--nothing
but skin and bones. I've got to make up everybody's losses,
everybody's wasting. It's a rare thing if I get a warm meal with the
rest of you: I'm all the while eating up the cold vic