The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1882-06-28
How q New Hampshire Woman Lived
on $40 a Year.

In the W0ngGn's Journal tsT. VIII"
relates the story of New Hampshire
woman, who by the sudden loss Of her
little invested property had remaining
only an old farmhouse and some land.
'sThe sufferer was wholly alone In the
world, had paralyzed arm, and was
threatened with blindness. The only
work which her enfeebled condition per-
mitted was in the way Of knitting and
making artificial flowers; by these two
arts she could earn SIS annually - Her
whole available income was $40. She
appropriated one-fourth of 1t for read
ing. In her own very interesting account
of her life she says: -.z,---szsl
ain very cold spells took warm
freestone and crawled into bed. was
too i'll to work, and thus to do saved
firewood. 1 would put mittens on my
hands and read awhile, and when the
room became too cold for this, cover all
up and think over what had read This
saved me in degree from enervating
myself still further by fruitless poring
over poverty aud privations." As for
food: s'One-fourth pound of meal, one
cent; one-fourth pound of dried beans,
one and a half cents; two cents worth
of salt pork-four and half cents In
du-WOu1u cuPPOft Aao . oaJ oA1o . n1>h
very well. This was my usual fare
worth of barley, boiled with two cents
worth of butchers trimmings and three
cents worth of potatoes, would make
wholesome, nourishing food for two
days and go long way toward support
ing existence. / made q CON-
siderable use of rice and baked fish. In
cold weather, pound of oatmeal cooked
Monday would serve as dessert through
the week. Sometimes / had q gift Of
milk, and then feasted like an epicure.
Now and then I had some kind Of q
vegetable, as q beet or q turnip, and
from time to time bought few cents
worth of butchers scraps. more to season
food than to be food. -. Once q
month indulged in q baking of dough-
nuts, or got q pound of lard and fried
an eating of doughnuts, about six, one
at time, in tin cup over my oi-stove. +"
The contrivances for clothing were Gu
rious. The writer says: "There could
be no reductions beyond hers, for she
literally bought nothing In the way of
clothing whatever. So she lived, so TO
speak, on the past-on the wrecks of her
own clothing and other peoples. She
made whole suit out of an old straw
bed ticking, combined with the frag-
ments of pair of the drilling oyera1ls
that some workmen had left on the
premises; these she cut into strips, and
made, she declares, q very stylish trim-
ming. She unraveled old, worn-out,
homespun undergarments, and made
yarn which she knit into stockings.
She had fifteen notices in the house
made on white muslin and cotton fan
mel; these she boiled clean and had q
supply of material for undergarments,
being the first person, probably, who
discovered real use for 'mottoes.' She
found behind closet door an old over
coat of her fathers, outi.of whose quilted
lining of black lasting she made for her
self a cloak that looked like quilted sat
in. The question of hats or bonnets
was easily settled; she wore none for
three years. As for shoes, the inex-
haustible lining of the fathers overcoat
provided her with slippers which wore
better than leather"