The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1892-03-10
HOW ONE OLD MAN LIVES.
Economical Board and Room Keeping o
Resident of Washington.

1t Is wonderful how the theories of
our past lives comes back to us now as
the realities of the present. Daniel
Webster constantly made notes of cur
rent ideas, and when asked how long it
was before he used them, replied some
times twenty years, sometimes longer.
When l was a boy, in Shelby county, j
went enc day to Mr.. John Cooper's shoe
makers shop to be measured for a pair
of shoes, as the custom Of the country
then was. He and his little son Robert
lived alone in the woods in a house of
one room, which was dwelling and
shoe shop. Soon Bob's uncle, Gideon
KaylOr, about his age, came in, and Bob
joyfully exclaimed, Come, Uncle Gid,
we've got some potatoes, and there is
plenty of salt"
1t seemed strange to me to see how
eagerly they roasted and ate the potatoes
and how happy they were. They lived
happily, and yet this was all their liv-
ing. l have repeated this story fire.
quently during my prosperous days as a
great wonder, never dreaming that it
would become my own reality, as it now
10, anu l. am happy tOO.
A German woman who could not
speak a word of English came into my
Office one day with one of my German
circulars in her hand, which Mr.. Coop
had given her in Saxony. | sent her out
into the country with a German mer-
chant to look at lands, and that day she
bought a farm. The next day | made
the deeds, and she became the owner
and moved in. A neighbor soon after
ward told me that it cost that lady
nothing to live. He says she puts a tin
cup of coffee on the stove and a tin cup
of cornmeal mush, and that is all her liv-
ing, but she is getting rich.SI thought that
very strange, too, never thinking that /
should live SO, but l do just that thing
now, having remembered hearing how
she lived.
When | lost all ny money and yet
must live, l rented a room ii by Is feet,
with heat, for s. per month-not a very
good room and not very we'll furnished,
but comfortable and respectable, and
there are plenty Of them at that price.
| bought an outfit as follows: An iron
handy lamp, rs cents; three seamless
pint tin cups, 10 cents; n do. quart,
10 cents; n half gallon tin cup, with
cover, 10 cents; three bowls, Is
cents; cup and saucer, 10 cents; gallon
glass oil can, So cents; oil, 10 cents;
spoon, 10 cents; total outfit, s.. Then ]
bought n months provisions as fol-
lows: Half bushel potatoes, 80 cents;
ten pounds cornmeal, 20 cents; three
pounds Graham flour, IS cents; one
pound ground coffee, % cents; eight
pounds g~ranulated sugar, 36 cents; one
pound lard, 10 cents; coarse salt, 5 cents;
total for the month, STAG.
| am a good, hearty eater, and am full
fed and live well, and am thankful for
it, but | cannot eat all of my months
provision. There is always a considera-
bic amount over every month, and live
well too. In the morning | light my
handy lamp, fill my seamless pint tin
cup with water, put a t~easpoonful of
ground coffee into it, put it over the
lamp, and turn another tin cup, bottom
upward, over it for a cover. In ten
minutes there is a pint cup of good, hot
coffee. While the coffee is boiling | put
a little water into the half gallon cup,
not more than one-eighth full, and then
fill the quart tin cup about one-fourth
full of cornmeal, add a little salt, then
set this cup into the half gallon cup, and
fill up the quart cup full of water and
stir up the meal we'll. Jam in the han
die of the quart cup so that it will go
into the larger cup. AS soon as the cot
fee ONE off set the mush on the lamp.
Stir it occasionally, and when it thickens
and fills up the cup take it off.
| buy a loaf of bread for four cents
for Sunday, and melt a little lard and
salt for gravy, and | live well and have
plenty to eat. Many others in this city,
gaunt and half starved, can live we'll in
this way.-John Howard in Washington
Post.