The Newtown bee., 1904-10-07

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 he pays less than s2 week for each of the grOwn-upS.
 Where are we by this time? Don't you want to take a bit of paper, MT Mason, and figure it out? Let's see, we'll call the food g. week for each of the three, himself, his wife and the girl; rent of house and office S6OO a year, coal and wood at the bottom 1 l figured on, five tons and a cord of kindling is S38; those two suits cost, with pressing, mighty close to $50 apiece, and his overcoat and evening year, though some years they won't be any thing and other years he'll pay for lem all in a lump. Then he's got to have good hats and shoes, and he's lucky if he gets of on Sl5 year there.
 What do those clothes come to? A hundred and thirty-eight, eh? Then he's got to have underclOthes, socks and so on, and if he don't wear any different from you and me he'll spend can't get along on much less than he can, though she makes one party dress over and over for four or five winters. The youngsters clothes cost money, too, and he can't spend less than $2O a year there, or tke other kids will be making fun of the boy and breaking his heart. That girl in the kitchen don't come at the price they do here, either. I don't know town wages,
 fool we had in our boarding house got SIP a month, and she didn't know
 beans from potatoes till they were cooked and she was eating lem. Where are we now, MT Mason? 1 want to know how much of his fifteen hundred
 he's got left for candy and popcorn"
 Henry Mason chewed the butt of his
 pencil a moment, then "HOld on a
 minute! You've given me what you
 got to draft 'em of new if I'm going to add lem up. Say!'-after a few moments of scribbling and tousling
 his hair from time to time
 with his free hand when the
 figures did not suit him-''they do count up, don't they! I guess
 Eve got it right now, twelve hundred and twenty-four dollars. That's a good deal more than I thought, but it
 leaves him a little out of his fifteen
 hundred, and 1 dO' nO' about your right as you name 'em of, but they
 total up higher than it seems they . ought,
 things Said 1 knew, and reckon I could make a,shrewd guess at some of
 the others, and I've been giving you bottom city figures right along. Then you say he's got quite bit left out of fifteen hundred, so let's see what
 he's got to buy. If he and his wife
 together average one trip day apiece
 going to cost more than SIS a year. 1; Then he's got to pay the taxes we're going to put on him which are good for S2O anyway, and office postage and paper will cost him a couple of dollars
 a month if he's doing any sort of busf-
 ness, a dollar month anyway, Law , books, house furnishings and kitchen stuff and repairs, gas and oil for lights,
 church contributions, doctors bills married, little in the bank for 8 rainy day, and he really ought, in the city, to carry little life insurance, So's not to leave his wife with nothing atall
 when he dies, except the old house here and nothing to run it, as Dr Grannis did his widow. Let's see your
 list, Mr Mason. We've added $50 to
 what you had counted up, making 1t,
 hold on! you only, counted clothes for
 the man, not for his wife, when you
 figured it up and she can't go without
 them. We'll have to add another
 hundred and thirty-eight to it. That
 makes, all told, fourteen hundred and
 twelve dollars. don't believe S88 a year for the extra things I've named and luxuries, is gOin' to leave him get very luxurious out. of $500 year.
 How is it, MT Lee? You haven't said
 much lately"
 but seems to me them things you named are about half of lem luxuries. I know of houses in K that rent for seven or eight dollars 8 month. My brother $ wife's $ uncle left a couple of them to her and seems if thirty was high"
 SWell, if he could live in an eight dollar or twelve dollar place, and keep the friend who give him his business, it would sure be luxury to pay thirty but if he cuts down on the rent he is apt to make up on it in some other place. Say he lives in a house with two or three other families in it at s25 month. When his friends come to see him the other folks babies gre yelling, or jumping on the floor over his head, or spilling water where it will run through and down on his furniture and fixin's, or the piano is making such racket in the next fiat that you can't hear yourself think, and just as likely as not, when the baby Is sick, that piano is going just the same, making doctor bills higher for the kid and new ones for the wife, because she's too tired to stand it. Jack McGregor who ran the store next to mine in x had just that trouble. and he lost more good friends and paid more doctor bills than $lO month would make good to him, just by reason of one ten year old girl and 8 piano overhead. Seems to me that ain't . real luxury. What else do you think are luxurieS:'
 'Give me the list, Henry, will you, and I1l see. l thought of several, Jim, as you went along. don't know about office rent nor the amount of coal, though it seems little enough, and the kindlin's is reasonable. Oh! the clothes! Why, seems to me you're way off! A man can't wear out two suits of clothes a year if his wife'S handy at mending, and he hasn't any business to be too proud to be seen in neat suit, even if 'tiS ready-made or he has worn it mOre'n than 8 year."
 "Well, MT Lee, If you had lived in rOWn I h0vo anA hoorA khn kalk