Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-08-26
HOME MONEY MAKING
Financial Talent is Not Given
to All.
MANY ARE SUCCESSFUL
INSTANCES WHERE HOMES WERE
MADE TO PAY WELL.
Find Out Your Talent and There Are
Few Plans Too Small for
Development.
Written for The Star by Anna 8. Richa rtison.

Written for The Star by Anna 8. Richardson.
VIII you please tell me how to get
position "a clerk in big city like Chicago
or New York? 1 think would make fine
clerk II had experience There Is no open
| ing in this town. which has only 10000
| Inhabitants. All the stores are filled with
clerks. and girls just clamoring to get
places. l must send home at least 50 a
week, SO tell me how to get something that
| is really worth while
This letter came from a widow nearly
| forty years OF age. possessions-a large
roomy old-fashioned home. free from in
| Gun brance of any sort, trifie over $50 IN
cash, dependent mother and an absolute
ignorance of the business world and its
heavy tax on woman's body and nerves.
| In her extremity her first thought was 10
leave the children in her mothers care and
chase the rainbow of suddenly achieved for
tune in metropolis.
What would have happened had she taken
| this step? At forty, she would have found
herself competing with girls varying in age
| from fourteen to twenty-four. who. despite
| their difference in years, would have been
On a perfect equality with her In the eyes
of the man to whom she applied Tor work
Perhaps they might have appealed to him
as better material. for youth can be bent
more easily to modern business methods
| than women of fixed habits and ideas. Had
! she secured position as clerk without
| experience her salary would have been any
where from IS to 81 per week. And she
must send So a week home to the hopeful
| little family waiting for her to achieve fame
and fortune in a great city. with the handl-
cap of inexperience and-forty years.
A Boarding House.
What she did, after much argument and
persuasion. was this. She filled her big.
Fashioned house with roomers. and
cleared the coveted So the first week Her
In In,
was of a domestic nature. AS homemaker.
even for mere hire she is a success. AS
clerk in department store she would be
sad-faced, dun-colored failure.
Her house was situated not in the fash
ionable part of the town. a fact that she
had long regretted. but directly on the way
to the new mills which had drawn u num-
Der of young men from other towns and
even distant cities She did not know 1t,
but many a time these men. passing her
house to and from the dingy, third-clasS
hotels which the town afforded. glanced
wistfully at the flowers on her porch and
the white curtains floating lazily at the
open windows. To the superintendent OF
the factory she went, asking whether he
could send her a few desirable roomers.
He thought that about the first of the
month some OF the men. particularly the
Office force, would be glad to make a
change. In fact, he had thought some of
having his wife come up for few months,
to decide whether she wanted to move, and
he would rather have her put UP at a pri-
waite house than the dingy hotels. And
there was the new stenograDher, very
nice young man. Yes, he could probably
send her half dozen roOmers, II her quar-
tiers were comfortable.
The First Steps.
Her first work was to rearrange the
house. 1t had large hall running
through the center. with a parlor one
side an old-fashioned first-foor bed room
on the other. a dining room with bay win
dow running clear across the back of the
house, with a kitchen. and what they had
long termed the black hole OF Calcutta"
jutting off the corner Of the dining room.
The hall she fitted up for a small reception
room. The old bed room she fitted UP with
three single beds for herself and the chill
dren, the dining room she arranged as a
sitting room as well. with the bookcases,
plano, machine etc.
THE black hole of Calcutta" had a great
piece knocked out of its side for a south
window. its trashy contents were sorted
over. and the articles worth saving were
banished to the attic; then. after cleaning
and papering. 1t made a quiet. cosy room
for her mother. This left her the entire
second fioor six rooms In all. as we'll
the parlor on the ground floor. for renting
purposes. The upstairs rooms were all
single, save one. and the parlor
double room; She spent over hundred
such supplies especially In linen, were
needed to tide her over until she saw how
the experiment would work. AS she ex-
pressed It, she stretched her furniture until
it creaked, but the rooms were so clean, SO
fresh, so attractive that the were
glad to pay her the exact rates charged by
the hotels for similar accommodations.
The Early Corners.
AS she opened her house in summer she
charged s. per week for each single room.
and S. for the double room upstairs. SO for
the double Uarior, with the understanding
that heat in the winter would be extra.
The first week she had three single rooms
filed. At the end of that week she had ap-
plications for every room in the house, and
the superintendent of the factory. with his
wife, was installed in the parlor. Her in
come was established at SIS per week; she
was not obliged to work more than half OF
each day, and her home life not sac
rifced, because, from the beginning, she
kept her mother and children apart from
roomers. Her own apartments were sacred.
Repeatedly her roomers have urged her
to give table board, but she is content with
living and the chance to put something
into bank each week. Table boarders would
mean help in the kitchen. and this alone
would curtail profits.
keeping roomers" is talent worth
Furnishing; but it is not given to every
woman to make comfortable the stranger
within her gates. Women who have had
experience advise beginners to take men,
as women make some trouble about a house,
trying to cook In their rooms. begging for
a chance to do a bit of washing or ironing.
At first the mistress of the house will have
all she can do to supply what is paid for
without granting extra privileges.
Men like comfortable beds. one easy chair
and good light. plenty of water and tow
els. Bureau scarfs. tides and whatnots
are an abomination to the average mascu-
line roomer. If he has the domestic instinct
at all. and is an up-to-date bachelor. he will
decorate his own room on the lines of his
fads and fofblea. What he does want is