Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1914-02-24
A Side Light on the High Cost OF
Living.

IL,
from the farm and had only been In
town few days, so she called back gaily
az she wheeled Bobby into the sunny
bay window, "All right, mother, just
make anything you like"
"Dear, dear!" sighed the thrifty one'
show extravagant some people are.
That comes of taking ones homework
so lightly"
That night at dinner the bread pud'
ding made its appearance. The thrifty
house wife explained how easy 1t was to
save little things in simple ways.
"What's In the scrap bag, motherP'
inquired the man, better known as BOD
by's dad, catching his wife's laughing
eye.
"There are two eggs,-I only use
two," she explained proudly, "s little
milk, some raisins, sugar, cinnamon, and
the bread, and you see 1t makes nice
economical dessert"
"Let me see," the man answered
gravely, "how much milk and rsisins,
mother!'
"Just a mite of milk, about quart,
and half box Of rsisins."
1.-TWO eggs" the man continued, "at
seventy. five cents q dozen-say twelve
cents-a half box of raisins, five cents
a quart of milk, ten cents,-sugar, CHINA
mon, and the rest-surely not less than
three cents, that's thirty cents, at least.
Not such cheap pudding, is 1t. moth
err"
"Thirty ceuts!" exclaimed the thrifty
housewife blankly, "but," her face
brig htening, "you must remember, we
had all the things in the house and II
was such a shame to waste that bread. "
The man laughed, Betty thought with
elee of the expensive jellO, while Bobby
in his high chair smiled wisely,as II fore
seeing the improvements which bis gen.
GRAFTON would no doubt be responsible
for. 49,,
And so it must always be. There will
always remain remnants Of past customs
and ideas handed down and kept, be-
cause habit is SO hard to break, even
when one knows better way. There ie
vet abroad not a little OF the so.cslled
economy which consists of preparing
every little part of all food at home,
when it Is an open secret that 1t can be
obtained already prepared, cheaper and
more wholesome. There is another fal-
lacy called economy which consists OF
"using everything up" when the uslng:
really means larger expenditure and
smaller returns. The only real economy
is in no waste and the greatest possible
value for money expended. There is no
economy in using thirty cents worth OF
ingredients to dispose OF three cents
worth of bread, unless the product OF
such combination be especially desira-
Bile.
The old idea of making things at
home, regardless of cost, nutritive value,
or any thing else, because it Is e1trava-
CANT to buy canned or otherwise pre-
pared food, should surely be obsolete
now, but facts hardly point that way:
Instead, there are q large number OF
women yet who insist that such things
represent the ultimatum of waste and
shiftlessness. One woman with a fami-
| ly of three actually shuddered when
suggested that Csmpbell's tomato soup
was the most nnurishing and econom'
| ical of soups. She declared that people
NO " a days thought OF nothing but saw.
ing work. She always opened can oil
tomatoes, made white sauce, and then
stood over it while it thickened, watch
ing 1t carefully to see that 1t did not
curdle. When flushed, the soup cost,
at lowest estimate, as much as the other
and contained no stock, thereby decress
ing its food value; and beside all this
her family preferred the otherI
In similar way have heard all pre-
pared foods rejected. Canned tomato
sauce! Mercy, what nextp" heard
one disguised woman say in little
town grocery, as she scornfully rejected
the five-cent can of sauce, and went out
the door with q neighbor, complaining
to her of the high cost Of living and her
own ovsrworked condition, all in the
same breath.
Women who make griddle cakes for
breakfast often pass by the prepared
flour, which costs perhaps five cents q
meal for cakes, and stand beating eggs,
at five cents apiece, for the cakes, which
their families conflde to each other
aren't half so good as Aunt Terminals.
The poor woman must need get up hf.
teen minutes earlier In the morning and
be fifteen minutes more tired at night,
but see how worth while it Ia, when
they can do all the cooking and not be
the victims of absurd, new-fsDgled
ideas!
One woman l know, living in Califor-
mia where there Is almost always an
abundance of fresh fruit, decided she
must make jelly. She had all she could
do without this extra work, but you see
she had made up her mind. When she
had finished her jelly-making, just
counted the cost The jelly had cost
her, az near AZ could estimate, eleven
cents q glass, while in the stores deli
cious products of the same favors
could b. purchased for ten! OF course
she con tended that 1t was impossible for
the other to be as good as hers, aud
only after had slipped glass of 1t In
with hers and she had used 1t without
detecting the difference, would she ad.
NIT that perhaps the wholesaler was able
to make things cheaper than the little
individual manufacturer.
There are long, long lists OF things
which save time and money, because
they do away with waste and give the
greatest returns for the money expended.
Besides the soups. fruits and sauces,
there is the canned pumpkin, which
costs one.fourth the time and effort that
the whole pumpkin did, when one is
making the popular pumpkin pie; there
is good mince meat which serves the
same purpose that ones own does and
pleases the family just as we'll. Korn-
let, at twenty five cents can, goes much
further than corn and eliminates the to.
dious operation of putting corn through
a colander for the soup. A thousand
and one things there arc, oil designed to
save time aud money, for the big factory
works more economically than the little
house. Must then this march OF prog.
ress pass by and leave untouched tho
self-called conservative woman, who
overworked and with no lelsure for
study or enjoyment, rejecting the short
cuts and clinging to her false standards
of economy, raises instead of lowers the
cost Of livinga Let US keep Informed Of
modern processes.