The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-08-14
Dorothy DIG Says
Dividends on Thrift.
BY DOROTHY DIX
worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer

from a long journey to the Far East
said to me the other day:
do you know what is almost the
strongest impression made on my
mind by my whole trip? 1t is a home
ly lesson in thrift, and I did not get
it from the frugal Orientals either,
but from my own country people.
Everywhere Il met Americans
summing themselves in the warmth of
Southern California, splashing around
in the jeweled waters a. Honolulu,
drinking tea and gossippins with tray
elers from The Back of Beyond in the
Grand Hotel at Yokohama, poking
around the curio shops in Pekin-and
three-fourths of these Am ericans, yes.
nine-tenths of them who were travel
ing for pleasure, were fat, gray head
ed, prosperous, middle aged couples.
Occasionally there was a young
son or daughter along but not often.
Most of them were just oldish mar
ried folks who in their late fifties or
early SIXTIES were taking the honey
moon trip that they had been too poor
to take thirty-five years before.
81 talked to dozens of these couples
and always they told me practically
the same story.
Mother and 1 were married when
we were very young and hadn't a split
Canadian dime between u.s. the man
would say, with a reminiscent chuck1e,
but we both had plenty OF pep and
ginger and we rolled up our sleeves
skinny living and hard hustling in
those days.
~ was at the store DE fore seven
o. clock every morning and 1 stayed in
it until eleven o'clock at night, and
mother was up an hour before me
and gave me a hot breakfast that she
had cooked with her own hands and
when l went to sleep she was patch
ing my trousers or washing my shirt
so that 1 could look neat and respect
able to go to work the next day. And
we counted the pennies and pinched
every dollar until we made the eagle
scream in agony, and about the only
amusement we INDUCED ourselves in
was watching the little savings bank
account grow.
That policy of work and saving
won out then as it always has won out
and always will win out. 1t wasn't
long before J was able to get an inter
est in the business, and after while
we moved over on the sunny side of
Easy Street. Now our children are
grown and married and settled, and so
a year or two ago I turned the BUSH
ness over to the boys and I said to
mother that after this we would just
put in the balance of our lives enjoy
ing ourselves and taking the trips and
doing the things We didn't have the
were young
"And every time I looked at these
couples with their placid, contented
faces that beamed with that surety of
we'll being that only the possession of
a safety deposit vault full of gilt edged
securities can give.~I thought to my
self, surely, after all, virtue IS it's own
reward, and If you want to be happy
and comfortable when you are old
you must practice thrift when you
are young
And my mind would go back to
other couples that 1 knew at home
people about the same age as these.
One couple that / knew very we'll had
started life on the same capital of
nothing but love and health and
youth. But the man always worked
with one eye on the clock and a set
tied determination that he was not
going to do one lick moro than he
was paid for, and his wife had fed
him out of paper bags and bought
shoddy ready made clothes for the
family because she couldn't see any
sense in a woman Shaving herself to
death over the cook stove and sewing
machine.
And they have never, in all the
years since they have been married,
been quite even with the landlord or
the butcher or the grocer or the in
stallment furniture man. They are
shaving around the sixties and they
are old and worn and broken, and the
only trips they will ever take will be
to the poor house and in a cheap
hearse to a cheap cemetery.
And I thought of another couple
about the age of these middle aged
joy trippers who started out in matri-
mony with a nice, comfortable for
tune. 1t was one of those demoraliz-
ing wads of money that are just
enough to make a man Eel that he
L. los. he to
to- and that are not big enough to be
waste proof. Honest to goodness, the
best luck a young fellow can have is
either to have a billion dollars or not
a penny.
well at any rate this young couple
let their money make them lazy and
extravaganza the man trusted his BUSH
ness affairs to his subofdinates and
let his employees rob and waste, and
his wife got bitten with the society
bug and became as reckless spender
trying to keep up with people ten
times as rich she was And the
result was that by the TIM they were
middle aged the sheriff sold them out,
and now they are the most forlorn
and miserable old people you ever
saw.
For there is nothing else on earth
so pathetic as Impoverished old age
old age without the comforts it needs,
old age without hope of am good for
tune ever coming to it. Old age that
is forced to eat the bittcr bread of
dependence, and take grudging char
ity.
ct thought of these piteous old
couples that I know. the ones who
had wasted and spent, and idled and
frivoled in their youth. and I con-
trasted them with these other middle
aged couples who had worked and
saved in their youth and who are now
so happy and prosperous, and /
thought, what a lesson in thrift!
And I thought that practically life
offers us a choice of whether We will
indulge ourselves in our youth or in
our old age; whether we'd rather have
an easy job when we are in our
twenties or be able to retire from
business when we are in our sixties;
whether we'd rather go to all sorts OF
little foolish shows and parties when
we are young or to go around the
world when we are middle aged.