chapter TV 



L 



iFE in Washington at that early time was not expensive, 

 and it seems to me that the government clerks got along very 

 w^ell, in fact, quite as well as they do today, on what seem now 

 pitifully small salaries. The one hundred dollars a month that 

 was all I got for the first few years was ample. In fact, I put 

 forty dollars of it in the savings bank each month for the 

 first year. The room that Mac Borden and I lived in cost us ten 

 dollars a month each, and there were several restaurants that 

 gave us very good meals for twenty-five cents each. I remember 

 especially one called the Holly Tree Inn, on Ninth Street just 

 below F. It was kept by a dear lady named Mrs. La Fetra, whose 

 husband was a pleasant bearded man, a clerk in the Post Office 

 Department. They had a little boy who, I think, has grown up 

 to be some distinguished person. Another restaurant that I re- 

 member very well was Fred Evans', on F Street between Ninth 

 and Tenth. It seems to me that he raised his price to thirty-five 

 cents a meal, and that it was considered to be rather a spree to 

 dine there. I 



Living for us was very simple, you see, and the married clerks 

 got along very well, too. A good colored maid-of-all-work could 

 be had for ten dollars a month or even less, and some of them 



[75] 



