THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 171 



years. The change in the style of living would make the 

 bones of our fathers rattle in their graves. We have 

 got to come back to a more simple mode of life, and spend 

 less on our stomachs, and a good deal less on our backs, 

 especially our women. Only to think of a thousand dollar 

 shawl on one woman a whole farm with its fifty acres of 

 soil on the shoulders of one individual ? They do say the 

 like of it might be seen in your city less than a year ago. 

 I rather guess some of them fast men with their fast wo 

 men are wishing they had some of their scattered coin back 

 again in their tills. Why, my mother, bless her memory, 

 never spent a thousand dollars for dress in her whole life, and 

 she lived to be eighty. Now, there is reason in all things, as 

 she used to say, and we have got to be a good deal more 

 reasonable in our family expenses, or slump through. This 

 war will bring all our people to their bearings, and make 

 us spend our money for something worth having for a 

 principle, and not for pudding and pomatum. There will 

 be some satisfaction in knowing that we have maintained 

 the liberties and the blessed institutions handed down 

 from our fathers, at any cost. I have given my boy to 

 this cause, and if I have to give my farm, I think I shall 

 grow rich by the operation. What is property worth to 

 Tim Bunker when his country is lost ? I have thought a 

 good deal about this war, especially since John enlisted, 

 and I have made up my mind that it will have a great 

 many advantages as well as evils. It will stop this fast 

 living and extravagance, and bring back a great many to 

 the simple habits and sterling virtues of our fathers. It 

 is better to make sacrifices for a noble cause, than to make 

 money. 



A good many, like Deacon Smith s son David, are be 

 ginning to see a comfortable, honest, happy life on a farm, 

 who would otherwise have been tempted to try their for 

 tunes in the city, and gone tQ ruin like the thousands be 

 fore them. I have thought a good many would be look- 



