1014. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1289 
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1 WOMAN AND HOME 1 
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A Plain Country Dinner 
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What It Cost in New York—New View of High 
11 Cost of Living 
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4 4T ET us move to the city, Clara, I 
i-J can earn $2.50 or $3 a day, and 
we ought to save some money. I am 
tired of this business of being tied to a 
cow’s tail all the year around. Chores 
morning and night, and we never get 
anywhere, have to be here every day. We 
could economize in town and could see 
things, and it would be an easy job.” 
This is the way many country folk 
talk. Many have acted on the sugges¬ 
tion, have gone to the city, and are 
finding daily that dreams do not come 
true. 
I don’t forget some of those days 
when my mother was living. After 
church my wife and I would drive around 
to father’s and mother’s place, and we 
would have a fair country dinner. It 
would be no spread. My wife would put 
on my mother’s apron, roll up her sleeves 
and help get dinner. Sentimental rea¬ 
sons have indelibly stamped in my mind 
one beautiful Sunday in early Septem¬ 
ber. We were late from church. When 
we arrived, mother said: “Children, I 
was a bit afraid you would not come to 
see me today, that you were sick, my 
dear girl, or the baby was not well.” 
Dinner was at a standstill. As w r e 
hastened to unhitch, mother said: 
“Father, you go out to the garden and 
get some potatoes.” My wife whispered 
to me: “I believe there must be ripe to¬ 
matoes out in the garden, they were a 
little late but must surely have ripened 
in a week.” With basket, pail and po¬ 
tato hook, and leading the little toddling 
four-year-old by the hand father and 
myself and the little fellow went back 
to the garden. The big black dog, re¬ 
turning from a hunting trip, had little 
respect for hygiene. He ran up and 
kissed the little fellow all over his face. 
Father dug potatoes, I gathered the 
tomatoes, while the little fellow wrestled 
with the big good-natured dog, and tried 
again and again to induce him to roll 
over. 
“Let’s hurry and get the potatoes over, 
for the children must be awfully hungry, 
I’m about starved,” said mother. The 
potatoes were soon boiling over the oil 
stove. Mother had got out the last ham 
and cut out generous pieces from it. The 
tomatoes were peeled and sliced and 
placed around the plates. 
“We save out a lot of milk for the 
baby, and does grandma’s little man like 
nice fresh milk?” mother said as she 
dipped from a cool crock a large glass for 
the little fellow. The rest wqs poured in 
a generous-sized pitcher and placed on 
the table. 
“Do you want some eggs with the ham? 
mother asked. 
“No, we are tired of them, we have 
had them all Summer. This is enough, 
we haven’t got time to bother anyway, 
it isn’t as though we were cooking for 
company or thrashers,” my wife re¬ 
marked. 
We had coffee for dinner; this my 
father preferred. We had cream with 
the tomatoes, for sugar and cream on 
tomatoes was our peculiar way of pre¬ 
paring them. We had a generous apple 
pie, thick and well seasoned. Mother 
baked this Saturday. There was nice 
fresh bread, baked the day before, for 
Saturday was bake day for mother and 
she always tried to have something fresh 
for “the children” as she called my wife, 
the little boy and myself. 
We did not have a sumptuous dinner: 
it was average, frequently we had better, 
and at times perhaps not as much. Per¬ 
haps if some person had come along 
and offered to buy the whole dinner pre¬ 
pared, we would have given it freely, and 
would have declared that it was not worth 
30 cents. We were at no cash outlay for 
anything, we traded eggs at the store for 
the coffee and for salt; the rest was pre¬ 
pared on the farm. There was not much 
left after that meal. I finished the last 
drop of milk. Father poured out the 
last of the cream in his second cup of 
coffee. There was little bread, and of 
nearly a pound of butter, perhaps some 
was left for evening lunch. 
We attached little or no value to this 
meal. I remember it distinctly, and 
sought to duplicate it at a delicatessen 
store in New York City. I did not go 
to the cheapest store, for I was afraid of 
the service, the quality of the goods, and 
I did not go to a high-priced store. I 
thought that perhaps I could get inside 
a dollar, for such dinner; that looked 
pretty high. I made out the order and 
handed it to the clerk. First he cut off 
some ham. I looked at it. 
“Why, there is not .enough, cut off 
some more,” I said, and when he re¬ 
marked “90 cents” for it and headed the 
sale slip with that figure, my dreams of 
duplicating a farm dinner in the city 
for anything like $1 were dispelled. 
“Will you let me wait on this lady 
and then I will complete your order,” 
the clerk courteously asked, which I 
gladly granted. The little baby which 
the woman carried bit at the ) rother’s 
nose and cheeks in a playful way, and 
the woman said, “Nice baby, we’ll have 
some nice milk for the little girl.” The 
woman bought a quart of milk for the 
affectionate little one. For herself, but 
five cents worth of butter, a tiny loaf 
of bread and another purchase not to 
exceed five pennies. 
The clerk returned to my order. He 
seemed pleased at its size, yet I doubt 
if his margin of profit was large because 
of rent, service and goods passing through 
many hands before reaching him. He 
figured up the bill and handed it to me. 
I asked later in the day of one who is 
familiar with prices received for farm 
produce, and he estimated the dinner 
would cost say 90 cents. 
In ordering, one pie looked too small 
so I ordered two. They were just about 
the size of the little pies my grandmother 
used to bake for me in a little tin plate 
which had alphabet letters all round the 
rim. These two pies made about one- 
half of the pie we had that Sunday for 
dinner, and I got them cheap at that. I 
ordered two loaves of bread. The loaves 
seemed about as long as my arm, but 
were just about as large around as a 
soda biscuit. There did not seem to be 
as much substance in the two loaves as 
in one of mother’s nice large homemade 
ones. 
Ten cents for the milk looked a pretty 
good figure, and when I studied the 
printed milk bottle cap, 1 couldn’t blame 
the grocer for making the charge. I 
made the purchase Friday at noon, and 
the milk had been bottled Wednesday up 
in Orange County, New York. All of 
that time between somebody had to pay 
interest on investment, had to pay stor¬ 
age, insurance and the hundred and one 
little charges that grow with delayed 
sales. This milk in stock all of this 
time had to pay its share and yield a 
small profit, and ten cents a quart for 
milk, interest deducted might not have 
been serious. 
Here is the sales slip: 
October 2, 1914. 
Bought of Boskind Bros. 
2 lbs. of ham .90 
1 quart of milk .10 
One-half pint of cream.13 
1 lb. of butter .40 
2 loaves bread .20 
2 pies .10 
9 tomatoes.20 
3 pounds potatoes.10 
One-fourth lb. coffee.09 
$2.22 
Two dollars, twenty-two cents and I 
considered myself lucky that I did not 
set out to buy a dinner for thrashers, for 
I could easily have multiplied the cost 
by 10, and then not had enough for an 
ordinary thrashing or silo filling gang. 
I was indeed glad that I did not attempt 
to duplicate the dinner at my father-in- 
law’s home when the boys and their 
wives and their little ones, and my fam¬ 
ily were there. I did not enquire re¬ 
garding rents when I learned that in 
some of the apartment houses $2,000 to 
$6,000 was the annual rental for a small 
suite of rooms, not half as many as in 
the old farm house at home. I did not 
enquire regarding dress, for one must 
dress in the city if he is in any line of 
work, laborer or professional man, and 
his wife must dress better. 
“And what about being tied to a cow’s 
tail morning and night?” 
Think of being enslaved to a job noon 
and night with the fear any moment you 
may get fired! w. j. 
“No Place.’* 
IIE new “professor” held the soft, 
girlish hand for a moment and. look¬ 
ing down into the bright, piquant face, 
said: 
“It has been a pleasure to meet you, 
Miss Clayton. I should like to know 
you better. May I call some evening 
soon: 
There was no mistaking the clouding 
of the sunny face, nor the faltering of 
the ready tongue as she turned aside be¬ 
fore answering: 
“Pardon me, Mr. Thayer. I fear it 
will not be convenient.” 
The chorus of good-byes drowned his 
answer, and the girl slipped away. But 
on the way home from the academy she 
opened her heart to her chum: 
“It is so hard to bear, Isabelle, and 
I know I am sdfish, but how can it be 
helped? Of course it was splendid of 
father and just like his kind heart to 
open his home to the brother who was 
old and alone, but there are so many of 
us the home nest is overcrowded now. 
We all agreed to give up the parlor to 
Uncle for a sleeping apartment. I didn't 
realize quite what a sacrifice it would be 
until I found I had no place to enter¬ 
tain my young friends. I have refused 
(Cnniiiuird on pane 1291.) 
A FARMER'S DINNER AT RETAIL—PRICE $2.22. 
A JOURNEY INTO A STRANGE COUNTRY. 
