$0.35
Tea, 15; Butter, 30; Bread, 12 0.57
Coal, 12; Milk, 15; Clams, 10 0.37
Oil, 15; Paper, 1; Clams, 10; Potatoes, 5 0.31
Cabbage, 5; Bread, 7; Flour, 15; Rolls, 3 0.30
----
Total $1.90

"This week was an expensive one, for I got a pound of butter at once,
but it will last into next week. And we had to have the scissors
sharpened; that was five cents. There would have been five cents for
wood, but you see they're building down the street, and one of the boys
upstairs brought me a basketful of bits. You see there's no meat. We
like it, but we only get a bit for Sundays sometimes. Emmy never wants
much. Running a machine all day seems to take your appetite. But she
likes clams; you see we had them twice, and I happened to read in the
paper a good while ago that you could make soup of the water the cabbage
was boiled in; a quart of the water and a cup of milk and a bit of
butter and some flour to thicken. You wouldn't think it could be good,
but it is, and it goes a good way. The coal ought not to be in with the
food, ought it, unless it stays because I have to use it cooking? We
oughtn't to spend so much on food, but I can't seem to make it less.
Really, when you take out the coal and oil and the paper,--and we do
want to see a paper sometimes,--it's only 1.62 for us both; eighty-one
cents apiece; almost twelve cents a day, but I can't well seem to make
it less. I call it twelve cents a day apiece. For the month that makes
$7.44, and so you see there's $5.51 left. Then there are Emmy's
car-fares when she goes out, for sometimes she works down-town and only
evenings at home. Last month it was sixty cents a week, $2.70 for the
month, and so there was just $2.81 left, and $1.50 of that went for
shoes for Emmy. The month before, my hands weren't so stiff and I helped
her a good deal, so we earned $26.70, and she got two remnants for $1.80
at Ehrich's and I made her a dress that looks very well. But she's
nothing but patchwork underneath, and I'm the same, only worse. The coal
is the trouble. By the scuttle it costs so much, and I try to get ahead
and have a quarter of a ton at once, for there are places here to keep
coal, but I never can. If it weren't for Emmy's missing me, it would be
better for me to die, for I'm no use, you see, and times get no better,
but worse. But I can't, and we