dn't seem to have as much to bother her as she had before. She was
slowly getting the buying and the cooking down to a science. Many a
week now our food bill went as low as a little over three dollars. We
bought in larger quantities and this always effected a saving. We
bought a barrel of flour and half a barrel of sugar for one thing.
Then as the new potatoes came into the market we bought half a barrel
of those and half a barrel of apples. She did wonders with those
apples and they added a big variety to our menus. Another saving was
effected by buying suet which cost but a few cents a pound, trying
this out and mixing it with the lard for shortening. As the weather
became cooler we had baked beans twice a week instead of once. These
made for us four and sometimes five or six meals. We figured out that
we could bake a quart pot of beans, using half a pound of pork to a
pot, for less than twenty cents. This gave the three of us two meals
with some left over for lunch, making the cost per man about three
cents. And they made a hearty meal, too. That was a trick she had
learned in the country where baked beans are a staple article of diet.
I liked them cold for my lunch.

As for clothes neither Ruth nor myself needed much more than we had. I
bought nothing but one pair of heavy boots which Ruth picked up at a
bankrupt sale for two dollars. On herself she didn't spend a cent. She
brought down here with her a winter and a summer street suit, several
house dresses and three or four petticoats and a goodly supply of
under things. She knew how to care for them and they lasted her. I
brought down, in addition to my business suit, a Sunday suit of blue
serge and a dress suit and a Prince Albert. I sold the last two to a
second hand dealer for eleven dollars and this helped towards the
boy's outfit in the fall. She bought for him a pair of three dollar
shoes for a dollar and a half at this same "Sold Out" sale, a dollar's
worth of stockings and about a dollar's worth of underclothes. He had
a winter overcoat and hat, though I could have picked up these in
either a pawnshop or second hand store for a couple of dollars. It was
wonderful what you could get at these places, especially if anyone had
the knack which Ruth had of making over things.

CHAPTER X

THE EMIGRANT SPIRIT

That fall the boy passed his entrance examinations and entered the
finest school in the state--the city high school. If he had been worth
a mill