s usual, after this she'd take her basket and start out
two or three mornings a week and walk with me as far as the market.
She'd spend an hour here and then if she needed anything more she'd go
down town to the big stores and wander around here for another hour.
But Saturday nights was her great bargain opportunity. If I couldn't
go with her she'd take Dick and the two would plan to get there at
about nine o'clock. From this time on she often picked up for a song
odd ends of meat and good vegetables which the market men didn't want
to carry over to Monday. In fact they _had_ to sell out these things
as their stock at the beginning of the week had to be fresh. I suppose
marketing at this time of day would be a good deal of a hardship for
those living in the suburbs but it was a regular lark for her. Most
everyone is good natured on Saturday night if on no other night. The
week's work is done and people have enough money from their pay
envelopes to feel rich for a few hours anyway. Then there were the
lights and the crowd and the shouting so that it was like twenty
country fairs rolled into one.

After the excitement of coming home Saturdays with so much money wore
off, I began to forget that I _was_ earning fifteen instead of nine.
If Ruth had spent it on the table I'm sure I'd have forgotten it even
more quickly. I was getting all I wanted to eat, was warm and had a
good clean bed to sleep in and what more can a man have even if he's
earning a hundred a week? I think people are very apt to forget that
after all a millionaire can spend only about so much on himself. And
after the newness of fresh toys has worn off--like steam yachts and
private cars--he is forced to be satisfied with just what I had, no
matter how much more money he makes. He has only his five senses and
once these are satisfied he's no better off than a man who satisfies
these same senses on eight dollars a week. Generally he's worse off
because in a year or so he has probably dulled them all. Rockefeller
himself probably never in his life got half the fun out of anything
that I did in just crawling into my clean bed at night with every
tired muscle purring contentedly and my mind at rest about the next
day. I doubt if he knows the joy of waking up in the morning rested
and hungry. The only advantage he had over me that I can see is the
power he had to help others. In a way I don't believe he found any
greater opportunity even for that than Ruth found