ble and happy
enough but you heard a good deal of talk among them about the high
cost of living and you couldn't help noticing that those who dressed
the best had the fewest children. One or two of them owned horses but
even they felt obliged to explain that they saved the cost of them in
car fares.

They all called and left their cards but that first year we didn't see
much of them. There wasn't room in my life for anyone but Ruth at that
time. I didn't see even the old office gang except during business
hours and at lunch.

The rent scaled my salary down to one thousand and eighty dollars at
one swoop. Then we had to save out at least five dollars a week to pay
on the furniture. This left eight hundred and twenty, or fifteen
dollars and seventy-five cents a week, to cover running expenses. We
paid cash for everything and though we never had much left over at the
end of the week and never anything at the end of the month, we had
about everything we wanted. For one thing our tastes were not
extravagant and we did no entertaining. Our grocery and meat bill
amounted to from five to seven dollars a week. Of course I had my
lunches in town but I got out of those for twenty cents. My daily car
fare was twenty cents more which brought my total weekly expenses up
to about three dollars. This left a comfortable margin of from five to
seven dollars for light, coal, clothes and amusements. In the summer
the first three items didn't amount to much so some weeks we put most
of this into the furniture. But the city was new to Ruth, especially
at night, so we were in town a good deal. She used to meet me at the
office and we'd walk about the city and then take dinner at some
little French restaurant and then maybe go to a concert or the
theatre. She made everything new to me again. At the theatre she used
to perch on the edge of her seat so breathless, so responsive that I
often saw the old timers watch her instead of the show. I often did
myself. And sometimes it seemed as though the whole company acted to
her alone.

Those days were perfect. The only incident to mar them was the death
of Ruth's parents. They died suddenly and left an estate of six or
seven hundred dollars. Ruth insisted upon putting that into the
furniture. But in our own lives every day was as fair as the first. My
salary came as regularly as an annuity and there was every prospect
for advancement. The garden did well and Ruth became acquainted with
most of t