A refreshing breeze floated into the dining-room window of Mr. and Mrs. Larry’s apartment. It passed Teresa Moore’s competent square shoulders and touched Mrs. Norton’s sleek hair and Claire’s pale clear skin. It played on Mrs. Larry’s sparkling face. It made the men, including Jimmy Graves, who had come all the way from Kansas City for the great occasion, sit up a little straighter. It quickened Lena’s steps, as, with crisp little cap and apron gleaming white in the dim room, she brought in the coffee service.
“For winding up adventures in thrift, I should like to remark that it was some dinner,” said Mr. Moore, smiling at his hostess.
“I was thinking the same thing,” commented Mr. Norton, “and wondering whether Mrs. Larry has spent at one fell swoop all she has been saving in the last few months.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Larry, “I’m going to tell you what it cost. Four months ago this dinner would have made a shocking dent in my housekeeping allowance. Now, let me tell you the difference in prices:
“First course, iced melons, three for a quarter, if I had bought them at Dahlgren’s Store. In the ‘Home Hamper,’ three for ten. Saving, fifteen cents.
“Cold consommé; a ten-cent can of soup and enough gelatine to make it quiver. In the old days I would have bought a soup bone at fifteen cents, soup greens, five cents, and used gas for the slow process of simmering. Of course, this process would yield more stock, but in hot weather it might not keep. So we’ll say at least ten cents saved and just as delicious, too. I’m learning how to utilize standard, factory-made food.
“Chicken, four and a half pounds, at twenty-two cents, including parcel post. I used to pay Dahlgren twenty-seven cents, so saved on four and one-half pounds, twenty-two cents. We three women have made arrangements with a certain farmer in Connecticut to supply us the year around with eggs, chickens and ducks. We have agreed to take a definite quantity each. He receives a little more than he would from the commission men, and we pay a little less than we would at the market.
“These fine new potatoes were bought by the bushel, enough to last the three of us for the year. The farmer keeps them for us in his cellar and ships them, a barrel at a time. We paid him cash for our year’s supply of potatoes, at a dollar a bushel. We’ve been buying them here in New York at the rate of two dollars a bushel. So I saved fifty per cent. on the potatoes you ate.
“Corn, at Dahlgren’s, sells at three ears for ten cents. Figuring up the contents of this week’s hamper, the corn I served to-night cost only a cent and a half an ear.
“The tomatoes, lettuce, parsley and peaches all came out of the Home Hamper at half the price asked at a city market. Even those stuffed dates represent thrift. I used to pay eighty cents a pound for them at Dorlin’s. Lena stuffed these, and they are just as good. A pound of dates at ten cents, the same value of nuts, and a little powdered sugar.