"I have got a nice ruled book, and Fred and I talked over some things, and he put down some columns for me to fill out. See—first comes Income; then Food; then Rent; then Fuel, and Clothes, and so on. Mary, you have no idea what a practical mind he has! So you see we can take up these things and get some sort of view as to what it will cost us to live; then we shall know where we are. Later on, in the book, I will write down other things, such as suggestions on How to Save Money, and things like that, you see."
Her sister regarded her admiringly. "My dear, I didn't give you credit for so much forethought. How I wish I had had anybody to start me right! When I think of my struggles and of what a time it took me to learn how to manage on a small income I wonder I have survived. I did make such blunders, and then I cried,—I cried bucketfuls of tears, and most of them at least could have been saved for other and important occasions if only I had been taught more practically. I do think it is too difficult for a girl who has always lived on a liberal income, and never had to think twice about expenses, to suddenly have to get along on a tiny amount of money all by herself. I certainly will promise to save you some of my mistakes."
"I really scarcely know where to begin," said Dolly, as she brushed back her hair, "but perhaps we had better give my book a title; I shall call it 'Living on a Little.'"
"Then the first question to settle is this: 'What is a little?' and that has about a hundred possible answers. You can easily see that to a couple brought up 'in marble halls, with servants and serfs to command,' five thousand a year might seem a pittance, while other people would cheerfully begin housekeeping on five hundred dollars and think it plenty; it all depends on the point of view, of course.
"But this is the way I reason about an income: to live with any real comfort on whatever is to you a little, you must be a good manager; when you have arrived at that desirable point, the actual amount of your income does not matter so much as you would think, because, you see, you know how to get out of it all that there is there, and it is enough for your needs.
"Do you remember that friend of mother's, Mrs. Grant, who had that perfect palace of a house and an income of fifty thousand dollars a year? Well, I have never forgotten that one day I heard her say that for the first six years of her married life she and her husband lived on a salary of six hundred dollars, 'and,' she said in the most complacent way, 'I could do it again, too, if I had to!' You see, she was a good manager and she realized it. She had learned just how much to buy at a time, and where to buy it, and what to pay for it, and how to make a small amount of money do as much as twice that.
"Now I have been married only six years, but I have learned a lot in that time, because we have had to move from one place to another and our income has varied so much; then you know all one winter Dick was ill and we had nothing to live on but what we had saved, and so we had to be very, very careful. I really feel that I have mastered the problem of living on a little."
"Then I'll begin my book with the result of your experience in a nutshell, or in an epigram, or something, please, if you can put it that way."
"I don't believe I can do that; but here is the main part of it: Keep down your table expenses. You see, even if you wear your old clothes and pay a lower rent than you have been accustomed to pay, and walk instead of riding, you still must eat, and you must have nourishing, appetizing food, or you will have doctor's bills which will terrify and impoverish you. Unless you can set a good table for a small sum of money, you are lost on a narrow income, and if you know how to accomplish that economic feat, you are safe. So that is my first great rule for living on a little: Learn how to have a generous table for a small sum of money.