“Mornin', Grant,” answered the deacon. “How's your folks?”
“Pretty well in health,” returned Grant, coming to business at once, “but rather short of money.”
“Ministers most gen'ally are,” said Deacon Gridley, dryly.
“I should think they might be, with the small salaries they get,” said Grant, indignantly.
“Some of 'em do get poorly paid,” replied the deacon; “but I call six hundred dollars a pooty fair income.”
“It might be for a single man; but when a minister has a wife and three children, like my father, it's pretty hard scratching.”
“Some folks ain't got faculty,” said the deacon, adding, complacently, “it never cost me nigh on to six hundred dollars a year to live.”
The deacon had the reputation of living very penuriously, and Abram Fish, who once worked for him and boarded in the family, said he was half starved there.
“You get your milk and vegetables off the farm,” said Grant, who felt the comparison was not a fair one. “That makes a great deal of difference.”
“It makes some difference,” the deacon admitted, “but not as much as the difference in our expenses. I didn't spend more'n a hundred dollars cash last year.”