At this rejoinder, H. looked at the speaker as if she thought he had "eaten of the insane root, which takes the reason prisoner."
"Lose more money!" when you can yourself see, by looking at this book, that in our first six months we have cleared $145 29! And, indeed, it was absurd of A. to put down so little, for she has allowed $25 for the land; and if she take that off the rent, she ought to enter it as profit from the "farm." Besides, think of only putting down a shilling a day for fruit and vegetables! Very few puddings would the children get at that rate, supposing we were in London."
"If we were in London," interrupted I, "you know that $90 yearly would be as much as we could afford to expend for that item in our family. I have made out all our farming accounts as fairly as I can. I am as well aware as you can be that a shilling a day would not give us the luxuries of the garden as we now have them; and though that plenty may form one of the advantages of residing in the country, we have no right to put down as a saving of money the value of articles we should never have thought of purchasing."
"I must allow," said Mr. N., "that you appear to have been strictly honest in your entries as regards the value of the produce you have received, but you do not appear to have put down your losses. You keep a one-sided ledger. You have the credit, but not the debit entry. You say nothing of the money you have lost by pigeons and rabbit-keeping."
Now the utmost we had lost by our pigeons in the six months was $2 25, and he knew perfectly well how profitable they had since been to us. He used jokingly to say, that we fed our guest with them in every mode of cookery so frequently, that they would alter the old grace of "for rabbits hot," &c., and substitute the word "pigeon" in its place; so we thought it was ungenerous to reproach the poor birds with the scanty number they gave us the first few weeks they were in our dove-cote.
Silenced on that point, he returned to our unfortunate rabbit speculation, and complained that we had kept no account of the money we had lost by them.
Here H. stopped him saying,
"Pray, Mr. N., did you not purchase your children a pony, and did it not catch cold and die in a month afterwards? I suppose Mrs. N. did not enter that in her housekeeper's book as meat at so much a pound, and why should we put down the cost of the rabbits in our farming accounts? No; of course it was entered among the 'sundries.'"
"But you must allow," said Mr. N., "that if you had done as I advised you, and taken a house in a street leading into one of the squares, you would have lived more cheaply than here. Why, your gardener's wages must more than swallow up any profit which you may think you make from your farm. You must acknowledge you would have saved that expense."
"Granted," said I; "but we should most likely have paid quite as much to a doctor. We never got through a year in town without a heavy bill to one; and we must have had all the expense and trouble of taking the children out of town during the hot weather, while the have had excellent health ever since they have been here; and with the exception, when some kind friend like yourself has asked one of them on a visit, neither of them has left home since we came here. Of one thing I am quite sure, that we are much happier than we should have been in London; and that in every point of view, as regards expenditure, we are gainers. I have not entered any profit arising from baking at home, though the difference is just three four-pound loaves weekly; and Mrs. N. will tell you what must be the saving by our having our own laundry."