Indeed, since one's single wants are not regularly met by this system of things, the only way at present to get them answered is by favor. So that the first item in setting up an establishment is not only to bring one's resources about one, but to find the people of the trade who will assist in the gladdest way. One wants the right stripe in the morning and evening papers, but none the less happy are just the right merchant and just the right menial. Since all of life may be rounded into rhythm, shall we not even consult the harmonies in a grocer or an upholsterer? Personal power can be carried into every department. It is well to find where one's word has weight, then always say the word there. This is a part of the quest which makes life a perpetual adventure; and there is nothing more piquant than to go on an exploring tour for one's affinities among the trades. It is perhaps rather more of the sensational than the sentimental, and might be marked in the private note-book with famous headings, like those of the New York papers on a balloon marriage, as, The last affinity item! A raid among the magnetisms! or, Hifalutin among prunes! However, in some subtile way, one soon divines on entering a store whether she is to be well served there, and must follow with tact the undercurrent in the shop as well as in the salon. If it be not the right encounter, ask for something there is not, and pass on to the next. Thus, "my grocer" apologizes for keeping honey, because I do not eat sweets, and proposes to open the butter trade because it is so annoying to go about for butter; "my stoveman" descends from the stilts of the firm, looking after these chimney affairs himself; "my carpenter" says, "Shure, an' ye don't owe me onything; I'd work for ye grat-tis if I could"; "my cabinet-dealer" sends tables and wardrobes at midnight if desired, and takes them back and sells them over the next day; even the washerwoman is an affinity, exclaiming, "Shure, an' ye naid n't think I'll be chargin' ye with all the collars an' ruffles ye put in,—shure, an' I'll not."
Perhaps it sounds a little egotistic to say "my grocer," &c., but is not this the way that heads of families talk, and am I not head and family too? At least the solitary may soothe themselves with the family sounds. Indeed, it soon appears that all these faithful servers are like to become so radical a part of the my and mine of existence, as to make it really alarming. When one's comfort is thus bound up in fire-boy and washerwoman, alas! what will become of the grand philosophy of Epictetus?
To begin housekeeping proper, one will need at least a bread-knife and tumbler, a gridiron and individual salt,—cost eighty-four cents. My list also includes for kitchen and table use:—
| Tin saucepan | .40 |
| " baking-pan | .23 |
| " oyster pail | .25 |
| 2 breakfast plates | .20 |
| 4 tea plates | .32 |
| Cup (and cover to mimic sugar-bowl) | .15 |
| Mixing spoon | .15 |
| Pint bowl | .20 |
| Butter jar | .35 |
| 2 knives and forks | .45 |
| 2 saucers | .14 |
| 2 minute platters | .18 |
| 1 " vegetable-dish | .10 |
| 3 individual butter-plates | .18 |
| —— | |
| $3.30 | |
| The aforementioned gridiron, &c. | .84 |
| —— | |
| Sum total | $4.14 |
To this should be added a small iron frying-pan for gravied meats. The quart pail usually did duty for vegetables, the saucepan for soup, while prime chops and steaks appeared from the gridiron. Tea-spoons are not included, nor any tea things whatever. These excepted, it will be seen that less than five dollars gives a full housekeeping apparatus, with pretty white crockery enough to invite a dinner guest.
The provisions for one week were:—
| Bread and rolls | .59 |
| 4 pears and 1/2 lb. grapes | .28 |
| 1 lb. butter | .55 |
| " granulated sugar | .22 |
| " corn starch | .16 |
| " salt | .05 |
| 1/4 lb. pepper | .15 |
| 1/2 lb. halibut | .25 |
| 3/4 lb. steak | .30 |
| 1 quail | .40 |
| 1 pint cranberries | .08 |
| Celery | .05 |
| 1 peck potatoes and turnips | .40 |
| Pickles, 1 pint bottle | .37 |
| —— | |
| $3.85 |
At the end of the week there was stock unused to the amount of $1.00, making $2.85 for actual board, (I did not dine out once,) and this included the most expensive meats, which one might not always care to get; for it is not parsimony that often prefers a sirloin steak at thirty cents to a tenderloin at forty cents. But this note may be added. Don't buy quails, they are all gizzard and feathers; and don't buy halibut, till you have inquired the price. It will also be perceived that beverages are not mentioned. None of that seven million pounds of tea shipped from China last September ever came to my shores. If this article were added, there would come in large complications of furniture and food, beside the obligation of being on the stairs at early hours in fearful dishabille, watching for the milkman, as I have seen my sister-lodgers.
The pecuniary result is, that, for less than three dollars per week and the work, one may have the best food in the market; for three dollars and no work, one may have the very worst in the world.