Adventures in Thrift/Chapter 1
MRS. LARRY folded her veil with nice exactitude and speared it with two invisible hairpins. Then she bent her hat one-fourth of an inch on the right side, fluffed up her hair on the left and tucked her gloves under her purse. These pre-luncheon rites completed, she reached for the program of music. But, glancing casually at Claire Pierce on the other side of the table, she dropped the square of cardboard, with its Pierrot silhouettes, and studied the girl curiously.
When one has picked up a remnant of chiffon taffeta in a most desirable shade, at two-thirds the price asked at the regular counter, and has ordered a tidy luncheon of chicken-salad sandwiches and chocolate with whipped cream, in the popular restaurant of Kimbell's very popular department store, one has cause to look cheerful. And Claire's expression was anything but cheerful. She had removed neither veil nor gloves, but, with her hands folded in her lap, she sat staring through the window which overlooked one of New York's busiest corners.
"My dear, what has happened?"
Claire transferred her gaze from the roof-tops to the pattern in the tablecloth which she outlined mechanically with a finger-tip.
"I—I've—broken with Jimmy, and—and—he went back to Kansas City last night."
"Oh, you poor lamb! Whatever went wrong between you two? Why, you were just made for each other."
"That's what Jimmy said," murmured the girl in a choking voice.
The great restaurant, with its chattering shoppers, faded away. They two seemed quite alone. Mrs. Larry reached out a warm impulsive hand and gripped Claire's fingers, cold even through her heavy gloves.
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
"Telling doesn't help."
"Oh, yes, it does, my dear. Do you suppose that if I had known, I would have dragged you from one sale to another, boring you with such unimportant details as trimmings and findings? No, indeedy! We'd have gone home to my apartment and talked about Jimmy, and cuddled the baby."
Claire covered her eyes quickly with a shaking hand.
"Oh, I couldn't have stood that. This has been much better. It's helped me to forget for a little while."
Mrs. Larry shook her head.
"Oh, no, it hasn't. You're not the kind to forget. You're too sweet and womanly and loyal, and you're going to tell me what happened,—why you sent Jimmy away."
"Because I love him too well to marry him."
Mrs. Larry's pretty oval face clouded. She was essentially a normal, single-minded woman. To her way of thinking, if you loved a man, you married him and made him happy. You did not send him off to another city to live among strangers, quite probably in some fussy, musty boarding-house. Subtleties of this sort positively annoyed her. They seemed so unnecessary, so futile. However, she cloaked her real feelings and threw an extra sympathetic note into her next speech.
"Well, tell me the worst! I'm bromidic, I know, but perhaps I can help. Marriage does help one to understand the male creature!"
Nobody could withstand Mrs. Larry in this mood. Mrs. Larry was not her real name. She was Mrs. Lawrence Hall, born Gregory, christened Elizabeth Ellen, but from the day of her marriage she had been nick-named "Mrs. Larry" by all those fortunate enough to count themselves as friends or acquaintances. And she loved the name. She said it made her feel so completely married to Larry. For be it known that Mr. Larry was the planet round which Mrs. Larry, Larry Junior, Baby Lisbeth, and even Lena, the maid of all work in the house of Hall, revolved as subsidiary stars. Unhappy wives, bewildered husbands, uncertain bachelors and all too certain young women confided their love-affairs to Mrs. Larry and left her presence cheered, if not actually helped in the solution of their particular problems.
So she was quite sure that Claire would open her heart when the proper moment arrived. It came when the white-uniformed waitress, having served the sandwiches and the chocolate, hurried away to collect payment on a luncheon check. The words were not gracious, but the tone in which they were uttered would have moved a heart of stone. They fairly set Mrs. Larry's quivering.
"Well, if you must know, it was this—and this—and this" wailed Claire, as she poked the tip of her spoon into the top of her sandwich, the whipped cream on her chocolate and the powdered sugar heaped in the silver bowl.
"The high cost of living—money, dirty, sordid, hideously essential money. We can't live on Jimmy's income, and he's too proud to let father give me even my ridiculous little allowance after we are married. He says he'll support his own wife and his own house, or he doesn't want either. And, do you know, he doesn't draw any more money out of the firm each month than my father pays for the upkeep of our limousine? Can you picture me trying to stretch forty dollars a week to provide everything—everything—for Jimmy and me?"
"You could learn, dear," suggested Mrs. Larry, with a secret thrill at the thought of her own housewifely abilities.
"That's what Jimmy said, but when we figured it all out, from house rent to cravats for Jimmy, crediting me incidentally with being the experienced housewife I am not, there wasn't five cents left for insurance, the savings fund or the simplest recreation, let alone luxuries. In his profession, Jimmy'd just have to keep up appearances on the outside, if we had to live on oatmeal gruel and dried apples in the privacy of our apartment. I tried to persuade Jimmy to let father loan him a few thousand, just for the good of his career. He accused me of trying to weaken his character. He said I could learn how to manage, if I really loved him. And I told him if he waited until I knew how to manage a house on forty dollars a week, he'd forget how to love me."
Claire made a fine pretense of choking over her hot chocolate. Anything was better than allowing even so sympathetic a person as Mrs. Larry to see that she was shedding tears over a certain party now speeding in the direction of Kansas City. Mrs. Larry drew her smooth brows together in a frown.
"But, Claire, dear, there are women who keep nice little homes on twenty dollars a week."
"Their husbands are not ambitious and coming lawyers. No, dear woman, I recognize my own limitations, and I love Jimmy too well to interfere with his future—to—to wreck his dear life. But it does seem as if mother might have realized that one of us girls might fall in love with some one besides a rich man. She might have taught me something about the value of money and the management of a house."
Mrs. Larry, reaching for her purse, pictured the easy-going, money-spending life of the Pierce household, with its inherited and well invested money and its irresponsible wife and mother. But she said in her cheeriest voice:
"Well, my dear Claire, there is always a way out of such a situation, when there's nothing more serious at stake than the high cost of living. And nothing in the world would shake the loyalty of a man like Jimmy Graves. You see—in his very next letter"
"But there won't be any next letter" Claire extended a ringless hand.
Mrs. Larry gasped.
"Claire Pierce, you didn't!"
"Yes, and what's more—he—he took it. Of course, I expected him to insist upon my keeping it."
Mrs. Larry was so amazed, so shocked that she almost forgot to leave a tip on the tray for the waitress. She even rose without adjusting her veil.
"Let's go down to the concert hall," she murmured. "They usually have an organ recital in the afternoon. I can always think better to music."
They threaded their way between the tables and under the broad archway to the foyer connecting the elevators and the smaller dining-room used for afternoon tea. Here they were approached by a well-mannered salesgirl, carrying small announcements, which she offered with an ingratiating smile.
"Wouldn't you like to stop for the lecture this afternoon? It will begin in ten minutes."
Claire and Mrs. Larry accepted the printed announcements mechanically, their gaze fixed on the tea room, which was already half full. On the platform, bustling employees of the store were arranging what looked like an exhibit, bolts of cloth and silk, ready-made garments, shoes, gloves, linens, perfumes. The saleswoman followed their curious glance.
"Those are the heads of departments and the buyers. They are going to answer questions after the lecture."
"What's the subject of the lecture?" inquired Mrs. Larry.
The salesgirl actually chuckled and pointed to the card in Mrs. Larry's hand—
"'What Do You Do With Father's Money?'"
Other women had gathered round, sensing the unusual.
"It is a funny title, isn't it?" exclaimed the girl, quite thrilled by her small but interested audience. "A lady from one of the magazines is holding a conference here all this week for housekeepers and mothers."
"Yes," interrupted Mrs. Larry, "but what does she mean by such a title, 'What Do You Do With Father's Money?'"
"Oh," answered the girl brightly, "she's going to tell you, first, how women who don't know how to shop, waste the money their men folks earn; and then the different buyers are going to tell you how to know the difference between good goods and bad."
An elevator discharged fifteen or eighteen women, who, with note-books in hand, hurried toward the lecture room. Some of them nodded to the salesgirl as they passed.
"Lots of the ladies have been here every afternoon, but I think this is going to be the biggest meeting of all. That title's made a hit: 'What Do You Do With Father's Money?'"
Mrs. Larry gripped Claire's arm feverishly and fairly dragged her toward the lecture room.
"My dear, I told you there'd be a way out. Talk about providence,—to think of our stumbling, first thing, on a lecture about getting your money's worth. You ought to take this as an omen!"
They found seats near the platform and watched with interest the operations of the buyers arranging their exhibits and the movements of the competent-looking woman with a short maternal figure, snapping bright eyes and a friendly way of addressing the women in the audience who plainly regarded her as their leader. Claire, still benumbed by the departure of Jimmy Graves, sat gazing in preoccupied fashion at figures which were just so many manikins. Gregarious Mrs. Larry turned to the woman on her left.
"Have you been to the other meetings?"
"Indeed, yes, and you wouldn't believe how much I have learned."
"About what?" asked Mrs. Larry.
"Oh, about taking care of yourself before the baby comes, feeding babies, diet for older children, discipline, and lots of things that puzzle young mothers like me. It's funny, isn't it, how we girls marry without knowing a single thing about handling children, when they are the biggest thing in our lives after marriage."
"Except our husbands," was Mrs. Larry's mental reservation. "Yes," she said aloud. "I had lots of trouble with my first baby. I managed better with the second. But who bears the expenses of this conference? We didn't pay any admission!"
"Oh, it's done by the Kimbells. My husband says it's a very clever way to bring women into the store. And you just want to buy everything the doctors and the lecturers tell you about."
The brisk-looking leader had mounted the platform. An expectant hush fell upon the audience.
"Yesterday afternoon, when I announced the subject of to-day's lecture, 'What Do You Do With Father's Money?' a good many of you laughed. Some of you shook your heads, because you know how hard it is to make father's money go around. And one reason why it is so hard to stretch the family income is this: You don't know what you are getting for the money you spend,—how much nourishment it contains, if it is for food; how long it will wear, if it is clothing. You take a chance. You guess. But you don't know. And because you don't know, quite a little of father's money goes to waste.
"Now, this isn't your fault. It is because economic and domestic conditions have changed or progressed, but the training of women has not changed nor progressed in the same way. We are still trying to economize by concocting dishes out of left-overs in the refrigerator, and turning and dyeing clothes, when it is far more important that we should know the true value of food and fabrics when we buy them.
"A few generations back, your ancestors and mine, both husbands and wives, raised together in the field, the pasture and the garden, most of the foodstuffs required for the family. And in the great kitchen were woven most of the fabrics required for clothing the family. What could not be raised on the land or made in the home was traded for at the country store. Quite generally, these negotiations were conducted by the men of the family. The women knew how much sugar would be brought home for each dozen of eggs, how many pounds of butter they must send to the store for a pair of shoes.
"Then farms were cut up into towns, towns were swallowed by cities and the family loom disappeared before the advancing factory. The daughter of the woman who had dried apples, cherries and corn on the tin roof of her lean-to kitchen served at her table the product of canneries. And everybody whose ancestors had traded butter and eggs and cheese and smoke-house ham for drygoods had money to spend instead. Some of them had a great deal of money—more than was good for them. The country passed through a period of prosperity and suddenly acquired wealth, but nobody thought to teach this new generation of women the value of money or how to spend it to best advantage. No one even realized that while extravagant habits were gripping American women, nobody warned them concerning the lean days that would come with financial panic, and nobody observed the quiet but steady increase in the cost of living.
"Then the deluge! Greedy corporations cornered food supplies. The high cost of living became a bitter reality. And behold, press and public bewailing the extravagance of the American woman and comparing her unfavorably with her housewifely sisters across the sea!
"This is unjust. Give the American woman lessons in thrift along the modern lines of income and expenditure, and she will work out her splendid salvation. Throw light on food values, on fabrics and their adulteration. Teach the woman how to buy as well as how to utilize what she buys, and she will be able to solve, in her own way, the much discussed problem of the high cost of living. She will know what to do with father's money.
"It is not possible in one short afternoon to discuss food values and modern methods of marketing, but when you have heard what these ladies and gentlemen have to say," indicating the buyers in charge of their respective exhibits, "you will realize what you can save by knowing more about what you buy. I take pleasure in introducing Mr. Jones, the linen buyer."
Mr. Jones, an elderly man, took his place beside a table piled high with towels, table and bed linen.
"As each one of us is limited to a few minutes," he explained, while the more experienced women in the audience opened their note-books, "I will take up just one point in the buying of linens, the difference between real linen and mercerized cotton. It is on this one point that shoppers are most often deceived and cheated. Do not misunderstand me. Mercerized cotton is worth the price an honest firm asks for mercerized cotton. But it is not worth the price asked for linen. When you buy mercerized cotton at the price for which you should receive honest linen, then you are wasting fifty per cent. of father's money; throwing away fifty cents out of every dollar, twenty-five cents out of every fifty.
"Mercerized cotton wears just as long as linen, but it does not wear in the same way. Properly laundered, it shines quite as highly as good linen damask, but there is this difference—the first time mercerized cotton is laundered it begins to shed a fine fuzz or lint which settles on your clothing. No doubt you have noticed this, when you have dined at a restaurant and discovered lint from the tablecloth or napkin on your tailored suit. Most of the linen used in restaurants is not linen at all—it is mercerized cotton. The lint which sticks to your clothes is the same lint that rises like a haze in a cotton mill. But when I visit a big linen mill in Ireland, Belgium, Flanders or Germany, there is no lint in the air. Flax, from which real linen is made, does not give forth lint.
"Buy mercerized cotton for your dining-room table or your bedding, if you want, but pay just what it is worth and no more. To be quite explicit, as mercerized cotton fabrics are worth just half what pure linen is worth, if you pay for mercerized cotton the price asked for pure linen, you are wasting father's money.
"I have here two bolts of table 'linen' in exactly the same chrysanthemum design. One of these is real linen, value one dollar and fifty cents per yard; the other is mercerized cotton, value seventy-five cents per yard. I am quite sure that when these two bolts are passed around, you will not be able to tell the linen from the mercerized cotton. My own salesmen can not tell them apart without applying some sort of a test. Down in our basement you can buy the mercerized cotton at seventy-five cents a yard. If you will launder it carefully, rinsing it finally in very thin starch water, iron it very dry with heavy irons, you can get exactly the same gloss possible for linen damask, and you will get its full value of seventy-five cents a yard.
"The real linen sells at one dollar and fifty cents per yard, in our linen department on the second floor. If you want to spend a dollar and a half a yard for table linen, just make sure that you are getting linen and not mercerized cotton, that you are getting a dollar in fabric value for every dollar of father's money."
Several clerks started to carry the bolts of linen through the audience. Instantly an eager woman was on her feet.
"But how are we to know the difference between mercerized cotton and linen, if your own clerks do not recognize it?" she demanded.
"By asking the clerk to test what you are buying, in front of your eyes. Have the material moistened on the right side. If the moisture shows almost immediately on the wrong side you may be reasonably sure that it is linen damask. If, however, the moisture does not show quickly on the wrong side, you may be pretty sure that it is cotton so highly mercerized or finished that the polish or finish withstands moisture. Or you can have it rubbed with a damp cloth. Linen will remain smooth; mercerized cotton will roughen.
"Moreover, as soon as the salesman finds out that you know how to buy linen, he will tell you the truth rather than be caught in an attempt to deceive you. Don't say to a salesman, as some of our customers do, 'I don't know anything about linens, except the kind of pattern I like, so I'll have to depend on you about quality,' Don't confess ignorance and invite deception when you can so easily possess knowledge."
When the linen had been passed from one part of the audience to another, and the excitement had subsided, the buyer of cotton dress goods took the floor to explain the difference in price and values between imported and domestic goods. Like the linen buyer, he contended that the cheaper goods of domestic manufacture wear quite as well and hold their colors quite as long as their imported cousins, the difference being largely in sheerness and in design. There could be no doubt, he admitted, that foreign cotton goods, like mulls, organdies, lawns, veilings, etc., are more finely woven from more distinctive designs than those made in American mills. But from economic reasons and not from patriotism, he urged the woman of limited means to buy summer fabrics of American manufacture.
"In preferring foreign fabrics," he added, "you are only indulging a taste for luxury, satisfying your desire to have fabrics of more exclusive color and design than your neighbor. You won't get one more day's wear for spending thirty per cent., even fifty per cent. more, of father's money."
On the other hand, the buyer of woolens advised shoppers, especially those who sought material for tailored suits, separate skirts and one-piece serge dresses for hard wear, to give the preference to foreign weaves, as these would withstand all bad weather conditions.
The buyer for flannels next took the floor, and many women were surprised to learn that the all-wool flannel for petticoats and binders for the layette, the all-wool shirts and stockings for the new baby, represented a waste of father's money. Wool and cotton mixed or wool and silk will shrink less, wear longer and give more comfort to the wearer than the coveted all-wool.
"Only don't pay for fine cotton and wool what you would pay for all-wool or silk and wool," exclaimed the buyer, as she carried samples of the different weaves from aisle to aisle.
The shoe buyer discussed the wearing qualities of different leathers and explained how cheap shoes that did not fit are more expensive in the end than higher priced shoes properly fitted. Also how the foot changes at different ages and how the health and working capacity of human beings are affected by so simple a factor as the shoes they wear. But most interesting of all, to the average woman, was the illuminating talk given by the buyer of suits, coats and blouses.
"You women who buy ready-made clothes think that when you have undone the parcel, paid the balance due on it, and shaken out the garment, it is quite ready for you to wear. You have bought it ready-made to escape visits to the dressmaker or the annoyance of a seamstress in the house, or any tax on your own limited abilities as a sewer. All you have to do now is to wear the dress. What is more, you figure that it is much cheaper to buy a taffeta house dress for sixteen dollars and seventy-five cents than to have one made at the dressmaker's or in the home at twenty dollars or twenty-five dollars. On the surface, you are right. You do pay out less money, but I will tell you a little secret. If you don't go over a ready-made garment, even at sixteen dollars and seventy-five cents, you have wasted several dollars of father's money, and I will explain why.
"In order to turn out clothing in quantities large enough to yield a profit and at prices low enough to have popular appeal, a manufacturer must depend upon certain employees to inspect the output of the factory. These women and girls work rapidly and sometimes miss defects. For a few inches, one side of a seam may slip from under the machine; a tired girl may catch a button or hook with a single thread when she should use three or four; a bit of lace may not be fastened tight. Now, if on receipt of this garment you take time to go over it carefully, you can lengthen its life one-third. If a seam is not deep enough at a point where there is considerable strain, rip it for a few inches and take a deeper seam by hand. If you see that a piece of lace is almost loose, re-sew it before it begins to fray, or you will have to set in a new piece of lace at your own expense. It pays to fasten on buttons, bows, ornaments and buckles. You can't expect the workers in a great factory to take the same individual pains that your dressmaker or seamstress would take. It costs money to renew trifles like these which drop from a ready-made garment. Sometimes you can not match them at all and your dress is spoiled.
"I've known women who, in their haste to wear a pretty new blouse, neglected so simple a thing as sewing in shields. If your dressmaker or the home seamstress had spent enough time to make a satisfactory gown, you may rest assured she would not forget the shields. A self-toned braid, at ten or fifteen cents, will lengthen the life of a ready-made skirt. Fashionable tailors never send out a high-priced suit without suggesting braid for the skirt. For ten cents and a little time, you can add this exclusive and economical touch to your ready-made skirt."
Long before the different buyers had finished their talks, Claire Pierce was roused from her lethargy of near-despair. She was beginning to understand, to a small degree, why her efficient, optimistic lover had been so sure that she would master the intricacies of household expenditure. All around her were women who knew how to be happy on small incomes or who were there to find the road to such contentment. She felt sudden contempt for the careless way in which she and her sisters had always ordered their gowns, without even demanding itemized bills for the father who paid them so cheerfully.
As for Mrs. Larry, she had leaned forward in the receptive attitude of a child watching its first Punch and Judy show. And now that the buyers were retiring behind their exhibits, the conference leader once more mounted the platform.
"I know we have all learned a great deal this afternoon about better values for father's money, and I hope that each one of us will use this knowledge in our homes, not only to save father's money, but to bring to ourselves greater contentment with our lot, and, in the end, little luxuries which we must now deny ourselves. For in efficiency there is contentment, and through true economy do we attain luxuries. I believe in what is commonly called luxuries. I believe in the right of every refined, intelligent wife to enjoy these luxuries.
"I wonder how many of you women are weary of petty economies, of making over clothes, of trying to stretch a chicken to cover the meat course for three meals?"
A wave of laughter passed over the room, but it was not free from hysteria. The speaker continued.
"I know just how you feel. You turn and you twist, you warm up and you conjure new dishes out of next to nothing, and, still, at the end of the year, you realize how little money has gone into the savings bank, or how much is still due on the mortgage. You wonder if you will ever be able to buy a complete new dress; whether you can ever spare enough money for Nellie to go to dancing school, or for you and your husband to hear a good concert. I hope these talks will help you to solve just such problems. I'd like to think of each one of you having just one thing that you have always denied yourself, and to have it by learning how to get the most for father's money."
On the applause which followed, Claire Pierce rose, new vitality straightening the figure that had drooped at the luncheon table. It was Mrs. Larry who sat quite still, looking beyond the platform with its group of buyers, its exhibit of purple and fine linen, and the cheery conference leader, far, far up-town into a certain apartment where reposed certain manila envelopes known to herself and Mr. Larry as "The Budget."
As Claire Pierce touched her elbow, she drew a deep sigh and rose.
"Oh, dear," said Claire, "if only I'd heard this talk before I said what I did to Jimmy!"
Mrs. Larry came to with a start.
"Jimmy? Oh, yes, Jimmy! Forgive me. I'd forgotten him. You see, I was thinking of my Larry."