Adventures in Thrift/Chapter 6
MRS. LARRY, her chin cupped in her slim competent hand, gazed at the toe of her bronze slipper. A smile played round her lips and brightened her eyes.
Mr. Larry, leaning back in his favorite chair, studied her with the satisfaction of a man who has found matrimony a success, and is eager to blazon the fact to all the world.
"Well,—and what of to-day's adventure in thrift?" he asked.
"Oh, Larry, it ended in such a mess!" she answered, leaning forward, her hands clasped about her knees. "The day started with a perfectly wonderful trip through the Montclair Cooperative Store. Then, because we did not realize that we had taken in about all the information we could absorb at one time, we went chasing off to see a cooperative kitchen and training school for housemaids—"
She stopped abruptly, and resumed her study of the beaded bronze slipper.
"And then," prompted Mr. Larry in exactly the tone which he knew would bring a response.
"Oh, Larry, I'm afraid I'm a little silly," she sighed. "I can't rise to the heights of cooperation and the good of the greatest number and all that sort of thing. Moreover, if I keep on investigating the attempts of my own sex to solve the high cost of living problem, I shall develop into an out and out anti-suffragist. If we women can not solve the economic problems in our own pantries and kitchens, what right have we to meddle with state and national economics?"
Mr. Larry flung back his head and laughed with delight.
"My dear girl," he announced consolingly, "if every man who has shown himself incompetent to direct the finances of his family and his business were deprived of the ballot, the voting list in this city would be cut down about three-fourths. But how does this bear on your trip to Montclair?"
"Oh, in lots of ways," replied Mrs. Larry firmly. "Now about the kitchen. You see, dear, there is so much waste for families like ours, who buy in small quantities. And there is waste in service when each family keeps a maid in a small apartment like this. That's why Teresa Moore said we really ought to see the Montclair Cooperative Kitchen.
"Now suppose she and I had adjoining apartments. Suppose we had one maid between us instead of two, and that the marketing was done simultaneously for both families in larger quantities, and the cooking and serving were done in either her apartment or mine for both families, see?"
Mr. Larry looked alarmed.
"I see, but I don't care for it. I like Teresa—in small doses—but I do not relish the idea of eating my meals with her three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. A man chooses the woman who's to sit opposite him at table because he loves her, not for economic reasons. If this is what your investigations are leading to, we'll quit here and now. Of course, I don't want to interfere with your friendship with Teresa, but—"
"Larry, Larry," chortled his wife, "do run down a minute or two and let me explain. I was only leading up to the Montclair experience by presenting a hypothetical case, as the lawyers do—"
"Oh, if it's only that—" said the mollified Mr. Larry, setting down once more to listen.
"And anyhow," pursued his wife, "you wouldn't have to sit opposite anybody but me. We'd have a table of our own, one for each family."
"Like a high-class boarding house, I suppose, with near-silk candle-shades and a bargain counter fern dish in near-silver—"
"But you don't have to go to the cooperative kitchen if you don't want to; you can have your meals sent piping hot by paying a little more, and even a trim maid to serve the dinner for you," finished Mrs. Larry in triumph.
"Fine! And if you wanted a second helping of mashed potatoes, I suppose the trim little maid would trip down three blocks and bring it back on the run. Great on a rainy night. And suppose that I didn't like onions in my turkey stuffing, but Teresa's husband did, who would win?"
Mrs. Larry shook her head at him.
"That's why cooperative kitchens fail. You men will have the kind of bread your mother used to bake—"
"No, the kind of pie my wife makes, lemon with meringue this high. Do you think there's a cooperative kitchen on earth that can bake a pie like yours?"
"But you can't save a lot of money and have just what you want to eat, Larry, dear."
"All right, then we'll save a little less. Digestion is an important factor in efficiency." He said this with a twinkle in his eye, and then turned sober. "You see, my dear, several years before I married you, I yielded to the importunities of a chap who went in for this sort of thing. He dragged me out to live in a cooperative home established by Upton Sinclair in Jersey. Halcyon Hall they called it. My word, such a site, on top of a mountain with the world at your feet! And then such rules of organization, with the running of the plant neatly divided between us!
"One woman tended all the babies, another did all the cooking. She was a dietitian with a diploma, but she was no cook. To save steps, the food was run in from the kitchen to the dining-room on a sort of miniature railway. Sometimes it stuck, and then everybody with a mechanical turn of mind rushed from the table to pry it loose. Of course, by the time you got your soup or gravy it was cold, but, never mind, the railroad was in working order again, and nobody would have to walk from kitchen to dining-room!"
"Larry! You are hopeless!"
"So was this plan. I dropped my board money and ran for my life—literally, because the man whose specialty was engineering let something go amiss with the furnace in his charge, and the whole place burned to the ground one frosty night. Several of the 'colonists' were severely injured; one claims that she has never fully recovered her health. But, of course, such troubles would not overtake a cooperative kitchen. That is a simpler proposition, so go ahead with your story and I promise not to interrupt."
"Well, the enterprise is not quite a year old—it was started by Mrs. H. A. Leonhauser, wife of a retired army officer, who has lived in all sorts of countries and posts and barracks and things, so she knew the economy of cooperative living.
"We found the kitchen conveniently located at Valley Road and Mountainview Place. You never did see such a wonderful equipment of ranges and sinks and tables and cooking utensils outside of a hotel kitchen. There was everything to do with and so much room to do it in. There are times, dear, when an apartment house kitchen does get on one's nerves—it's like going round and round in a squirrel cage.
"Well, everything started out beautifully—"
"This morning?" queried Mr. Larry.
"No, last November, when the kitchen opened. Only the humblest helpers were what you might call servants. Everybody else had degrees and letters after their names. The making of the menus and the balancing of the food values were done by a graduate dietitian. A woman who had made efficiency a study was appointed as general housekeeper and she looked after the preparation of the meals."
"Who cooked them?"
"Why, the dietitian, of course. Then a graduate in domestic science looked after the real economics, figuring costs and specifying what prices should be paid."
"Any of these ladies ever been married or kept house?"
"Now, Larry, that is horrid! You don't have to marry in order to keep house. The idea was so to arrange meals that every one would be satisfied."
"Impossible!"
"By that I mean different menus would be arranged to suit the incomes of different stockholders. Even if you wanted a vegetarian diet, it would be supplied. If you wanted to have your meals in the dining-room attached to the kitchen, there would be a table d'hôte."
Mr. Larry groaned.
"French or Italian?"
"American, of course, and if you didn't want
_3.png)
to come to the kitchen, your dinner was to be sent to your home in a sort of thermos stove. The table d'hôte, price fifty cents, was to include a soup, a roast, a vegetable, a salad, a dessert and coffee. Every day a post-card folder was to be mailed subscribers, with the dishes to be served the next day, all prices marked for à la carte service. The housekeeper selected her menu in the morning, sent it to the kitchen, and then was free to go to town for shopping or a matinée. When she and her husband came home there would be the family dinner, sitting on the back step in its little thermos stove!"
"But did it?"
"Did it what?" asked Mrs. Larry.
"Did it ever sit, waiting on the back step for its subscribers, stockholders or whatever you call them? Did the kitchen ever really live up to the promises of its prospectus? Did you meet any cooperator who has saved time, trouble and money by and through that kitchen? Any one with an imagination can write a prospectus. What were they doing in that kitchen to-day?"
"Well, now that was just the difficult phase of our investigation. They seemed to be reorganizing. A very clever young woman, Miss Helen Siegle, has recently been placed in charge as manager. She was most courteous, but—er—evasive. There was so much to be done, she said—but the prospects of ultimate success were excellent. She did not criticize past management, but somehow you felt that things had not gone just so—you know what I mean."
"Yes, the way we fellows felt at the club last January when we said what a fine year's work the house committee had done, and all the time were pulling wires to get in an entirely new committee to look after things this year."
"Larry, you certainly are a most understanding person. Miss Siegle took us all over the plant, but she did not tell us much about her own plans. She really seemed to have her hands and her mind pretty full."
"I should say so—think of trying to please each and every stockholder, irrespective of different nationalities, digestions and former condition of servitude to mother's cakes and pies! But, to sum it up, you really did not secure any practical suggestions from the kitchen?"
"No," admitted Mrs. Larry reluctantly, "we didn't see it in operation. But the idea is wonderful, if you could just get the right person to put it in operation."
"If you found her, one of the bachelor stockholders would promptly marry her, and that would settle it. And so from the kitchen you went to the school for housemaids?"
"No, Larry, we did not. Teresa telephoned one of the ladies interested in the school, and she was getting ready to go to a tea, but said if we would telephone Mrs. Somebody else, she would be delighted—"
"If she didn't happen to have a tea on hand also."
"So then we all suddenly decided that we wanted to come home. Teresa remembered an appointment with her tailor—you know they are going to take the Panama trip, don't you? And Mrs. Norton wanted to fill in her dinner set at a china sale, and I—well, Larry, I had the funniest sinking sensation when I happened to remember that I'd been away from the children almost five hours. And we ran like mad to catch the next train?"
"A fine, dignified quartet of investigators, you are! Now, what did you learn as the reward of your trip? Just tell me that!"
"I learned that I'd rather have a real steak from my own broiler than a thermos stove on my back step."
"Good little wife! And as a reward for that sensible answer, you shall read this letter, which may or may not confirm your findings."
Mr. Larry drew a bulky envelope from his pocket, slit it open and tossed the contents in Mrs. Larry's lap.
"You see, my dear, I have an old friend living in Carthage, Missouri, where once a very successful cooperative kitchen flourished. He and his wife were stockholders but dropped out. I asked him to tell me why, and here is the letter in reply."
"No, it's from his wife, and, oh, what pains she has taken! Just listen:
"My Dear Mr. and Mrs. Larry:
"It is so nice to have an excuse to write to one of my husband's old classmates and to his wife. So let us talk together as if you were here in our living-room instead of several thousand miles away.
"If you were to ask any one who was a member of the defunct Carthage Cooperative Kitchen why it failed, he or she would immediately answer, 'Why it never failed!' It was a great success, yet it was discontinued because it was not possible to find enough members to keep the cost of the operative expense within the means of the members who still wished to continue the kitchen.
"Of the fifteen families who joined when it was organized, five families dropped out because they could no longer afford to belong. Two families dropped out because they grew tired of walking such a distance to their meals. One couple left because an invalid mother came to live with them. Another because they wished to set a better table than the kitchen's. This couple frankly said they could afford luxuries, but did not expect the kitchen to furnish them, as the others could not. It was true, and no one minded, especially as this couple were very hospitable. You see, in, no case was it dissatisfaction with the cooperative kitchen management that caused the withdrawal of members.
"If the cost of provisions had remained what it was when the kitchen opened, doubtless the kitchen would have become a permanent institution. But the price of foodstuffs increased so rapidly that the second year found the kitchen facing this question: Shall we cut down our table or increase the price of board? There were some who could not afford to spend more on food. These left and, presumably, at home did without some of the things that some of the kitchen members had considered necessary. No one has ever claimed to live cheaper in his own home and keep a maid.
"When the price of board was increased to three dollars and fifty cents, then to four dollars, per member per week, it was more difficult to get members. In a town like Carthage there are many families that can afford three dollars per member table board. There are fewer that can afford four dollars per member. And it became difficult to find fifteen families living in the same neighborhood who could afford it. In a town that does not have a local street railway one wants to live within a short distance of the house that serves breakfast.
"Besides, as the membership decreased, the expense per member increased, so more families dropped out.
"In order to be successful, a kitchen must be located in a neighborhood where at least twelve families have the same standard of living, the same tastes and are able to spend the same amount on their table. This may be in a very small town or in a city. In a town like Carthage, where the scale runs from a millionaire to a mail carrier in the same block, it is difficult to pick that neighborhood.
"It is interesting to note that not one of the things so freely prophesied contributed to the discontinuance of the kitchen. Never once was there disagreement over menus or payments. Never once was there trouble over children, or complaint of unfairness, or gossip, or fault-finding.
"To-day the members of the Cooperative Kitchen are close friends, and we unite in praising the ability and the tact of the manager!"
Mrs. Larry laid down the letter and looked at her husband with dancing eyes.
"And so, you see, after all, this matter of cooperative cooking and living practically resolves itself into the question of lemon meringue pie or—Brown Betty, according to your individual finances. And to-morrow you get Brown Betty, because Lena, having picked up a bargain in apples, has laid in a stock which must be used."
"Lena!" exclaimed the astonished Mr. Larry.
"Yes. Lena, too, is studying short cuts in economy and having little adventures of her own. She has developed a good-sized bump of responsibility since I have been making these trips, and she is alone with the children. She takes great pride in saving pennies. To-day she bought the apples from a huckster at three cents less a quart than we pay at Dahlgren's.
"To insure solid fruit, she insisted upon picking out each apple with her own hands."
Mr. Larry, who had been opening his evening paper, laid it down, turned to his wife and spoke seriously.
"You know, little woman, when I hear your friends roasting their help for carelessness and extravagance, I often wonder where the fault really lies. If the mistress buys supplies in small quantities, or if she is extravagant, how can she expect the maid to fight her bad management with thrift? The girl is far more apt to say, 'Oh, what's the use for me to save what my mistress will waste in the end?'
"I have been watching Lena since you commenced your investigations in thrift, and, in her stolid way, she is tremendously impressed. She attacks her work in a more businesslike fashion, and she certainly regards you with increased respect."
At the last word Mrs. Larry shook her head.
"I'm not so sure about that. Sometimes she questions my marketing abilities. Do you remember the other morning when we were starting for Montclair, she asked, 'What is the use of paying more for rice in package than in bulk if they both have to be washed?'"
Mr. Larry's eyes twinkled.
"Yes, she had you fussed for a minute."
"And she gave me something to think about—is the habit of buying package goods economical or extravagant?"
"Why don't you find out? Buy both kinds and see which has the better flavor. Weigh, measure and compare."
"I will," said Mrs. Larry firmly. "I'll start to-morrow morning. And here's an adventure in thrift which Claire must make with me. I'll telephone her this minute."
But she paused with her hand on the receiver—
"I remembered just in time to save five cents. Claire is going to the Bryant dance."
At that very instant the bell rang and Claire came in, a vision in coral tulle.
"How'de, everybody!" She paused, in sudden embarrassment, the color mounting to her softly waved black hair.
Mr. Larry studied her with approving glance.
"Stunning, Claire. Whether it cost fifty dollars or five hundred."
"Less than fifty. Oh, I'm learning," she said with a happy little laugh.
"It was awfully good of you to let me see it before you had danced some of the freshness out of it," said Mrs. Larry.
"Oh, I just had to come. You see" She stopped—and again the beautiful color flooded her face.
"Of course," said Mrs. Larry, as, sensing the need of greater privacy, she slipped her hand through Claire's arm and led her down to the guest room. "But first, let me catch up your hair a bit."
Mr. Larry, all unconscious that the spirit of romance had tripped into the apartment with the coral-tinted vision, buried himself in his paper. Safe on the other side of the guest room door, Mrs. Larry held the radiant girl a little closer.
"Claire, dear, what has come over you?"
"This," answered Claire in a voice that trembled with happiness. She held out her hand, and in the soft light from a silk-shaded electrolier Mrs. Larry caught the gleam of the diamond which had traveled to Kansas City and back.
"Is Jimmy here?" she asked.
"No, no. He sent it with a most wonderful letter. Just a few lines—but—oh! To-morrow's my birthday. He asked me to take this back for a birthday remembrance, because it was impossible for him to think of my hand without it. I was to think of it as his birthday message—and not as binding me to any promise given in the past. Just as if I don't want to be bound!"
She pressed the stone against her lips.
Mrs. Larry laughed a trifle uncertainly.
"A man's way of admitting he was wrong and saying he's sorry."
"But why do you suppose he did it? How did he know that I wouldn't send it straight back to him?"
"Oh, a man will usually take a chance—and he loves you, which is the most important thing, after all," affirmed Mrs. Larry, as she recalled certain letters in the farthest drawer of Aunt Abigail's old secretary. "Do you think you'll be able to do some investigating with me to-morrow? I want to look into the cost of groceries, but, perhaps after the dance, you'll be too tired"
"Tired? I don't think I can ever be tired again. And I'll be here at eight in the morning."
"No, you won't," said Mrs. Larry positively. "I can't be ready that early. Make it nine."
"All right," said Claire, as she drew her wrap over her shoulders. Then she kissed Mrs. Larry good night—and flitted off.