Edward Lucas White

“ They knew which made only a show of setting out free lunch, and which were lavish; they knew just where the free lunch was unappetizing, just where it was filling, satisfying and digestible. They arranged so that they never ate at the same saloon oftener than once in two weeks. In this way they provided themselves with two hearty, satisfying, nourishing meals each day at a daily expense of precisely ten cents each for two glasses of beer apiece. ”

“ Guy was advance agent for a popular comedian at a salary of fourteen hundred a year. He was fat and complacent. Their three children were as healthy as possible.
“But I shouldn't advise any other woman to try it,” Shoula summed up, after many reminiscences. “I won out on free theater tickets and free water excursions and on my temperament. Few other women have such a temperament.” ”

“ On week days Shoula and Mamie had a good late breakfast and a sustaining afternoon dinner. Shoula said she never ate between meals; if Mamie felt weak she gave her a cup of scalding tea and a sandwich, or a biscuit or slice of bread. The two men never had a meal in the house except on Sundays. On week day mornings Shoula waked Guy at the last moment and he and Dorsey each had a big cup of Rio coffee and a roll, and went about their business. It was in the good old days of unlimited hot free lunch at saloons. Dorsey and Guy knew all the saloons in Baltimore, being reporters. ”

“ All through their steadily increasing prosperity they had been learning to pay other people to do for them what they had formerly done for themselves. Yet a great deal which they might easily have had others do for them they continued to do for themselves partly from instinct, because they had never happened to think at all of that particular feature of their daily life, partly from a sort of inertia of energy, because they spontaneously did things for themselves, for their own satisfaction or for pastime. ”

“ Caring nothing for and hardly knowing anything of conventional diversions, they found amusement in all sorts of household chores, as they called them. Daddy Rayfield had almost forgotten that he had ever, as a young householder, carried out of the house the ashes from the kitchen and furnace, so many years had elapsed since it became one of the duties of the man who swept the front pavement and back yard and attended to other such matters ”

“ Daddy Rayfield consented to the match. But then, neither he nor any other human being could rebuff or oppose Shoula when she set out to have her way. Shoula was a determined and a persuasive creature. Her Daddy in particular could not refuse her. He agreed that whenever Guy was earning a salary of twenty-three dollars a week Shoula should marry him. This was not much of a concession, for at that time no reporter in Baltimore earned more than twenty dollars a week and Guy had not the remotest chance of early promotion. ”

“ Shoula confided to me that between them, they took in more than two dollars a week, clear, for their embroidery.
“And every cent counts,” she said, “and needs to be counted.”
At least three evenings a week they went to the theater. In those days newspaper offices always had more free tickets to theaters than they knew what to do with. If by any chance neither Guy nor Dorsey could get four dead-head tickets, the two women would use the tickets and their husbands would walk in unchallenged as well-known reporters. ”

“ Guy is busy from early morning until the sporting and financial edition goes to press; that is often nearly five o'clock. Almost everything I have to do must be done in business hours. Guy can't attend to anything for me, and most of what I have to do will go better with a man to help. ”

“ I had nothing of importance to do, so I caught the next car for Shoula's part of town. She opened her door for me; she had her hat on.
“Glad to see you,” she said, ignoring the letter. “You always come in the nick of time. A minute later I'd have been gone. I finished my washing early yesterday and some of my ironing. I have just ironed the last piece. I meant to go to the Maternity Hospital this evening, but I think it would be imprudent for me to wait for Guy to come home. I'm going now. Will you walk round with me? ”

“ They all can talk and they all can be horrid, they can threaten, they can say they'll never speak to me again, they can vow that if I go out of the house I go forever, that I can never come back, that they'll cast me off, that I'll never get a cent of cash or a finger-lift of help from any of them, they can keep their word ”

“ And if they were unostentatious and economical by nature, they lived in a roomy and comfortable house, they wore their choice of clothes in great variety, and they sat down to a table abundantly and even lavishly provided with nourishing and appetizing food. ”

“ Illustration: There is only one thing to do and that's to get married at once”
HER two elder sisters had married * well. Prosperous as Daddy Rayfield was, his sons-in-law were decidedly better off. And his daughter-in-law was even affluent in her own right. Naturally, with three children flourishingly married, the family expected Shoula, whom they all regarded as a beauty, to feather her nest notably. So they were all disgusted when she announced her engagement to Guy Williams.
Guy was a reporter on the Evening News at a salary of six dollars a week. ”