Living on a Little

The salad was made next, the lettuce washed and rolled up in a clean towel and put where it was very cold, to crisp. They rolled balls of cream cheese, wetting them with a bit of oil to make them smooth, and adding salt and a dash of cayenne; as each one was made it was rolled in grated American cheese and then laid away. The French dressing was also made, and at the last moment was to be poured over the lettuce, and the golden, white-centred balls laid on it.

The beets for the soup were next chopped and boiled in a pint of water; as much milk was added, the whole seasoned with a slice of onion, salt and pepper, and then strained and slightly thickened. This made the prettiest of pink soups, and one which could be set away and be reheated at dinner time in three minutes. The mint jelly was also made: a cup of water was put with the juice of a lemon and heated; when hot, a small bunch of bruised mint was put in and simmered for two minutes; then this was strained and a level tablespoonful of gelatine, dissolved in half a cup of cold water, was put in with a tiny bit of green vegetable coloring, the whole strained through flannel and put into a pretty little mould. It would come out a lovely sparkling green, quite decorative enough to be put on the table, and delicious to eat with the lamb, Mrs. Thorne assured Dolly complacently.

The peas were turned out of the can, drained, seasoned and made ready to heat up quickly. The potatoes were boiled and cut up in a very little thick white sauce, and a spoonful of parsley was minced to be scattered over them, last of all.

After their luncheon the dinner table was laid. It had a white damask cloth, and a white, lace-edged centrepiece. There were four glass candlesticks with yellow candles and shades, and in the middle a bowl of the yellow jonquils, now in season and inexpensive. At each place was a pretty plate, which was to remain on till exchanged for a hot one later, and a small array of silver, with a tumbler and napkin. The latter hid a dinner roll, so no bread and butter was served at the dinner. The table was then finished except for the last touch; the small dishes of radishes and salted almonds, and a few white peppermints, were to be put on just before dinner, with the dish of mint jelly.

After the dinner was over Dolly confessed her amazement.

"I 'never did,' as the children say. I had no idea you could have so nice, so pretty a party with so little to 'do' with. Really, we never missed the fish, or the entrée, or the game or anything else. It was a lovely and delicious meal, wasn't it, Dick?"

"Modesty compels me to refrain from saying what I truly think, Dolly. Otherwise I should mention my conviction is that it was as good a dinner and as nice a party as you'd often find, and your sister is about as fine a cook and manager as they make 'em. But as I said to begin with, in my position of host my lips are sealed."

"So little trouble, too," Dolly went on, smiling at him. "I really thought you were crazy to ask the Osgoods, whom everybody is afraid to entertain because they have everything in the world, but our dinner was just as nice as though we had followed in their footsteps and had a table decorated with orchids, and whitebait and fancy ices and everything else to eat. Mary, permit me to say I consider you a genius!"

"Nothing of the sort. I am simply a woman, more or less sensible, I fondly trust, who knows that nowadays nobody cares for long, ten-course meals, and if what is set out is only good of its kind, that is all that matters. Then, too, when we are really living on a little and everybody knows it, either we cannot entertain at all, which means that we cannot accept invitations, or we must do it in a plain way, in keeping with the general style of our home life. Anything else would be absurd, snobbish and extravagant. And to prove that people like to come to simple dinner-parties like ours, I shall have two more right away."

"Three cheers," said her husband calmly.

The next morning the sisters added up their accounts and set down the dinner menu and what it cost in a little dinner-party book which was often used for reference by them. This is what the dinner proved to have cost:

"That is all, except the flowers, which were forty cents, and the cherries, which I made myself last summer and paid for then, so I did not have to put their cost in now, you see. The little bottle of olives cost ten cents; so did the radishes. The Jordan almonds were forty cents a pound, and I got half a pound and have some over for next time. With the flowers, that makes the dinner $3.15; say $3.25, to allow a liberal margin for little bits of butter, sugar, salt and so on used up in cooking, and $4, including the pay of the waitress. I call that a cheap party."

As soon as finances permitted and small economies had made the two sisters feel comparatively rich, they gave a second dinner. This time they found some pink tulips at a small florist's, and these they used in making a lovely table. They stuck them one by one into a very shallow dish filled with sand, the leaves put in and out also, and the edge of the dish concealed with moss; this gave exactly the effect of a little bed of growing flowers.

The menu was quite different from the other dinner:

Cream of almond soup

Olives, radishes, salted nuts

Maryland chicken with cream gravy; new potatoes; corn fritters

Lettuce and cherry salad; crackers

Vanilla ice-cream with strawberries

Coffee

The soup was made by chopping a quarter of a pound of almonds and simmering them in a pint of milk; then the other pint was put in with the seasoning, and it was slightly thickened, strained, and at last beaten up well with an egg-beater to make it foamy. The chicken was cut up and the best pieces dipped in batter and fried in deep fat; a rich cream gravy was passed with this. The corn fritters which were the necessary accompaniment of the dish were made of canned, grated corn.

The salad was very cheap at this time of year. Large California cherries were stoned, laid on lettuce, and a French dressing poured over all. The ice-cream was a nice vanilla, and on each glass was put one fine large strawberry. The next day the remains of the chicken appeared at dinner in the shape of croquettes, with a rice border, and the rest of the box of berries came on also. This materially reduced the expenses of that meal, and the difference went on to the cost of the party dinner, to help out. The account was like this:

Adding the little things as before, the flowers, nuts, olives, pay of the waitress, and a margin, brought this up to a trifle over four dollars.

"That is too much," said Mary soberly, as she set down the figures. "I mean to keep strictly within a four-dollar limit. So our third dinner, Dolly, must be less than these and even things."

This was the third dinner:

Clear soup with tapioca

Salted nuts, radishes, almonds

Roast of veal, stuffed; fresh mushrooms; potatoes

Lettuce with chopped nuts; French dressing

Strawberry ices

Coffee

"That is a good, sensible dinner," said Dolly. "No frills, unless you count the mushrooms."

"It is the cost of the waitress that makes these dinners so expensive," said her sister. "It provokes me to have to put money on that, yet I will do it at a real dinner-party. But as for the rest, this ought not to be a costly affair."

The soup was made of very ordinary materials, but it looked and tasted well. The roast was crisply browned and juicy within, and the delicious stuffing and broiled mushrooms were substantial and good. The salad was lettuce covered with chopped almonds put on after the French dressing. The ices called for no cream and so were inexpensive. The figures showed this result:

"Ah, that's better," said Mary, when she saw the total. "Then the flowers were the same as before, only red instead of pink tulips; the waitress, too, and the margin – only $3.25. I feel relieved."

"Of course roast veal is not quite as good as Maryland chicken," said Dolly, "but the mushrooms made it seem quite elegant; broiled mushrooms are certainly food for the gods. It is quite a saving to have an ice instead of an ice-cream, isn't it? And Mary, did you see what a big, big piece of roast was left over?"

"That is one of the good things about veal, that there is so little waste. I am sure we can easily make two dinners out of it, and that will save ever so much. And when we can get ahead at all, Dolly, we must hurry and have our luncheons."

CHAPTER X
Reducing Expenses

"I never feel as extravagant as I do in spring-time," Mrs. Thorne said as she hovered over asparagus, tiny new potatoes, fresh peas and strawberries in the market one May morning. "Everything is so tempting, and we are tired of winter vegetables, and yet we will run up dreadful accounts if we attempt to have any of these goodies. Come right along, Dolly; don't linger a moment longer, or I am lost."

"You could really have bought a spring vegetable or two," remonstrated her sister as they walked home. "We are ahead on our money, I know, because I rattled the bank this morning, and it was nearly full. I do not see why you did not get something nice and springy if you wanted to."

"Because now for a week or two I mean to reduce expenses. I want to give three small luncheons and have everything as nice and pretty as possible, and you know we used up our savings of two months on our dinner-parties. The rattling of the bank meant only pennies, my dear; I know, for I peeked. So we must cut down vigorously."

"That is an absolute impossibility," said Dolly with decision. "We do not waste a single crumb now, not a potato paring, not a bone nor even an egg-shell. We can't save a cent's worth."

"Oh, yes, we can; we can save a lot if we try. And there is a suggestion for to-day's lesson; it will be on Retrenchment."

Dolly still looked unconvinced when she sat down with book and pencil, but Mary was complacent.

"Of course we do not waste anything," she began, as she took her seat in the sitting-room after the entire apartment was in immaculate order and lunch under way, "and as you suggest, we have cheap meats and vegetables right along. But we can still find some things that are cheaper still, – because you always can, whatever you have. So if we cut down on those to begin with, and have desserts for a week made without butter or eggs, and abandon fruit altogether for the time, I am sure we can have quite a surplus presently.

"To begin with meat, because you know my theory that that is always the expensive point in housekeeping, you know I said veal was cheap in the spring. So it is, but instead of using the ordinary cuts, you can have something less expensive. There is a calf's heart, for one thing. A country butcher would probably give that away – and incidentally inquire what on earth you wanted it for. Here in town I suppose we must pay something for it, but it will not be much; only a few cents. You have no idea what a delicious meat that is, so delicate and tender. You wash it well and make a bread-crumbs stuffing for it with a good deal of seasoning, and after you cut out the strings and wipe it dry in the middle you stuff it. Bake it in a covered pan for two hours, basting it well frequently, then make a gravy and pour over it. You really should have cooked onions, browned in this gravy, to go with the dish, because they are the accepted thing with the heart, but you need not if you do not want to, for it will be good without them. Then the next day you will have enough left over for a dish of baked hash, or a cottage loaf. And all for, say, ten cents or less! Isn't that a stroke of economy?

"Then there is boiled calf's head. That, too, you could get for a song in the country. Have the butcher clean it well and let you have both the brain and the tongue; be sure and make him understand that. Wash and parboil both of these in separate saucepans. The brains taste exactly like sweetbreads, and if you chop them and make them up into croquettes, no one will suspect that they are not what they seem. It is strange that so many people are prejudiced against using brains, for they are the cleanest possible meat. They are kept shut up in a little bone box where nothing can soil or hurt them, and as a calf has little intelligence, they never grow tough from use! So have the brains for one meal. Then when the tongue is tender, take it up and peel it and braise it with minced vegetables; that is, cook it in the oven in a covered pan, smothered in vegetables. Have this as it is, as a roast, and what is left over make up into a loaf exactly as you do with chopped veal or beef; or dice, cream and bake it for a second dinner. If you have any tiny bits still left, put those through the meat chopper and spread them on toast; put an egg on each and serve for breakfast or luncheon.

"Then the head proper. This you had better have the butcher keep for you till you have used up the other things, or you will have too much meat on hand to use economically. When he sends it, tell him to split it open, as this must be done and you probably could not do it yourself. Put it into cold water and put it on the fire till it comes to the boiling point. Take it off and plunge it into cold water to blanch it, rub it all over with half a lemon, and then put it into boiling water, only just enough to cover it, and add a tablespoonful of vinegar, a small onion, chopped, a carrot and a sprig of parsley. If you have a bay leaf, put that in too. Cover the pot and gently simmer it for two hours, or till the meat is ready to drop from the bones. Take it up then, take out all the bones, skin, and gristle, and put the meat in an even pile; cover it with bread crumbs and brown it in the oven. In cool weather this will make two good dinners, and you will find it as good as the tongue. In summer, divide the meat and have only one dinner baked. Put the other half into a mould and fill it up with the stock it was boiled in, after you have cooked this down and strained it; it is so full of gelatine that it will set at once and you will have a fine dish of ice-cold meat set in a clear aspic, and what better could any one wish for? If there is more stock than you need, keep out part for the basis of a soup; it is so strong that it will make you an extra good one, with perhaps tomatoes added to it. Now when you consider that one calf's head will make at the very least four dinners for a small family, do you not think by having it you will materially reduce expenses?"

"Having a mind open to conviction, I do."

"Well, then! To go on to another sort of meat, here is another suggestion of cheapness. You know what a shin of beef is, don't you? The lower part of the leg, where the meat is apt to be stringy and tough; most people think it is good only for soup. Get the butcher to cut you two rounds from that, right through the bone. Perhaps you may need three, if he cuts low down, or possibly only one high up; you must watch him and judge how many you will need. Take this, put it in a casserole or stew-pan with hot water enough to cover it and put it on the very back of the stove, where it cannot boil, and let it stand there for three hours; then try it, and if it is tender, cover it with chopped vegetables, carrots, a little onion, parsley, and turnips and peas if you happen to have them at hand. Let it simmer now for an hour. Take up the meat, drain the vegetables and put them around it, thicken and brown the gravy and put it over all, and you would never guess you were dining off 'soup meat.'

"Or, here is another way to cook the same cut. Get a good large piece, say one weighing two and a half pounds. Brown it in a hot saucepan all over with a spoonful of drippings; when it is all a good color, pour enough water on to just cover it, and put in the vegetables as you did before and add six cloves. Simmer the whole under a cover for four hours and serve just as it is, in a hot dish.

"Still a third way to manage, is to cut the meat from the bone and dice it. Simmer this with the vegetables and the bone till it is very tender. Take up the meat and put it in a baking-dish, and strain and thicken the gravy and pour this over; then put a crust on top, either one of pastry or a mashed potato crust with an egg beaten in it to make it light, and bake the whole. Put a little butter on top to brown it if you use the potato. Now, no one who ate those three or four dishes would think they were related; but when you have them, do not serve them one after another, but let a week go by between, just to have a change of meat.

"Then there is calf's liver. That in town even in spring costs more than it did some years ago, but even here a little goes so far that I call it a cheap meat, too; there is not a particle of waste about it, you see. Get a pound and a half some time and lard it; that is, stick narrow strips of salt pork in it. If you cannot do that, lay two slices on top of the whole. Bake it in a covered pan and baste it often, and serve with a brown gravy. There will be one dinner off this roast to begin with. For a second, chop it up and either make a mock terrapin by a cook-book rule, or else cut it in dice, cream and bake it. If any bits are left over have those on toast for luncheon."

"Mary, you told me in the most solemn manner that I was never to have meat for either luncheon or breakfast."

"Did I say never? I did not quite mean that, because sometimes you have a very little bit of something you can economically utilize in that way. Of course you could have it in a soufflé for dinner if you had a small cupful, but if you had only half as much, you could not; then put it on toast and add plenty of gravy, and have it for breakfast with a clear conscience. Only do not have anything which would do for dinner; that is all I meant by my 'never.' The same thing applies to lunch. If you have just a little meat you are sure is useless elsewhere, mix it with boiled rice and lots of seasoning, and bake it in a mould in a pan of water and turn it out hot; that makes a very good and economical dish for once."

"It does seem strange, when one thinks that we are eating scrag of mutton and beef stew right along, to buy things cheaper still for dinner, doesn't it?"

"Oh, we have not had those things right along! We had chicken last week, once, and the week before we had a pot-roast which I recall with pleasure this minute. But I admit the accusation in part, for you know we have had the dinner-parties to make up for. Ordinarily, I do not manage quite so closely. But if for a week or two you have calf's head once, and a dinner or two of beef shin and such things, you will cut down wonderfully on your meat bill. You can have also a dinner of one Frenched tenderloin, and another of scrag of mutton with barley, and a third of half a pound of chopped beef made up into meat cakes with a brown gravy. If you eke out with odds and ends of things in croquettes, with heavy soup before it, I should think you could save nearly two dollars in the one item of meat, and no one the wiser. Then once have a main course of salt codfish, freshened and creamed and baked with crumbs, in place of meat, and another time have baked beans, just for a change. If it is summer-time you can have a very good dinner dish of an eggplant. Cut it in two sidewise, take out the centre and salt it, and put it under a weight to extract the juice. After an hour or so take it up and chop it and mix it with an equal quantity of seasoned bread crumbs and a small cup of chopped nuts. Heap this in the shell and bake it with a covering of crumbs and butter. It is just as nourishing as meat and not so heavy, though it is a distinctly substantial dish. Of course you must be careful to get a very cheap eggplant, or you save nothing, but I am supposing now you live where gardens are plenty; perhaps you can walk out and pick one in your own.

"To go with the meats, possibly we can find some spring vegetables that cost no more than winter ones would. Naturally we cannot buy asparagus, nor yet new peas, but I fancy we may pick up some cheap new beets or carrots. If not, we will just go on having winter ones, but we will try and serve them in vegetable croquettes, or cream them and bake them with crumbs for a change. And then we can certainly have greens of ever so many kinds, and nothing is more wholesome in the spring than greens."

"I simply despise them," said Dolly with a sniff of disdain.

"You will not despise mine, my child; I learned how to cook them in Paris and they are good enough for an epicure. Write down my words of wisdom on this subject. Take any sort of green thing you can get, beet-tops, spinach, sorrel, lettuce, escarole or cress; wash them well in several waters, and do not drain them very dry; put them in a covered saucepan without water, and turn and press them well from time to time till the juice flows. Take them up then and put them twice through the meat-chopper; never try and chop them in a bowl or they will not be good, but instead, coarse and stringy. After they are a smooth pulp, put them on the fire, and add seasoning generously: salt, pepper, lemon juice or a very little vinegar, and a little cream if you have it. With sorrel, which is the very best of all greens, do not put in any acid; with spinach, add a little nutmeg. Then, when the whole has cooked for five minutes, take it up, put it in a very hot dish, and serve at once; you will have a new dish you will certainly like."

"How about potatoes?" inquired Dolly after she had written this down and marked it with a star as "extra good." "No new potatoes for us, I suppose?"

"Unluckily, no. I hate to keep on using old ones, but I always do until that happy day when I find the price is exactly the same for new or old; then I change over. But do not have potatoes all the time; boiled rice is cheaper when you are cutting down expenses. And when you can buy some vegetable cheaper than potatoes, have neither, but have two fresh vegetables instead. That makes a good change in spring and summer."

"And how about salads?"

"Just as soon as you find young dandelion leaves and cress and cheap lettuce, cut off soups and have those instead. But do not buy them unless you can really save money by doing so; there is a danger you may not think of. Usually soups are cheaper."

"And desserts?"

"Eggs are cheap just now, so depend somewhat on them. That is, make a sweet omelet of two, for one night, and for another have prune puff. For that you take the white of one egg, sweeten it and mix with the pulp of half a dozen cooked prunes; chill this and serve it in glasses. Or, put it in small brown baking-dishes and put it in the oven for five minutes, and serve it hot in the same dishes.

"Have a sweet soufflé sometimes, too. Beat the white of two eggs light, fold in a little powdered sugar, and put it in a buttered dish with spoonfuls of jam or orange marmalade dropped in here and there. Set this in a hot oven as you go to dinner, and it will be just ready when it is time for dessert.

"The next night after you have had either of these, have baked custard. Mix the slightly beaten egg yolks with a little milk and sugar, and put them in cups or small moulds and bake them in a pan of water. You can vary them by putting in jam or by making the sugar into caramel, or adding a little bit of rice. Or, use up the yolks by having them scrambled with milk for breakfast.

"And if you live in the country, Dolly, have lots of rhubarb for spring desserts. You can serve it one day in a deep tart with pie-crust on top, and little tartlets made from the left-overs. On another you stew it in a little water, and put in the sugar as it is just done, because it does not take as much then as if it went in at first. Then, while it is hot, add enough dissolved gelatine to set the whole and pour it into a mould. Serve with part of the juice as a sauce, which you kept out on purpose.

"Speaking of this jelly suggests also coffee jelly and prune jelly and things of that kind, for they do not take butter or eggs; but I rather think I told you of those when we were studying desserts. However, I can remind you of them now, can't I?

"When strawberries are cheap, get one boxful and divide it. Serve part the first one night with a plain soft corn-starch pudding. The second night, slightly crush the rest and sweeten them. Make just a little bit of baking-powder biscuit dough and mould several rather thin biscuits; bake these, split them, and put in the berries between two layers, and you have nice individual shortcakes. In that way one box will make two desserts, while otherwise you might not find it enough. Of course if you had a garden you could go out and pick some berries and serve them in their natural state, but I am telling you how to manage if you have not such luxuries as home-grown fruit.

"When we speak of cheap desserts, our mind naturally reverts to bread pudding, and we have already had that once. But to cut down its expense, serve it in small moulds instead of in one large one; individual dishes are a great economy for any sort of thing. And try having boiled rice croquettes with raisins in them; and have farina croquettes, too, cooked rather brown, and if possible covered with scraped maple sugar. Don't you think we might leave desserts now? I told you so much about them when we went over the subject."

"Yes, you may go on to breakfasts and luncheons if you have finished dinners. Can you really economize on those? It seems to me we have reduced them to their lowest terms already."

"Well, we have, just about. But for breakfasts I should cut out fruit altogether for a time, and make a breakfast of hot cereal, coffee and toast, or some good sort of muffin that did not take too many eggs. In winter you can have a hearty meal of fried corn-meal mush; you can either make that the day before you want it and slice and fry it in the morning, or you can stir it up and boil it freshly just before breakfast and fry spoonfuls of it while it is soft. I like it best that way myself, but you can try both ways. In summer you can have an excellent breakfast of cold cereals."

"They sound horrid."

"They are not horrid at all, but very good; we will begin to have them ourselves as soon as it gets warm enough. And besides cereals, I should see if I could not have some cheap hot breakfast dish to alternate with them; I suppose milk toast, or if you live where milk is plenty, cream toast, and codfish in lots of ways, especially in baked potatoes, or mixed with mashed potato in small dishes. Sometimes I should have codfish in fritters; brown puffy fritters, not flat greasy cakes. And I should have clams in that way, too, if they were cheap."

"How about luncheons, now? Did you say you could or could not cut down on those?"

"I think we cannot do much better than we have done, but I should keep trying all the time. I should have fried bread with jelly to eat on it, and baked beans, and farina cakes, and minced vegetables, hot or in salad. And in summer I should have creamed corn or peas on toast, and lots of salads of plain cooked vegetables. But be very careful not to try and cut down on your luncheons by doing without substantial dishes. No woman who does her own work can long keep up on bread and tea at noon without getting sallow and thin and anaemic; you simply must not try and economize on nourishing food, even though you cut down on everything expensive. Starvation is poor management."

"Well, leaving meals for a moment, do you try and cut down on other things, such as coffee, for example? Do you have a poorer quality to save money?"

"Never. I must have good coffee at any rate. But I will tell you what I do right along. I go to a very good grocery, one of the largest and most expensive sort, and there I ask for a good kind of coffee which is not as expensive as their highest grades. You will be astonished to find that all such places make a specialty of coffee which actually costs less than you can buy it for at your regular grocery, and it is infinitely better, too. One famous place keeps coffee for thirty-five and forty cents a pound and even more, and at the same time recommends what they call their 'best' coffee, at nineteen cents! It seems absurd, but that is a fact. I always use it, and it is the best I can buy. Never use cheap coffee, Dolly; it is horrid, just as bad butter is, or bad tea, or bad eggs. Go without, or have them good."

"Mary, did you ever think what you would do if you had to live on just a few cents a day? I have often wondered whether I could manage or not. Suppose for a time you had practically nothing at all, how would you manage then?"

"I suppose I should plan to have things to eat that would give the maximum of nourishment for the minimum of cost. Let me see. I should have corn-meal mush for one breakfast, because that contains fat and is very nourishing. For another, I should have boiled rice, I think. For luncheons I should have split pea purée, or a thick bean soup. For dinner I should have a dish of creamed codfish, let us say; or, I should have whole wheat bread and a baked apple instead of the fish. And I should have macaroni and cheese, too. I know people who have tried these things say you can live easily on beans and lentils and whole wheat bread and a certain amount of fruit, apples or bananas or figs, and I can quite believe it. Of course, if only one could have plenty of milk, the rest would be easy."

"Easy, but not pleasant. I should hate to have to have such monotonous food, so I hope Fred's income will never be less. I like a pretty dinner table and a dainty dinner. Cereals may be all very well as to nourishment for the body, but I think the spirit suffers. I don't mean spirit, either, exactly. But you get the idea, don't you?"

"The general poetry of life, I suppose you have in mind. The dinner table with candles and china and glass and good things to eat gives an air of refinement to life. Well, I agree with you that they are worth having, too. We can economize in the food, but we cannot dispense with the graces of the dinner."