HKB
know who built them. For my part, I should like to know who in those days did not build them,—who were above such trifling. But to proceed with my statistics.
By surveying, carpentry, and day-labor of various other kinds in the village in the mean while, for I have as many trades as fingers, I had earned $13.34. The expense of food for eight months, namely, from July 4th to March 1st, the time when these estimates were made, though I lived there more than two years,—not counting potatoes, a little green corn, and some peas, which I had raised, nor considering the value of what was on hand at the last date, was
Rice,................... $ 1.73½ Molasses,................ 1.73 Cheapest form of the saccharine. Rye meal,................ 1.04¾ Indian meal,............. 0.99¾ Cheaper than rye. Pork,.................... 0.22
All experiments which failed: Flour,................... 0.88 Costs more than Indian meal, both money and trouble. Sugar,................... 0.80 Lard,.................... 0.65 Apples,.................. 0.25 Dried apple,............. 0.22 Sweet potatoes,.......... 0.10 One pumpkin,............. 0.06 One watermelon,.......... 0.02 Salt,.................... 0.03
Yes, I did eat $8.74, all told; but I should not thus unblushingly publish my guilt, if I did not know that most of my readers were equally guilty with myself, and that their deeds would look no better in print. The next year I sometimes caught a mess of fish for my dinner, and once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field,—effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say,—and devour him, partly for experiment’s sake; but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.
Clothing and some incidental expenses within the same dates, though little can be inferred from this item, amounted to
$8.40¾ Oil and some household utensils,....... 2.00
So that all the pecuniary outgoes, excepting for washing and mending, which for the most part were done out of the house, and their bills have not yet been received,—and these are all and more than all the ways by which money necessarily goes out in this part of the world,—were
House,................................ $ 28.12½ Farm one year,.......................... 14.72½ Food eight months,...................... 8.74 Clothing, etc., eight months,........... 8.40¾ Oil, &c., eight months,................. 2.00 —————— In all,........................... $ 61.99¾
I address myself now to those of my readers who have a living to get. And to meet this I have for farm produce sold
$23.44 Earned by day-labor,................... 13.34 —————— In all,............................ $36.78,
which subtracted from the sum of the outgoes leaves a balance of $25.21¾ on the one side,—this being very nearly the means with which I started, and the measure of expenses to be incurred,—and on the other, beside the leisure and independence and health thus secured, a comfortable house for me as long as I choose to occupy it.
These statistics, however accidental and therefore uninstructive they may appear, as they have a certain completeness, have a certain value also. Nothing was given me of which I have not rendered some account. It appears from the above estimate, that my food alone cost me in money about twenty-seven cents a week. It was, for nearly two years after this, rye and Indian meal without yeast, potatoes, rice, a very little salt pork, molasses, and salt, and my drink water. It was fit that I should live on rice, mainly, who loved so well the philosophy of India. To meet the objections of some inveterate cavillers, I may as well state, that if I dined out occasionally, as I always had done, and I trust shall have opportunities to do again, it was frequently to the detriment of my domestic arrangements. But the dining out, being, as I have stated, a constant element, does not in the least affect a comparative statement like this.