A STORY OF REAL LIFE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1721, 26 August 1879, Page 2 (Supplement)

A STORY OF REAL LIFE.

Mr Marooney is foreman in a foundry in a certain American city, and gets 30 dols. a week. With this salary the family ought to get along well and save money, but they do not. Mr Marooney has a cousin, a shoemaker, who only gets 15 dols. a week, yet sails right along in lightning express, whi o Marooney comes lumbering along like a freight with a hot box. '• How do you manage it. Jack," he would frequently ask, “ to get along the way you do? Here you actually keep your family and save money on 15 dols. a week, while it takes every cent X make to live, and I get every Saturday night, and she takes her 5 dole, to run the house with, and puts the rest away.” “ Do yon give her all the money ?” asked Mr Marooney, musingly, *• Oh, no ; not quite, I keep a little for tobacco during the week, and a trifle to keep me from being lonesome. If I kept it all in my pocket, I would spend it sure, but Mary keeps it tight and safe." Mr Marooney talked it over with his wife that night, and they concluded to try Jack’s plan. The following Saturday night he brought home his 30 dols, and gave it into his wife’s keeping, and she promised to do her level best to set the table on five. The first week she squeezed through somehow and got along with six and a half. Mr Marooney was quite pleased, and began lying awake at night thinking about what kind of a house he would build. He thought that a plain rustic cottage with a bay window would be about right. The next week the expenses footed up 5 dols. and 80 cents, and next week Marooney changed his design for a future residence from frame to brick. The next week she brought it down to 30 cents more, and he added a wing with a wash house. Then she made a superhuman struggle,quitted buying milk, and came within 2s of the goal for which she had been striving. Mr Marooney decided on an iron fence in front of the premises. The next week she lost ground, slipped, and came out at the 6-doller post. Mr Marooney thought a neat paling fence was good enough for anybody ; but when the ensuing week she came in with flying colours, and struck the 6-dollar mark in both eyes, Mr Marooney had the iron railing reinstated, and granite running up to the door. The next week she took the money she had saved, went and bought her a love of a hat, too cute for anything, a black silk dress, and a cherub of a cloak that made the woman next door cry with envy till her nose got sore ; and Mr Marooney came to the conclusion that it don’t pay to live in one’s property, keeping up repairs, insurance, &c., and the worry and dread of fire and earthquakes more than counterbalanced any trifling advantages there might be.— 11 American Paper.”