Description

ONE DOLLAR AND EIGHTY-SEVEN CENTS. That was all. And sixty cents
of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the
grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheek burned with the
silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times
Della counted it: one dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be
Christmas.
There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little couch
and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is
made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to
the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did
not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout
for the mendicancy squad.
In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an
electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also
appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name ‘Mr. James Dillingham
Young.’
The ‘Dillingham’ had been flung to the breeze during a former period of
prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the
income was shrunk to $20, the letters of ‘Dillingham’ looked blurred, as
though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and
unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and
reached his flat above he was called ‘Jim’ and greatly hugged by Mrs. James
Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very
good