[Illustration: “Pounds! I never weighed them”] ADVENTURES IN THRIFT _By_ ANNA STEESE RICHARDSON ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES S. CORSON INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS COPYRIGHT 1915 THE CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT 1916 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. PREFACE The incidents, the stores, the organizations and the individuals described in this book are real, not fictitious. At the time that this book goes to press, each one of the societies mentioned is actively engaged in the task of reducing the cost of living for its members. The National Housewives’ League has its headquarters at 25 West Forty-fifth Street, New York City. Mrs. Julian Heath, a real flesh and blood woman, is president of the organization. The Housewives’ Cooperative League is still working actively toward cooperative buying and no doubt for several years to come can be reached through its efficient secretary, Miss Edna O. Crofton, Norwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati, from which city the organization directs its work. The Cooperative Store at Montclair is a flourishing reality. The Experimental Farm at Medford, Long Island, is still encouraging local farmers to sell direct to the housewives of Greater New York and vicinity by parcel post and express. Even Mrs. Larry and her friend, Claire Pierce, exist under other names, and they participated in the adventures herein described. This explanation is given because when the chapters appeared originally in the _Woman’s Home Companion_, the author received many letters containing queries of this nature: “Is there such an organization as the National Housewives’ League, the Housewives’ Cooperative League, a Cooperative Store in Montclair?” “Is there such a farm as you describe under the title of the Experimental Farm at Medford? If so, I want to get in touch with its superintendent.” The material in this book, which is of profound interest to all home-makers present or prospective, is presented in fiction form because the writer, being a housekeeper, realizes that household routine is so much a business of facts and figures that studies in thrift are more acceptable to busy women when brightened by the little touch of romance that goes so far in leavening the day’s work of the home-maker. A. S. R. ADVENTURES IN THRIFT CHAPTER I “_Luxury is attained through thrift._”--H. C. OF L. PROVERB NO. 1. Mrs. Larry folded her veil with nice exactitude and speared it with two invisible hairpins. Then she bent her hat one-fourth of an inch on the right side, fluffed up her hair on the left and tucked her gloves under her purse. These pre-luncheon rites completed, she reached for the program of music. But, glancing casually at Claire Pierce on the other side of the table, she dropped the square of cardboard, with its Pierrot silhouettes, and studied the girl curiously.