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 beanfield--effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say--and devour him, partly for experiment's sake; but tho it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practise, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready drest by the village butcher. Clothing and some incidental expenses within the same date, tho little can be inferred from this item, amounted to $8.40-3/4 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 $28.12-1/2 Farm, one year 14.72-1/2 Food, eight months 8.74 Clothing, etc., eight months 8.40-3/4 Oil, etc., eight months 2.00 ------- In all $61.99-3/4 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 $25.21-3/4 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, besides the leisure and independence and health thus secured, a comfortable house for me as long as I choose to occupy it.