"Then we give employment to eighteen more people at equally good wages and in quite as wholesome surroundings. Do you realize, Polly, that the maids in the house get $1300 out of the $5300,--one quarter of the whole? Possibly there is a suspicion of extravagance on the home forty." "Not a bit of it! You know that you proved to me that it cost us $5200 a year for board and shelter in the city, and you only credit the farm with $4000. That other $1200 would more than pay the extra wages. I really don't think it costs as much to live here as it did on B----Street, and any one can see the difference." "You are right. If we call our plant an even $100,000, which at five per cent would mean $5000 a year,--where can you get house, lawns, woods, gardens, horses, dogs, servants, liberty, birds, and sun-dials on a wide and liberal scale for $5000 a year, except on a farm like this? You can't buy furs, diamonds, and yachts with such money anyhow or anywhere, so personal expenditures must be left out of all our calculations. No, the wage account will always be the large one, and I am glad it is so, for it is one finger of the helping hand." "You haven't finished with the figures yet. You don't know what to add to our _permanent_ investment." "That's quickly done. _Nineteen thousand five hundred and ninety-five dollars_ from twenty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty dollars leaves three thousand one hundred and sixty-five dollars to charge to our investment. I resent the word 'permanent,' which you underscored just now, for each year we're going to have a surplus to subtract from this interest-bearing debt." "Precious little surplus you'll have for the next few years, with Jack and Jane getting married, and--" "But, Polly, you can't charge weddings to the farm, any more than we can yachts and diamonds." "I don't see why. A wedding is a very important part of one's life, and I think the farm ought to be _made_ to pay for it." "I quite agree with you; but we must add $3165 to the old farm debt, and take up our increased burden with such courage as we may. In round figures it is $106,000. Does that frighten you, Polly?" "A little, perhaps; but I guess we can manage it. _You_ would have been frightened three years ago if some one had told you that you would put $106,000 into a farm of less than five hundred acres." "You're right. Spending money on a farm is like other forms of vice,--hated, then tolerated, then embraced. But seriously, a man would get a bargain if he secured this property to-day for what it has cost us. I wouldn't take a bonus of $50,000 and give it up." "You'll hardly find a purchaser at that price, and I'm glad you can't, for I want to live here and nowhere else." CHAPTER LXVI LOOKING BACKWARD With the close of the third year ends the detailed history of the factory farm. All I wish to do further is to give a brief synopsis of the debit and credit accounts for each of the succeeding four years.