Our Farm of Four Acres and the Money we Made by it by Miss Coulton
page 59 of 83 (71%)
page 59 of 83 (71%)
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say nothing of the money you have lost by pigeons and rabbit-keeping."
Now the utmost we had lost by our pigeons in the six months was $2 25, and he knew perfectly well how profitable they had since been to us. He used jokingly to say, that we fed our guest with them in every mode of cookery so frequently, that they would alter the old grace of "for rabbits hot," &c., and substitute the word "pigeon" in its place; so we thought it was ungenerous to reproach the poor birds with the scanty number they gave us the first few weeks they were in our dove-cote. Silenced on that point, he returned to our unfortunate rabbit speculation, and complained that we had kept no account of the money we had lost by them. Here H. stopped him saying, "Pray, Mr. N., did you not purchase your children a pony, and did it not catch cold and die in a month afterwards? I suppose Mrs. N. did not enter that in her housekeeper's book as meat at so much a pound, and why should we put down the cost of the rabbits in our farming accounts? No; of course it was entered among the 'sundries.'" "But you must allow," said Mr. N., "that if you had done as I advised you, and taken a house in a street leading into one of the squares, you would have lived more cheaply than here. Why, your gardener's wages must more than swallow up any profit which you may _think_ you make from your farm. You must acknowledge you would have saved that expense." |
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