six hundred dollars a pooty fair income."

"It might be for a single man; but when a minister has a wife and
three children, like my father, it's pretty hard scratching."

"Some folks ain't got faculty," said the deacon, adding,
complacently, "it never cost me nigh on to six hundred dollars a
year to live."

The deacon had the reputation of living very penuriously, and Abram
Fish, who once worked for him and boarded in the family, said he was
half starved there.

"You get your milk and vegetables off the farm," said Grant, who
felt the comparison was not a fair one. "That makes a great deal of
difference."

"It makes some difference," the deacon admitted, "but not as much as
the difference in our expenses. I didn't spend more'n a hundred
dollars cash last year."

This excessive frugality may have been the reason why Mrs. Deacon
Gridley was always so shabbily dressed. The poor woman had not had a
new bonnet for five years, as every lady in the parish well knew.

"Ministers have some expenses that other people don't," persisted
Grant.

"What kind of expenses, I'd like to know?"