We lack not for spring chicken or roast duck whenever there is the wish;
for the best part of the year eggs are despicably common. Every low tide
advertises oysters gratis, and occasionally crabs and crayfish for the
picking up. Delicate as well as wholesome and nutritious food is ours at
so little cost that our debt to smiling Nature, if she kept records and
tendered her accounts, would be somewhat embarrassing. And if Nature
frowns with denial and there are but porridge and goat's milk and eggs
and home-made bread and jam, thank goodness she blesses such fare with
unjaded appreciation!

Since deprived of the society of blacks, our domestic expenditure has
dwindled by nearly one-half. Indeed, it is almost as costly to feed and
clothe three blacks as to provide essentials for three whites of frugal
tastes. Here are a few items of annual domestic expenditure, proffered
not in the spirit of gloating over our simplicity or of delighting in
economy of luxuries, but to illustrate how few are the wants which Nature
(with a little assistance) leaves unsatisfied. The figures are presented
with the utmost diffidence, but with indifference alike to the censure of
those who may scent obsequiousness to the stern philosophy of Thoreau in
the matter of diet, or to the jeers of others who despise small things:


Flour L 4 5 0
Groceries, lighting, &c. 40 0 0
Sundries 12 0 0
--------
Total L56 5 0


And the irreducible minimum has yet to be reached. For many years my