“What good will it do him?  He is bound to be a poor worker all his life, and why should he deny himself the few comforts he has as he goes along, in order to lay by a hundred or two dollars?”

“I am surprised to hear you ask such a question, Johnson.  But I will answer it by saying, that he should do it for the very reason that I save my money; that is, to enable him to educate his children well, to lighten his own and his wife’s toil, when they grow older, and to be able to obtain for his family more of the comforts of life than they now enjoy.”

“Don’t exactly see how all this is to be achieved.  Suppose he get together as much as five hundred dollars; and instead of risking it in business, he send his children to some expensive schools, hire help for his wife, and take some comfort as he goes along; how long do you suppose his five hundred dollars will last?  But two years, and then he must come down again and be ten times as unhappy, for it is a much easier matter to get up than to go down.”

“Pardon me, Johnson,” replied his friend, “but I must say you are a very short-sighted mortal.  If you can’t imagine any better mode of using your five hundred dollars after you have saved it, I don’t blame you for not caring about making the attempt to do so.  But I can tell you a better way.”

“Well, let us hear it.”

“With your five hundred dollars, after you had saved it, you could buy yourself a snug little cottage, with an acre of ground around it.  How much rent do you pay now?”

“Seventy-five dollars a year.”

“Of course this would be saved after that, which, added to what you were already saving, would make a hundred and fifty dollars a year.  Take fifty of that to buy yourself a cow, some pigs, and chickens, and to get lumber for your pig-sty, hen-house and shed for your cow in winter, and you would still have a hundred dollars left, the first year, to go into the Savings’ Bank.  Your garden, which you could work yourself by rising an hour or two earlier in the morning; your cow, your chickens and your pigs, would make a sufficient saving in your expenses to pay for all additional charges in entering your children at better schools.  In three years more, laying by a hundred and fifty dollars a year, which you could easily do, would give you enough to buy another cottage and an acre of ground, which you could easily rent to a good tenant for eighty dollars a year.  In three years more, going on with the same economy, you would have seven hundred dollars more to invest, which could be done in property that would yield you seventy or eighty dollars a year additional income.  By this time the village would have grown out toward your grounds, and perhaps doubled, may be quadrupled their value for building lots, some of which you could sell, and adding the amount to the savings of a couple of years, be able to build one or two more comfortable little houses on your own lots.  Going on in this way, year after year, by the time your ability to work as a journeyman began to fail you, the necessity for work would not exist, for you would have a comfortable property, the regular income from which would more than support you.  Now all this may be done, by your simply giving up your tobacco, beer and oysters, and your day’s holiday once a month.  Is not the result worth the trifling sacrifice, Johnson?”