Evening Star Newspaper, June 29, 1930, Page 86

[ THE SUNDAY Money! Money! Money! By Margery Land May. The Girl Who Throws Her Cash Away and the Girl Who Saves It Can Both Learn Something From This Story. HEN she reached Main Street, Jean Nichols stopped, as was usual, to buy & paper from Bennie—a small, carrot-headed newsboy with a snubbed nose and a twisted knee. And, as usual, when Bennie dipped a grimey paw into a tattered pocket to produce change for her dime, she said: “That’s all right. Keep it, Bennie." Further down the block she encountered another recipient of her spare silver. An old blind woman who. had a face like a wrinkled red apple and who eked out a precarious liveli- hood selling shoelaces and pencils. “Good evening, Mrs. Higgins. How are you today?” Jean said as her shiny quarter tinkled against the sides of a dingy tin cup. Fumbling for a coin with her gnarled, blue- VYeined fingers: “Heaven bless ye,” Mrs. Higgins quavered, and to those who noted the blitheness of Jean's eyes and the buoyancy of her walk, there could be no doubt that heaven had. And yet not with the things one is apt to desire when petitioning the celestial. Though she was a slender, swift-moving girl with a laughing mouth and copper-colored hair, beauty was not hers, nor wealth. And yet she carried an air of happiness not often seen in 2 grubby, frazzled world. It was this air which made gasoline station attendants rub the windshield of her car with extra vigor and the butcher save for her the best cuts of the meat. Indeed, of her small world there was but one person who ever glowered in her presence, and that was Tad Morgan—an impoverished young lawyer, who had been trying to marry her for years. this particular evening he sat on the steps of the rambling, vine-covered cottage, which Jean had inherited from an aunt, and waited for its owner to appear. “Terribly sorry to be late. But I stopped to leave some movie tickets with Miss Perry, and on Tuesdays I always try to take something to poor old Mr. Dodd,” she explained a few minutes later, as her ancient runabout wheezed to a halt beneath the boughs of the willow oak which cast such a lovely shadow over the battered cottage and its tiny front yard. At sight of her, at sound of her, something warm and tender caught in Morgan's throat. “Spendthrift!” he murmured, and later, as they sat on the veranda steps, watching the fireflies hover like falling sparks over the green of the lawn, he expressed his distaste for single life. “It's a bore. pdmitted. “Then let’s be done with it, Sugar. I'm Poor as the proverbial hymn-singing rodent, but we’ll manage scmehow,” he said. “What a pertinacious old thing it is,” she murmured tenderly “I want to. But I won’t. I can’t. I'd handicap you dreadfully. I want you to get on. And you couldn't if we mar- ried now. I'm such a sorry manager. For the life of me I can't stay within my darned old budget.” His arm about her tightened. He buried his face in the fragrant mass of her hair. “What bunk! You're not a bad manager at all. Your only fault as an economist is that you give away every cent you can get these paws on.” He paused. Then: “By the way, I saw Jim Haines this morning. He's planning to sink a wildcat on that acreage of his in Claiborne Parish. Says there's a deep sand structure in that section and he's sure to hit it. Wish I had a little money to gamble with,” Tad said. “Wouldn't it be gorgeous to own an oil well?” Jean mused. Over his cigarette he smiled at her indul- gently. “Just what would you do if you had one” I'm tired of it, too,” she AT thought of the achievements possible to an owner of the black yet golden magic, Jean sat upright. “Oh, lots of things. Bennie, for instance. I'd have something done for his poor, crooked knee. And there’s Miss Perry. She's never had a vacation in her life. I'd let her have a splendiferous month or two at Hollywood, get- ting a close-up on her precious divinities. And as for Mr. Dodd, I'd fix him up with a real “*Walden’s Pond, where he could bird and botanize and tinker to his heart’s content...” Tad bent forward and very gently tweaked her on the ear. “And what,” he asked, “would you do for Jean?” Jean's gaze swept the sagging balustrade of the porch on which they were sitting. Then reluctantly, as if it were a loved person whose faults she was loath to define: “Well, of course this place needs a little fix- Ing. The roof leaks. And the plumbing could &de improved. And it could stand a coat or two of paint, I suppose . . .” “Yes,” with mock gravity, “one at least,” the agreed, and again, as a mocking bird flung a note of enchantment and jasmine said its fragrant prayer, they fell silent.” Fnally, oreaking the moonlit stillness: “So I can’t persuade you to marry me—on - Monday—say?” Morgan asked. Reaching up, she rumpled his smooth hair. “No darling. Not unless a miracle occurs.” But a few weeks later when the miracle hap- pened and she waved a pale, blue check be- neath his well shaped nose, it was Morgan's turn to refuse. “No can do,” he said lightly, “just because a good-natured, old great-uncle died and left you an unexpected 10,000 bucks, you needn’t think you can buy me, young woman. I've con- scientious scruples against acquiring a rich wife.” “Oh, Tad, don’t be silly. This changes every= thing. In a few years you'll be one of the out- standing lawyers at the bar. And now that we have a reserve fund to tide us over the rough spots, what's the use of delaying?” she said. But Tad was immovable. In spite of her entreaties, he stuck to his determination to wait until he had some sort of “seasoning” of his own to add to what Jean called their “marriage pot.” Mr. Chase had a healthy respect for money. As president of a bank, he was in a peculiarly advantageous position to know how far the average man would go to get it. Aiso, he was accustomed to the haunted, tragic faces of those who had missed it or who had watched it siio from their grasp. To a man, dealing daily in big figures, one might have thought that $10,000 would seem a trifling sum. But not at all. There was an expression of solid satisfaction on his spare face, with its habitual look of wise, cautious benign- ity when Jean spread her pale blue check on the glass-topped desk before him. “Why, this is splendid, Jean. Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money—a lot of money. No longer any chance for the lean wolf to be snooping around your doorstep, my dear. I've got the very thing for you—the very thing. A widow's bond, I call it. Perfectly safe and yields 7 per cent a year.” TO Jean, who was undisciplined in the thrifty use of money, Mr. Chase’s explanation of the miracle possible through compounding ine terest was a revelation. Hers had been the easy, carefree attitude of those who, having no money, give it scant thought. That her month- ly salary, for instance, represented the annual yield on a good round sum had never occurred to her until the banker pointed out that excii- ing possibility. “You see, my child, it isn't what you earn, it’s what you save. A dress, for instance, fcr which you spend $60 represents the interest on $1,000 at 6 per cent. A trip which costs $600 represents the interest on $10,000 and so on,” he explained. “On the other hand, this check of yours can be pyramided into a tidy little for- tune if you will allow the interest on it to com- pound and, perhaps, by using a bit of prudeuce in your expenditures, add to it from your earn- ings, my dear.” As she left the banker’s presence, Jean dis- covered that she had turned a sharp mental corner. Not only were the newly acquired bonds safely stowed away in a bank vault, but a The shiny dimes, once reserved for Bennie’s tattered pocket, were now dropped into a small, nickel-plated bank, but the puzzled look in Bennie's big brown eyes discomfited her. - STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JUNE 29, 1930. “Now that I've lost that wretched $10,000 I see that I'm rich enough to buy, movie tickets for Miss Perry, and to marry a struggling young lawyer.” newly acquired idea was tightly lodged in her Scotch head. She had been planning to buy a pair of shoes that afternoon, but $12 was the yield on $200. So she didn't. Her mind, she found, had sud- denly become an automatic calculating machine, reckoning everything in terms of principal and interest. Mr. Chase’s statement that those who would be charitable to others must first be charitable to themselves beat a constant refrain in her mental ears. How useless it was to give Bennie a dime for the evening paper—which she could very well do without—when conservation on her part might enable her at some future day to do something really worth while for his knee. And as for the movie tickets for Miss Perry and the cream cheese for Mr. Dodd—what actual good did this accomplish? It would require so much to bring any appreciable relief to either of them that the small gifts she could afford could only mean a transient pleasure. Whereas, if these trifiing amounts were saved and the interest on them compounded, as Mr. Chase had said, the day might come when she would be able to render some adequate assist- ance to one of them, at least. Thus, urged by a new mental outlook, site made a radical change in her budget. The sums which had gone each month for attentioas to her less fortunate friends were methodically deposited in her saving account. The shiny dimes, once reserved for Bennie’s tattered pock- et, were now more frequently dropped into a . small, nickel-plated bank which she kept on the mantelpiece at home. Into this she alsd put the quarters which had made such a pleas- ing little tinkle when they sounded against the sides of the blind woman’s battered cup. And though the puzzied look in Bennie's brown eyes discomfited her and she chose the other side of the street to escape the quick de- tection of Mrs. Higgins' oversensitive ears, she had come to see these two in a different light. “If their people had done-as I'm doing there would be no Bennie selling newspapers and no Mrs. Higgins begging on the street corners,” she reminded herself. But the tugging of her heart argued against the reasoning of her head. Nor were these the only economies which she made. As she watched the figures in her bank book grow, saving took on the fascination of a game, which she played with all the zeal of a defender of a championship. There were, she found, in- numerable ways of paring down expenses. Her business tailleurs, for instance. Formerly she had sent them to a young Russian, who was studying violin at night, but now she rose an hour earlier in order to spenge and press them herself. Likewise, she did her own mend- ing, where once it had been her friendly, easy- going habit to save this work for Miss Emily, a shy and lonely old gentlewoman, who was secretly grateful for the bi-monthly dollar and a half, which enabled her to make her proud contribution to the mission school in China. Asror'x‘ad.lesstreqmndymdfllheh- dulge her custom of having him out for the suppers of chicken which they barbecued to- gether over the woodpit he had built in the back yard. It was, she told him, as needless an expense on her part as were the talkies and out-of-town excursions of his. “You're too generous, Tad,” she remonstrated one evening when he mentioned having lent $50 to a friend. “It's all right for you to do such things when you get on your feet, but you ought to wait until you have a safe income.” He looked at her oddly. “I'm not so sure about that. Perhaps he wouldn't need it by the time I have a safe in- come.” Or, a bit shortly, “he might be dead.* She laughed. . “Oh, well, you always were improvident. And 80 was I. But since—" “Since you got that blamed $10,000 you've de- veloped into a regular Hetty Green. Darned if I know how to dope you out.” With the keen interest she now felt for any- thing in the way of investments: “And how,” she asked. “is Haines making out?” “Stuck. He needs 10,000 iron men—exacily what you've got—to finish his oil well. But no one will advance it,” he explained. Afterwards, in tracing back to the springs of her madness, Jean realized that it was these words, so carelessly uttered by Tad, which had planted the seed in her mind. These words—ind the fact that five miles north of the acreage owned by Haines a wild- cat oil drilling company had brought in a gusher. Up to this time she had rather en- joyed her regime of economies. But since this new territory had been opened and all one heard was talk of the quick fortunes to be made in oil, her own attempts to amass a com- petency seemed to her too slow, too plodding. With the look of tense preoccupation which, In these days, her face so frequently assumed: “Yes, it certainly must be splendid to own an oil well,” she remarked to Tad one night. Once when she had expressed a similar thought Tad had smiled at her indulgently. But now he shot her a glance of swift, troubled penetration. As if making a cool appraisal of a stranger: “Just what would you do if you had one?” he said. Her look was rapt. Inward. “Oh, I don't know. Lots of things. I'd have jewels, of course, and clothes and a fine car. I want to travel, too. I'd like for us to see every inch of this little old planet. And T'd buy a country place and fill it with antiques and gorgeous rugs and, those rare, old English prints you like so much,” she told him. With a smothered ejaculation, he sprang to his feet. “Oh, leave me out of it! I haven't the plutocrat’s consciousness. I belong with the things Jyou used to like. With this battered Continucd on Nineteenth Page