Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 33, December, 1873

"Dunno! Of course you don't. I'll tell you: She tended you through all your helpless infancy: she nursed you through teething, and whooping-cough, and measles, and scarlet fever, and chicken-pox, and mercy knows what else. Many's the time she watched with you the livelong night, when your father was snoring and dreaming in the farthest corner of the house, so he mightn't hear your wailing and moaning. She's toiled and slaved for you like a plantation negro, while he—"

"He's comin'," interrupted Napoleon, without for a moment intermitting his potato-shoveling. "Walkin' fast," continued the sententious lad, swallowing immediately half a cup of milk.

Dr. Lively came hurrying into the dining-room.

"For pity's sake, I think it's about time," the wife began pettishly.

"Have you seen my purse anywhere about here?" the gentleman asked with an anxious cadence in his voice.

"Your purse!" shrieked Mrs. Lively, turning short upon her husband and glaring in wild alarm.

"Lost it?" asked Napoleon, digging his fork into a huge potato and transferring it to his plate.

"Go, look in the bed-room, Nappy: I think I must have dropped it there," said the father.

Napoleon rose from his chair, but stopped halfway between sitting and standing for a farewell bite at his bread and butter.

"For mercy's sake, why don't you go along?" Mrs. Lively snapped out. "What do you keep sitting there for?"

"Ain't a-settin'," responded Nappy, laying hold of his cup for a last swallow.

"Standing there, then?"

"Ain't a-standin'."

"If you don't go along—" and Mrs. Lively started for her son and heir with a threat in every inch of her.

"Am a-goin'," returned the son and heir; and, sure enough, he went.

During this passage between mother and child Dr. Lively had been keeping up an unflagging by-play, searching persistently every part of the dining-room—the mantelpiece, the clock, the cupboard, the shelves.

"In the name of common sense," exclaimed the wife, after watching him a moment, "what's the use of looking in that knife-basket? Shouldn't I have seen it when I set the table if it had been there? Do you think I'm blind? Where did you lose your purse?"

"If I knew where I lost it I'd go and get it."

"Well, where did you have it when you missed it?"

"As well as I can remember I didn't have it when I missed it."

"Well, where did you have it before you missed it?"

"In my pocket."

"Oh yes, this is a pretty time to joke, when my heart is breaking! I shouldn't be surprised to hear of your laughing at my grave. Very well, if you won't tell me where you've been with your purse, I can't help you look for it; and what's more, I won't, and you'll never find it unless I do, Dr. Lively: I can tell you that. You never were known to find anything."

"Not there," said Napoleon re-entering the room and reseating himself at the table. "Milk, please," he continued, extending his cup toward his mother.

"You ain't going to eating again?" cried the lady.

"Am."

"Where do you put it all? I believe in my soul—Are your legs hollow?"

"Dunno."

"Do, my dear," remonstrated Dr. Lively, "let the child eat all he wants. You keep up an everlasting nagging, as though you begrudged him every mouthful he swallows."

"Oh, it's fine of you to talk, when you lose all the money that comes into the family—five thousand dollars in Chicago, and sixty dollars now, for I'll warrant you hadn't paid out a cent of it; and all those accounts against us! Had you paid any bills? had you? You won't answer, but you needn't think to escape and deceive me by such a shallow trick. If you'd paid a bill you'd been keen enough to tell it: you'd have shouted it out long ago. Pretty management! Just like you, shiftless! Why in the name of the five senses didn't you pay out the money before you lost the purse? You might have known you were going to lose it: you always lose everything."

"Bread, please," called Napoleon, who had taken advantage of the confusion to sweep the bread-plate clean.

"In the name of wonder!" exclaimed the mother, snatching a half loaf from the pantry. "There! take it and eat it, and burst—Do," she continued, turning to Dr. Lively, "stop your tramp, tramping round this room, and come and eat your dinner. There's not an atom of reason in spending your time looking for that purse. You'll never see it again. Like enough you dropped it down the well: it would be just like you. I just know that purse is down that well. Carelessness! the idea of dropping your purse down the well!"

Without heeding the rattle, Napoleon went on eating and Dr. Lively went on searching—now in the dining-room, now in the kitchen, now in the hall.

Mrs. Lively soon returned to her life-work: "What's the sense in poking, and poking, and poking around, and around, and around? Mortal eyes will never see that purse again. I've no question but you put it in the stove for a chip this morning when you made the fire. Who ever heard of another man kindling a fire with a purse? Will you eat your dinner, Dr. Lively, or shall I clear away the table? I can't have the work standing round all day."

Notwithstanding his worry, the doctor was hungry, so he replied by seating himself at the table. "There's nothing here to eat," he said, glancing at the empty dishes and plates.

"If that boy hasn't cleared off every dish!" cried the housekeeper. "Why didn't you lick the platters clean, and be done with it?" and she seized an empty dish in either hand and disappeared to replenish it.

While her husband took his dinner she went up stairs and ransacked the bed-room for the missing purse. "What are you sitting there for?" she exclaimed, suddenly re-entering the dining-room, where Dr. Lively was sitting with his arms on the table. "Why don't you get up and look for that purse you lost?"

"No use, you said," Napoleon put in by way of reminder.

"For pity's sake, arn't you done eating yet?"

"Just am," answered the corporal, rising from his seat, yet chewing industriously.

Mrs. Lively began to gather the dirty dishes into a pan. "What are you going to do about it, Dr. Lively?" she asked meanwhile.

"I don't know what we can do about it, except to cut off corners—live more economically."

"As if we could!" cried Mrs. Lively, all ablaze. "Where are there any corners to cut off? In the name of charity, tell me. I've cut and shaved until life is as round and as bare as this plate." With a mighty rattle and clatter she threw the said plate into the dish-pan and jerked up a platter from the table. Holding it in her left hand, she proceeded: "Do you know, Dr. Lively, what your family lives on? Potatoes, Dr. Lively—potatoes; that is, mostly. How much do I pay out a month for help? A half cent? Not a quarter of it. How much is wasted in my housekeeping? Not a single crumb. It would keep any common woman busy cooking for that boy. I tell you, Dr. Lively, I can't economize any more than I do and have done. I might wring and twist and screw in every possible direction, and at the year's end there wouldn't be a nickel to show for all the wringing and twisting and screwing. There's only one way in which the purse can be made up—there's only one way in which economy is possible. You can save that money, Dr. Lively: you're the only member of the family who has a luxury."

"Hang me with a grapevine if I've got any luxury!" said the doctor with something of an amused expression on his face.

"Tobacco," suggested Napoleon.

"Yes, it's tobacco. You can give up the nasty weed, the filthy habit."

"Do it?" asked Napoleon.

"Don't think I shall," replied the doctor coolly.

"Then I'll save the money," responded Mrs. Lively with heroic voice and manner. "I had forgotten: there is one other way. Dr. Lively, I'm housekeeper, laundress, cook, everything to your family. And what do I get for it? Less than any twelve-year-old girl who goes out to service. I have the blessed privilege of lodging in this old Mormon rat-hole, and I have just enough of the very cheapest victuals to keep the breath in my body; and one single, solitary thing that is not absolutely necessary to my existence—one thing that I could possibly live without."

"What?" asked Napoleon, gaping and staring.