50, a week for
his board. His wages were $1.50 a day, which the reader who
multiplies fourpence by twenty, to make up the difference in
money values, will find to be the wages of a good mechanic in the
first Edward's time, five hundred years ago. On this he professed
to live very well. He rose every morning at half-past four, and
at six he had a breakfast of bread, butter, and coffee; at nine
he had porridge and coffee; at one, he had soup, meat, and eggs,
and perhaps beer; at night, after he got home from work, he had a
stew and a bit of meat, and perhaps beer, with Mother. He thought
that English people ate too much, generally, and especially on
Sunday, when they had nothing else to do. Most men never came
home without asking, "Well, Mother, what have you got for me to
eat now?" When I remembered how sparely our farm people and
mechanics fared, I thought that he was right, or they were wrong;
for the puzzling fact remained that they looked gaunt and
dyspeptic, and he hale and fresh, though the difference may have
had as much to do with the air as the food.
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