The forty dollar income melted as quickly as the twenty-five dollar one, and far more mysteriously.  Nancy would have felt once that forty dollars every week was riches, but between Junior’s demands, and the little leakage of Esmeralda’s wages, and her hearty lunch twice a week, and the milk, and the necessarily less-careful marketing, they seemed to be just where they were before.

“There must be some way of living that we can afford!” mused Nancy, one March morning at the breakfast table, when the world looked particularly bright to the young Bradleys.  Junior, curly-headed, white-clad, and excited over a hard crust of toast, sat between his parents, who interrupted their meal to kiss his fat fists, the dewy back of his neck under the silky curls, and even the bare toes that occasionally appeared on the board.

This was Sunday, and for months it had been the custom to weigh Junior on Sunday, a process that either put Nancy and Bert into a boastful mood for the day, or reduced the one to tearful silence, and the other to apprehensive bravado.  But now the baby was approaching his first anniversary, and it was perfectly obvious that his weight was no longer a matter of concern.  He was so large, so tall, and so fat that one of Nancy’s daily satisfactions was to have other mothers, in the park, ask her his age.  She looked at him with fond complacency rather than apprehension now, feeling that every month and week of his life made him a little more sure of protracted existence, and herself a little more safe as his mother.

“How do you mean—­afford?” Bert asked.  “We pay our bills, and we’re not in debt.”

“When I say ‘afford,’” Nancy answered, “I mean that we do not live without a frightful amount of worry and fuss about money.  To just keep out of debt, and make ends meet, is not my idea of life!”

“It’s the way lots of people live—­if they’re lucky,” Bert submitted, picking Junior’s damp crust from the floor, eyeing it dubiously, and substituting another crust in its place.

“Well, it’s all wrong!” Nancy stated positively.  “There should be a comfortable living for everyone in this world who works even half as hard as you do—­and if any one wants to work harder, let him have the luxuries!”

“That’s socialism, Nance.”

She raised her pretty brows innocently.

“Is it?  Well, I’m not a socialist.  I guess I just don’t understand.”

She knew, as the weeks went by, that there were other things she could not understand.  Toil as she might, from morning until night, there was always something undone.  It puzzled her strangely.