My family had come from a land (the
Netherlands) noted for its thrift; but we had been in the United States
only a few days before the realization came home strongly to my father
and mother that they had brought their children to a land of waste.
Where the Dutchman saved, the American wasted. There was waste, and
the most prodigal waste, on every hand. In every street-car and on
every ferry-boat the floors and seats were littered with newspapers
that had been read and thrown away or left behind. If I went to a
grocery store to buy a peck of potatoes, and a potato rolled off the
heaping measure, the groceryman, instead of picking it up, kicked it
into the gutter for the wheels of his wagon to run over. The butcher's
waste filled my mother's soul with dismay. If I bought a scuttle of
coal at the corner grocery, the coal that missed the scuttle, instead
of being shovelled up and put back into the bin, was swept into the
street. My young eyes quickly saw this; in the evening I gathered up
the coal thus swept away, and during the course of a week I collected a
scuttleful.
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