Page:Adventures in Thrift (1916).djvu/158

 of organization, with the running of the plant neatly divided between us!

"One woman tended all the babies, another did all the cooking. She was a dietitian with a diploma, but she was no cook. To save steps, the food was run in from the kitchen to the dining-room on a sort of miniature railway. Sometimes it stuck, and then everybody with a mechanical turn of mind rushed from the table to pry it loose. Of course, by the time you got your soup or gravy it was cold, but, never mind, the railroad was in working order again, and nobody would have to walk from kitchen to dining-room!"

"Larry! You are hopeless!"

"So was this plan. I dropped my board money and ran for my life—literally, because the man whose specialty was engineering let something go amiss with the furnace in his charge, and the whole place burned to the ground one frosty night. Several of the 'colonists' were severely injured; one claims that she has never fully recovered her health. But, of course, such troubles would not overtake a cooperative kitchen. That is a simpler proposition,