Five dollars and a little stroke of luck.

Five dollars.  In those days, five dollars was a lot of money.  I was a young mom.  I married right after I turned 17 and had a baby right off.  Life was not easy.  For a little over a year, I had lived on hand me down everything, food often hunted, fished, or scavengered.  I had lived in a house without plumbing, the water pump outside was contaminated.  Wash water for dishes had to be boiled on the old stove with one defunct burner and a non working oven.  The house had come 'furnished'.  There was a table with a broken leg, three non matching chairs and an old couch with it's own ecosystem.  The refrigerator didn't cool and the bed was a mattress over an old spring that set on blocks.  It was the vacation spot for the inhabitants of the couch -or vice verse.
I discovered a natural spring a ways down the road and procured some 10 gallon milk cans.  I had a path out back that led to an outdoor toilet without a door.  But it was okay, because it faced a steep hill.  The only real problem was the cows who were often curious about why I was out there.  There were berries and nuts that could be gathered and squirrels and rabbits that I could hunt within a short distance of my 'house'.  I found a little rogue garden that had some old potato plants and bitter carrots and found wild peas and onions.  The stream ran through less than a mile away and I'd been taught to fish by one of the best.  I was living the life of a pioneer woman and proud of it.  My creativity was spent on existing from day to day in some kind of small pleasantry.  It was enough.
A relative helped us sign up for commodities and we went once a month and got flour, sugar, beans, rice, powdered eggs, powdered milk, cheese and peanut butter.  I learned to cook well with little.  I used the meager earnings carefully.  I sturdied up the table leg, sprayed the couch several times and all but set the mattress on fire getting rid of the fauna.  I picked the cherries in the tree out back in spite of the curious cows that constantly plagued my existence.  They were not our cows, but there were no fences.  Sometimes I would pull out my old accordian -an heirloom that had belonged to my namesake aunt who died as a teen.  The cows would gather about me as I sat on a large rock behind my house and played.  They liked the music.  It was a simple amusement, but it was enough.
We bought 50 culled chicks and put them on the front enclosed porch.  I would raise them for eggs and eventually butcher and cook some.  That was not my most successful venture to be sure.  I had much more zeal than knowledge.
Eventually we moved into a real house with semi-indoor plumbing.  We were given some hand me down furniture that didn't come with resident vermin.  We bought simple furnishings to complete the necessities for living.  We moved the remaining 7 chickens to town with us.  I got a kitten.  I had so many dresses made with an overabundance of fabric and so I tore some apart to make curtains and such.  Life was a struggle still, but not as all-encompassing a struggle.  I was able to bring my first daughter home to a life that may have provided me with some difficulty, but was warm and safe and had a little homespun charm.
Our next move took us into a sweet little house -very old but with lots of character and indoor plumbing.  My amenities were nothing to brag about, but I was content and the pioneer in me made the best of the situation and looked for the funny in each day.  Little by little I was making the house homey.  My creativity and frugality worked together for baby steps in the decorating department.  After a failed attempt at working in a processing plant -primarily because my daughter was subject to new germs and had a tendency for respiratory problems from an early birth- I began babysitting to bring in a little added funds. 
I bought a second hand sewing machine cheap after making a couple of dresses for my daughter by hand from the material I took from the dresses of my past.  This gave me a whole new outlet for the creativity that was now free to discover itself in clothing and household improvements.
We had a wine colored chair and a worn blue couch.  They wouldn't have complimented each other had they been new, but in their threadbare state, they were functional, but not aesthetically pleasant. I didn't have a dress that could supply that much fabric, so I began saving and looking.  The small town I lived in had a nice little home owned fabric store.  There I spied a heavy piece of fabric in an off-white blue french print.  I went home and calculated what it would take to make slipcovers for the couch and chair.  The figure was more than I felt I could justify.
One day I went into the little shop and my fabric was gone.  A little sad resolve took over as I began looking about for a replacement dream.  There was a thinner fabric in the same color and a little less appealing print.  While I was considering and calculating, the owner came up and struck up a conversation.  She had seen me looking several times at the blue french print.  I mentioned that I had been trying to save, but I just didn't have enough yet.  She went to the back and brought out the bolt of fabric.
"This didn't sell, so I was going to take it home and use it to cover some dining chairs,"  she said with a smile.  "I was going to take a loss on it.  I'll sell it to you for five dollars."
My heart skipped a beat.  Five dollars would buy many necessities.  I had barely that much saved.  I knew what an incredible deal she was offering, but was reluctant to loose the emotional comfort that having a savings provided.
Finally, stomach churning, I said.  "Can I go home and get the money?  I can be back in just a few minutes."
Five dollars was a lot of money to me in those days of ripping apart dresses for baby clothes and curtains.  Today I don't remember if I suffered as a result of my splurge, and I don't really remember many of the furnishings and such that I had, but I can still see those crisp slipcovers and feel the excitement I felt when they were finally in place, transforming my worn, mismatched furniture into an acceptable ensemble.