The Road to Understanding Part 12

There were to be no more charge accounts. For the weekly expenses Helen was to have every cent that could possibly be spared; but what she could not pay cash for, they must go without, if they starved. In a pretty little book she must put down on one side the money received. On the other, the money spent. She was a dear, good little wife, and he loved her 'most to death; but he couldn't let her run up bills when he had not a red cent to pay them with. He would borrow, of course, for these--he was not going to have any dirty little tradesmen pestering him with bills all the time! But this must be the last. Never again!

And Helen said yes, yes, indeed. And she was very sure she would love to keep the pretty little book, and put down all the money she got, and all she spent.

All this was very well in theory. But in practice--

At the end of the first week Helen brought her book to her husband, and spread it open before him with great gusto.

On the one side were several entries of small sums, amounting to eight dollars received. On the other side were the words: "Spent all but seventeen cents."

"Oh, but you should put down what you spent it for," corrected Burke, with a merry laugh.

"Why?"

"Why, er--so you can see--er--what the money goes for."

"What's the difference--if it goes?"

"Oh, shucks! You can't keep a cash account that way! You have to put 'em both down, and then--er--balance up and see if your cash comes right.

See, like this," he cried, taking a little book from his pocket. "I'm keeping one." And he pointed to a little list which read:--

Lunch $.25 Cigar .10 Car-fare .10 Paper .02 Helen 2.00 Cigars .25 Paper .02

"Now that's what I spent yesterday. You want to put yours down like that, then add 'em up and subtract it from what you receive. What's left should equal your cash on hand."

"Hm-m; well, all right," a.s.sented Helen dubiously, as she picked up her own little book.

Helen looked still more dubious when she presented her book for inspection the next week.

"I don't think I like it this way," she announced, with a pout.

"Why not?"

"Why, Burke, the mean old thing steals--actually steals! It says I ought to have one dollar and forty-five cents; and I haven't got but fourteen cents! It's got it itself--somewhere!"

"Ho, that's easy, dear!" The man gave an indulgent laugh. "You didn't put 'em all down--what you spent."

"But I did--everything I could remember. Besides, I borrowed fifty cents of Mrs. Jones. I didn't put that down anywhere. I didn't know where to put it."

"Helen! You borrowed money--of that woman?"

"She isn't 'that woman'! She's my friend, and I like her," flared Helen, hotly. "I had to have some eggs, and I didn't have a cent of money. I shall pay her back, of course,--next time you pay me."

Burke frowned.

"Oh, come, come, Helen, this will never do," he remonstrated. "Of course you'll pay her back; but I can't have my wife borrowing of the neighbors!"

"But I had to! I had to have some eggs," she choked, "and--"

"Yes, yes, I know. But I mean, we won't again," interrupted the man desperately, fleeing to cover in the face of the threatening storm of sobs. "And, anyhow, we'll see that you have some money now," he cried gayly, plunging his hands into his pockets, and pulling out all the bills and change he had. "There, 'with all my worldly goods I thee endow,'" he laughed, lifting his hands above her bright head, and showering the money all over her.

Like children then they scrambled for the rolling nickels and elusive dimes; and in the ensuing frolic the tiresome account-book was forgotten--which was exactly what Burke had hoped would happen.

This was the second week. At the end of the third, the "mean old thing"

was in a worse muddle than ever, according to Helen; and, for her part, she would rather never buy anything at all if she had got to go and tell that nuisance of a book every time!

The fourth Sat.u.r.day night Helen did not produce the book at all.

"Oh, I don't keep that any longer," she announced, with airy nonchalance, in answer to Burke's question. "It never came right, and I hated it, anyhow. So what's the use? I've got what I've got, and I've spent what I've spent. So what's the difference?" And Burke, after a feeble remonstrance, gave it up as a bad job. Incidentally it might be mentioned that Burke was having a little difficulty with his own cash account, and was tempted to accuse his own book of stealing--else where did the money go?

It was the next Monday night that Burke came home with a radiant countenance.

"Gleason's here--up at the Hanc.o.c.k House. He's coming down after dinner."

"Who's Gleason?"

Helen's tone was a little fretful--there was a new, intangible something in her husband's voice that Helen did not understand, and that she did not think she liked.

"Gleason! Who's Doc Gleason!" exclaimed Burke, with widening eyes. "Oh, I forgot. You don't know him, do you?" he added, with a slight frown.

Burke Denby was always forgetting that Helen knew nothing of his friends or of himself until less than a year before. "Well, Doc Gleason is the best ever. He went to Egypt with us last year, and to Alaska the year before."

"How old is he?"

"Old? Why, I don't know--thirty--maybe more. He must be a little more, come to think of it. But you never think of age with the doctor. He'll be young when he's ninety."

"And you like him--so well?" Her voice was a little wistful.

"Next to dad--always have. You'll like him, too. You can't help it. He's mighty interesting."

"And he's a doctor?"

"Yes, and no. Oh, he graduated and hung out his shingle; but he never practiced much. He had money enough, anyway, and he got interested in scientific research--antiquarian, mostly, though he's done a bit of mountain-climbing and glacier-studying for the National Geographic Society."

"Antiquarian? Oh, yes, I know--old things. Mother was that way, too. She had an old pewter plate, and a dark blue china teapot, homely as a hedge fence, I thought, but she doted on 'em. And she doted on ancestors, too.

She had one in that old ship--Mayflower, wasn't it?"

Burke laughed.

"Mayflower! My dear child, the Mayflower is a mere infant-in-arms in the doctor's estimation. The doctor goes back to prehistoric times for his playground, and to the men of the old Stone Age for his preferred playmates."

"Older than the Mayflower, then?"

"A trifle--some thousands of years."

"Goodness! How can he? I thought the Mayflower was bad enough. But what does he do--collect things?"

"Yes, to some extent; he has a fine collection of Babylonian tablets, and--"

"Oh, I know--those funny little brown and yellow cakes like soap, all cut into with pointed little marks--what do you call it?--like your father has in his library!"