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Page 18
November 9.
. . . The first week is over, and the finances did n't come out right
at all. I have a system of bookkeeping which is original, simple,
practical, and absolutely reliable. The house-money I keep in a
cigar-box with three partitions (formerly used for birds' eggs), and I
divide the month's money in four parts, and pay everything weekly.
The money for car-fare, clothing, and sundries I keep in an old silver
sugar-bowl, and the reserve fund, which we are never to touch save on
the most dreadful provocation, in a Japanese ginger-jar with a cover.
These, plainly marked, repose in my upper drawer. Mamma has no
business cares whatever, and everything ought to work to a charm, as it
will after a while. But this first week has been discouraging, and I
have had to borrow enough from compartment two, cigar-box, to pay debts
incurred by compartment one, cigar-box. This is probably because we
had to buy a bag of flour and ten pounds of sugar. Of course this
won't happen every week. . . .
I wrote Ah Foy a note after we arrived, for he really seems to have a
human affection for us. I inclose his answer to my letter. It is such
a miracle of Chinese construction that it is somewhat difficult to get
his idea; still I think I see that he is grateful for past favors; that
he misses us; that the boarders are going on "very happy and joy;" that
he is glad mamma is better, and pleased with the teacher I selected for
him. But here it is; judge for yourself:--
SANTA BARBARA, November 5.
DEAR MY FREND.
I was joy pleased to received a letter from you how are Your getting
along and my Dear if your leaves a go We but now I been it is here I am
very sorry for are a your go to in San Francisco if any now did you
been it is that here very happy and joy I am so glad for your are to do
teachers for me but I am very much thank you dear my frend.
Good-By. AH FOY.
November 15,
. . . The first compartment, cigar-box, could n't pay back the money it
borrowed from the second compartment, and so this in turn had to borrow
from the third compartment. I could have made everything straight, I
think, if we had n't bought a feather duster and a gallon of kerosene.
The first will last forever, and the second for six weeks, so it is n't
fair to call compartment number two extravagant. At the end of this
month I shall remove some of the partitions in the cigar-box and keep
the house-money in two parts, balancing accounts every fortnight. . . .
November 24.
. . . My bookkeeping is in a frightful snarl. There is neither
borrowing nor lending in the cigar-box now, for all the money for the
month is gone at the end of the third week. The water, it seems, was
not included in the thirty dollars for the rent, and compartment three
had to pay two dollars for that purpose when compartment two was still
deeply in its debt. If compartment two had only met its rightful
obligations, compartment three need n't have "failed up," as they say
in New England; but as it is, poor compartment four is entirely
bankrupt, and will have to borrow of the sugar-bowl or the ginger-jar.
As these banks are not at all in the same line of business, they ought
not to be drawn into the complications of the cigar-box, for they will
have their own troubles by and by; but I don't know what else to
do. . . .
December 2.
. . . It came out better at the end of the month than I feared, for we
spent very little last week, and have part of the ten pounds of sugar,
kerosene, feather duster, scrubbing-brush, blanc-mange mould, tapioca,
sago, and spices with which to begin the next month. I suffered so
with the debts, losses, business embarrassments, and failures of the
four compartments that when I found I was only four dollars behind on
the whole month's expenses, I knocked out all the compartments, and am
not going to keep things in weeks. I made up the deficit by taking two
dollars out of the reserve fund, and two dollars out of my ten-dollar
gold piece that Dr. George gave me on my birthday.
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