“Why, that you use the credit only for such purposes as I approve. I put down for you a certain sum for every week, and then, when you want to buy any thing, you can have it, if I think it is proper for you, and if it doesn’t come to more than your allowance amounts to. But in the mean time I must keep all the money.”
Accordingly, Lucy’s father made her a small account-book, like Royal’s. Her mother sewed it. It had a cover of marble paper. The leaves were made of paper, ruled with blue lines, and her father ruled some lines up and down the page of red ink. The first line was near the left-hand edge of every page, and was intended to mark off a space to put down the day of the month, when any thing was written in the book. Then there was another, near the right-hand edge of every page, which was for the figures expressing the amount of the money.
It was about the middle of July, when Lucy’s father made her the account-book. But he said he would begin back as far as to Lucy’s birthday, in reckoning the allowance. So he entered in the account-book, first, an allowance for a month and a half, at the top of the second page. On the first page, he only wrote the words Account-Book, in pretty large letters.
“Now,” said her father, “whenever you want to buy any thing, you can ask me or your mother; and if we approve of it, you can buy it, and I shall write down what it is, and the price of it, on the page opposite to the one where your allowance is entered; and then we can see, when we open the book, how much your allowance comes to, by looking on one side, and how many things you have bought with it, by looking on the other.”
Lucy was very much pleased with her account-book, and she put it away very carefully in her drawer. She determined to come every Saturday evening, and have her allowance for the week regularly entered.
When, however, her account-book was out of sight, it was out of mind; and several weeks passed away before she thought of it again. At last, one day, as she and Royal were looking over her drawer, she found her account-book.
“There,” said she, “now here is my account-book, and I haven’t had any allowance for a great many weeks. Father said he would give me an allowance every week.”
“You ought to have carried him your book, and he would,” said Royal.
“But I forgot it,” said Lucy; “and now I have forgotten how long it is, and how much the allowance will make.”
So saying, Lucy was just beginning to cry.