"ACROSS THE STILL FIELDS CAME FLASHING THE POINT OF FLAME"
| Picking hops (4 days) | $1.00 |
| Sewing (Mrs. Shackell) | .60 |
| Egg money (3-1/4 dozen) | .75 |
| Winning puzzle | 2.50 |
| —— | |
| $4.86 | |
| Disbursed: | |
| Kitchen roller | $ .10 |
| Coffee mill | .50 |
| Shoes for M. | 1.25 |
| Water colors for M. | .25 |
| Suit for M. | 2.00 |
| Gloves—me | .50 |
| —— | |
| $4.75 | |
| Cash on hand: 11 cents. |
The bookkeeper paused again. Ebenezer, frowning, reached for the book. In his wife's fine faded writing were her accounts—after the eleven cents was a funny little face with which she had been wont to illustrate her letters. Ebenezer stared, grunted, turned to the last page of the book. There, in bold figures, the other way of the leaf, was his own accounting. He remembered now—he had kept his first books in the back of the account book that she had used for the house.
Ebenezer glanced sharply at his bookkeeper. To his annoyance, the man was smiling with perfect comprehension and sympathy. Ebenezer averted his eyes, and the bookkeeper felt dimly that he had been guilty of an indelicacy toward his employer, and hastened to cover it.
"Family life does cling to a man, sir," he said.
"Do you find it so?" said Ebenezer, dryly. "Read, please."
At noon Ebenezer walked home alone through the melting snow. And the Thought that he did not think, but that spoke to him without his knowing, said:—
"Winning a puzzle—Two Dollars and a half. She never told me she tried to earn a little something that way."