The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1896-09-04
me some more checks to pu: IN TINT
funny little window there at the bank,
and + will do the bookkeeping,

me some more checks to pu: in TINT
funny little window there at the bank,
and I will do the bookkeeping.
.sGo it, 1 remarked; and she did.
Well, the thing went along. I didn't
monkey any with the books of my for
mer chum. When at home together |
saw that there was a tired look about
her eyes, an expression which seemed
to say, I wish that darned bank ac-
count was in a hotter place than
Gravesendhurst,' but / let her new
venture severely alone. When neces-
sary I handed over checks for her to
deposit. That was all. She got the
furniture, fitted up the house, mean
while getting thinner each day and less
companionable. Finally a crash came.
The telephone rang with emphasis.
Mrs. Drifter is very sick, sir.
Keeps calling for you and saying,
Come home, I give up, I'll never do it
again" I've been trying to find you
for an hour, sir. I'm so scared for the
poor, dear lady
"This from the new girl. Of course,
[ got home as quickly as the street
cars would take me. Then the secret
came out. Between sobs and means I
learned that some grocer of whom
Mrs. Drifter had ordered a bill of goods
had grossly insulted her.
"'He insulted me, me, your wife,
she sobbed. The woman who has no
one to protect her If you fail her.
Why, why should a weak, frail woman
have to stand the insults of rude,
rough men, when she has a husband
who ought to attend to all the bust
ness matters?'
This was rich, indeed, but I didn't
load my ~siX-shooter and sail out after
the offending tradesman. l soothed
the little woman, assured her that I
was a brute to have allowed her to
wrestle with the worldly problems of
trade, barter and bills, and begged for
giveness for having, as she said, i'm
posed upon her the whole work of fur
nishing the house and worrying her
poor, tired brain with prices and fig
ures and horrid old bank books.
Il found that the grocer's insult con-
sisted in returning q dishonored check
drawn by Mrs. Drifter on her own and
only bank account for S53.16, and
marked plainly in red ink at the bank,
N. G. That was all, except that the
grocer had written, I return your
check. Evidently some mistake. Shall
l send the bill to Mr.. Drifter?
what does he mean by disfiguring
my check with horrid slang? Tell me.
How dare he put IN. G." on one of my
checks? What can be done to him :?
Isn't it the same as forgery?' asked my
wife.
II looked over her book, found that
her additions and subtractions were
sadly mixed and that two other
checks were due to come back also dis
figured with those horrid words, N.
c. for she had overdrawn her &C.
count to the tune of $20S. And those
stubs! Bless her heart! she took me
literally. She had tried to keep track
of her expenditures so as to give MT a
surprise in bookkeeping. She sue
ceeded. To give you an idea: Instead
of filling out the stub thus:
Apr. /.
M. Macaroni. $50
For groceries,
Mrs. Drifter had actually e~ndeayored
in every case to put down each separ-
ate item IN each bill paid by the
check. The one given in payment OF
an order for groceries was a dream
The order embraced everything from
spaghetti to roach powder, and the
poor woman with a new and separate
bank account had e%ndeavored to trans
fer all the items to the stub. She re-
ligiously filled that stub with her fine
handwriting, then started in and filled
two sheets of note paper and pinned
those to the suffering stub.
"She doesn't run a bank account
now" concluded Drifter. And she's
gained ten pounds since becoming
again my chum and an ornament to
the cottage at Gravcscndhurst"