What Diantha Did by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
page 36 of 238 (15%)
page 36 of 238 (15%)
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$900. That left $2,100.00.
"Twenty-one hundred dollars unaccounted for, young lady!--besides this nest egg in the bank--I'd no idea you were so wealthy. What have you done with all that?" "Given it to you, Father," said she quietly, and handed him the third sheet of figures. Board and lodging at $4.00 a week for 4 1/2 years made $936.00, that he could realize; but "cash advance" $1,164 more--he could not believe it. That time her mother was so sick and Diantha had paid both the doctor and the nurse--yes--he had been much cramped that year--and nurses come high. For Henderson, Jr.'s, expenses to San Francisco, and again for Henderson when he was out of a job--Mr. Bell remembered the boy's writing for the money, and his not having it, and Mrs. Bell saying she could arrange with Diantha. Arrange! And that girl had kept this niggardly account of it! For Minnie's trip to the Yosemite--and what was this?--for his raisin experiment--for the new horse they simply had to have for the drying apparatus that year he lost so much money in apricots--and for the spraying materials--yes, he could not deny the items, and they covered that $1,164.00 exactly. Then came the deadly balance, of the account between them: Her labor . . . $2,047.00 Her board . . . $936.00 Her "cash advanced" . . . $1,164.00 |
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