美国著名作家克拉伦斯·戴（1874—1935）的《与父亲一起生活的日子》是一部叫人百读不厌的作品。作者细腻幽默的笔触总能精确地击中读者的笑点，他笔下的父亲老克拉伦斯·戴的生动形象深深地刻在读者的心里，耐人寻味，经久不衰。
　　这期选登一篇跟家庭经济学有关的故事。母亲不工作，手里没有现金，每个月她都张口向父亲要家用。母亲经常为一些她忘了买的东西垫付小笔开支，遇到资金周转不开时，就把本来要买的东西暂搁一下，以便把账目摆平。有一次父亲给母亲6美元买咖啡壶，后来父亲核账时，发现新买的陶瓷咖啡壶只需5美元，母亲的答复是：当时法式咖啡壶断货了，于是她从这6美元中挪了4.5美元给自己买了伞，又付给洗衣工托宾太太2美元，共支出6.5美元。她认为父亲还欠她0.5美元，再加上她省下了1美元，所以父亲一共欠她1.5美元。母亲的逻辑让父亲哭笑不得。而且母亲的耳朵根子非常软，总是禁不住推销商的花言巧语而买一些没必要的东西。这次她又买了什么呢？
　　Father said that one great mystery about the monthly household expenses was what made them jump up and down so. “Anyone would suppose that there would be some regularity after a while which would let a man try to make plans， but I never know from one month to another what to expect.”
　　Mother said she didn’t， either. Things just seemed to go that way.
　　“But they have no business to go that way， Vinnie，” Father declared. “And what’s more I won’t allow it.”
　　Mother said she didn’t see what she could do about it. All she knew was that when the bills mounted up， it didn’t mean that she had been extravagant.
　　“Well， it certainly means that you’ve spent a devil of a lot of money，” said Father.
　　Mother looked at him obstinately（倔强地）. She couldn’t exactly deny this， but she said that it wasn’t fair.
　　Appearances were often hopelessly against Mother， but that never daunted her. She wasn’t afraid of Father or anybody. She was a woman of great spirit who would have flown at and pecked（啄，回擊）any tyrant（暴君）. It was only when she had a bad conscience（良心不安）that she had no heart to fight. Father had the best of her there because he never had a bad conscience. And he didn’t know that he was a tyrant. He regarded himself as a long-suffering man who asked little of anybody， and who showed only the greatest moderation in his encounters with unreasonable beings like Mother. Mother’s one advantage over him was that she was quicker. She was particularly elusive（巧妙逃避的）when Father was trying to hammer her into shape.
　　When the household expenses shot up very high， Father got frightened. He would then， as Mother put it， yell his head off. He always did some yelling anyhow， merely on general principles， but when his alarm was genuine he roared in real anguish（苦恼）.
　　Usually this brought the total down again， at least for a while. But there were times when no amount of noise seemed to do any good， and when every month for one reason or another the total went on up and up. And then， just as Father had almost resigned himself to（放弃）this awful outgo（支出）， and just as he had eased up on his yelling and had begun to feel grim（严肃的）， the expenses， to his utter amazement， would take a sharp drop. 　　Mother didn’t keep track of these totals， she was too busy watching small details， and Father never knew whether to tell her the good news or not. He always did tell her， because he couldn’t keep things to himself. But he always had cause to regret it.
　　When he told her， he did it in as disciplinary（训诫的）a manner as possible. He didn’t congratulate her on the expenses having come down. He appeared at her door， waving the bills at her with a threatening scow（l怒容）， and said， “I’ve told you again and again that you could keep the expenses down if you tried， and this shows I was right.”

　　Mother was always startled at such attacks， but she didn’t lose her presence of mind（冷静）. She asked how much less the amount was and said it was all due to her good management， of course， and Father ought to give her the difference.
　　At this point Father suddenly found himself on the defensive and the entire moral lecture that he had intended to deliver was wrecked. The more they talked， the clearer it seemed to Mother that he owed her that money. Only when he was lucky could he get out of her room without paying it.
　　He said that this was one of the things about her that was enough to drive a man mad.
　　The other thing was her lack of system， which was always cropping up in new ways. He sometimes looked at Mother as though he had never seen her before.“Upon my soul，” he said， “I almost believe you don’t know what system is. You don’t even want to know， either.”
　　He had at last invented what seemed a perfect method of recording expenses. Whenever he gave any money to Mother， he asked her what it was for and made a note of it in his pocket notebook. His idea was that these items， added to those in the itemized（逐項登记的）bills， would show him exactly where every dollar had gone.
　　But they didn’t.
　　He consulted his notebook. “I gave you six dollars in cash on the twenty-fifth of last month，” he said， “to buy a new coffeepot.”
　　“Yes，” Mother said， “because you broke your old one. You threw it right on the floor.”
　　Father frowned. “I’m not talking about that，” he answered. “I am simply endeavouring（尽力）to find out from you， if I can—”
　　“But it’s so silly to break a nice coffeepot， Clare， and that was the last of those French ones， and there was nothing the matter with the coffee that morning； it was made just the same as it always is.” 　　“It wasn’t，” said Father. “It was made in a damned barbaric manner.”
　　“And I couldn’t get another French one，” Mother continued， “because that little shop the Auffmordts told us about has stopped selling them. They said the tariff（關税）wouldn’t let them any more， and I told Monsieur Duval he ought to be ashamed of himself to stand there and say so. I said that if I had a shop， I’d like to see the tariff keep me from selling things.”
　　“But I gave you six dollars to buy a new pot，” Father firmly repeated， “and now I find that you apparently got one at Lewis