Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
"Plenty, plenty, though perhaps them two that I've just told you was the
most strikin'. But it always seemed to me, after that first time, that
Lavina was on hand when anything went wrong or was likely to go wrong;
and ef I was to tell you all the scrapes she's kep' me out of and pulled
me out of, I should keep you settin' here all night. There was one
more," he continued, "that struck me a good deal at the time. It was
about money, like the fust one, in a different sort of way. It was
durin' those days when specie was so skurce and high that it was quite a
circumstance to get a piece of hard money. There come along a peddler in
a smart red wagon, with all sorts of women's trash packed into it, and
Gracie took it into her head to want some of his things. It happened to
be her birthday that day, and, as she didn't often pester me about
clothes, I told her to choose out what she wanted, up to five dollars'
worth, and, if the feller could change me a twenty-dollar note, I'd pay
for it. He jumped at it, sayin' he didn't count it any trouble at all to
give change, the way some storekeepers did, and that he always kep' a
lot on hand to oblige his customers. I will say for him that it seemed
to me he give Gracie an amazin' big five dollars' worth, and when he
come to make the change he handed out a ten-dollar gold piece, or what I
then took to be such, as easy as if he'd found it growin' on a bush, and
said nothin' whatever about the premium on it. Perhaps I'd ought to have
mentioned it, but it seemed to me it was his business more'n mine: so I
jest took it as if it was the most natural thing in life, and he went
off. I thought I might as well as not get the premium on it before it
went down the way folks said it was goin' to: so, after dinner, I
harnessed up, and drove down to the post-office,--it was kep' in the
drug-store then, the same as it is now,--and when I handed my gold piece
to the postmaster, which was also the druggist, and said I'd take a
quarter's worth of stamps, and I believed gold was worth a dollar
fifteen just now, he first smelt of it, and then bit it, and then poured
some stuff out'n a bottle onto it, and then handed it back to me with a
pityin' smile that somehow riled me more'n a little, and he says, says
he,--
"'Somebody's fooled you badly, Uncle Jabez. That coin's a counterfeit.
Do you happen to know where you got it?'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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