The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1889-11-15
WHAT A NICKEL DOES.
A Large Amount Of Work Accom-
plished by Very Small Coin.

l have to hustle listen to this tale
of woe. just to give you q sample of
what days work for me is I will be-
gin at he hour of o'clock yesterday
morning, when tired compositor, who
had been singing solid minion the
ivelong night, fished me out of his
pocket all stained with anthony. He
handed me to a street car conductor,
who cast on me one glance meant to be
fascinating, and dropped me into a
nest of my kinsmen, some older, some
younger than I, and rang his bell as
touched bottom. I had just gotten on
speaking terms with my metallic sis
ters and cousins and aunts when up I
came again, side by side with a fellow
who claimed to be of genuine mintage,
but who, I am sure, was made on
North Clark street, and poured as
change into the hands of club man,
who was going home. He carried us
with a tenderness that made us think
maybe that we were pretty much all
he had left after paying dues and Incl
dentals, and when he finally reached
his home he tried to unlock the front
door with me. But finding that I was
not built that way, he tried a key with
better results, and entered a very tidy
home indeed. Then he dropped me
and my mates into spoon-holder on
the diningroom table with so much of a
racket that 1 heard a sleepy woman in
an adjoining room calculate: "Oh, I
know what that is; it's nickels and
pennies"
She needn't have been so contemptu-
GUS about it. Nickels may be of small
account, but they are all they pretend
to be and do just what they promise,
every time. Well, there we lay, while
lot of dizzy spoons, standing on their
heads all around us, tried to pick up an
acquaintance until daylight came, and
a ray of sunlight ran right through a
rift in the curtain and touched me with
a really CHEEKY attention. Presently
girl with her hair in papers spooned
me and two or three others out and
carried us tightly in her hand to the
butcher shop, where she rolled us
across greasy and not too tidy coun-
ter into till as shallow as most other
people whose sole purpose is to hold
money. But we are all reasonably
clean. That's what I like about a
nickel. There is some character about
it, and it doesn't take contamination
from everything it touches, like this
stuck-up paper money, which cannot
travel through three pairs of hands
without showing where it has been.
Nickels may be handled by all sorts of
people, but we never give anything
away. If we knew where Tascott was
we couldn't give it away.
About 8 o'clock little girl started
home with me in her mitten, and
pioched so tightly that I slipped
through a hole in the thumb, and roll
ed right down into the middle of the
sidewalk.
'.Now," thought I, II will lie here
and watch the people pass" But I
didn't. A wanderer gobbled me up
with some very dirty fingers and skat-
ed me into saloon next door to the
police station SO quickly that it made
my head swim. He laid me on the bar
and for shamed half-minute rested
beside as bad brand of fusel oil as I
ever hoped to smell. Then it was
gone and I ground my hardened front
against the smooth cheek of goddess
of altogether too much liberty in the
till. She whispered to me that she
had last been held by the treasurer of
all anarchist meeting. was in some
danger of injury there, for it was quite
drop from the bar to the till and
money kept tumbling in. But put
up my shield and defended myself as
best 1 could, until a man with the
smell of hayseed, cattle cars and gin
upon him claimed me for his own and
bore me away in company with more
beer than was good for him. It al
ways makes me feel mean when nan
trades dime for me and glass of
beer just as though we were of equal
value. And then don't think much
of a man who drinks beer on winter
morning, anyway. But he found me
worth something to him. for, after his
beer quit interesting him he traded me
for morning paper down at the stock
yards and I noticed the boy didn't
give him any change, either, calcula-
ting on his verdancy, reckon. The
boy had two more like me and he play
ed ''heads and tails" against another
boy of like riches, and won. Then he
passed me over the fragrant counter of
bread store and went home to a very