We emerged from the shop amazed, and doubtful of the paper stuff, and walked up the street and out into the country, pausing under a great maple-tree to sort this new Continental currency, of which we had enough to stuff a pillow.
Scrip by scrip I examined the legal tender of my country, Elsin, her chin on my shoulder, scrutinizing the printed slips of yellow, brown, and red in growing wonder. One slip bore three arrows on it, under which was printed: Fifty Dollars. Printed by H. A. L. L. and S. E. L. 1778.
Upon the other side was a pyramid in a double circle, surmounted by the legend: PERENNIS.
And it was further decorated with the following: "No. 16780 Fifty Dollars. This Bill entitles the Bearer to receive Fifty Spanish milled dollars or the value thereof in Gold or Silver, according to the Resolution passed by Congress at Philadelphia, September 26th, 1788.
"J. WATKINS; I. K."
And we had several dozen of these of equal or less denomination.
"Goodness," exclaimed Elsin, "was my guinea worth all these dollars? And do you suppose that we could buy anything with these paper bills?"
"Certainly," I said, loyal to my country's currency; "they're just as good as silver shillings--if you only have enough of them."
"But what use will they be to me in Canada?"
That was true enough. I immediately pocketed the mass of paper and tendered her a guinea in exchange, but she refused it, and we had a pretty quarrel there under the maple-tree.
"Carus," she said at last, "let us keep them, anyhow, and never, never spend them. Some day we may care to remember this July afternoon, and how you and I went a-shopping as sober as a wedded pair in Hanover Square."
There was a certain note of seriousness in her voice that sobered me, too. I drew her arm through mine, and we strolled out into the sunshine and northward along the little river, where in shallow brown pools scores of minnows stemmed the current, and we saw the slim trout lying in schools under the bush's shadows, and the great silver and blue kingfishers winging up and down like flashes of azure fire.
A mile out a sentinel stopped us, inquiring our business, and as we had none we turned back, for it mattered little to us where we sauntered. Farmers were cutting hay in the river-meadows, under the direction of a mounted sergeant of dragoons; herds of cattle and sheep grazed among the hills, shepherded by soldiers. Every now and again dragoons rode past us, convoying endless lines of wagons piled up with barrels, crates, sacks of meal, and sometimes with bolts of coarse cloth.