Book: St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7.

V >> Various >> St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7.




This takes place in the rolling-room, where the short, thick ingots are
pressed between two steel rollers, again and again, till they are
rolled down into long thin ribbons of metal about the thickness of a
coin.

[Illustration: THE ROLLERS.]

The next step in the work is to draw the metal ribbons through a
"draw-plate," to bring them down to an exactly uniform thickness. This
pulling through a narrow slit in a steel plate hardens the metal, and
again and again it has to be put in the fire and brought to a light red
to make it soft and pliable. This drawing and annealing brings each
band of metal to just the right thickness and condition, and we may go
on and see the cutting-presses that stamp out the round pieces of metal
called "planchets." A workman takes a ribbon of gold and inserts the
end in the immense jaws of the press, and they bite, bite and bite, and
the round bits of gold drop in a shower into a box below.

[Illustration: POURING THE MELTED GOLD INTO THE MOLDS.]

"This press," says the usher, "is cutting double-eagles; and in the
single moment, by the watch, that we have been looking at it, it has
cut forty-five hundred dollars' worth. The same number of cuts would
make only two dollars and twenty cents if made in copper."

The machine goes on hastily biting out the round planchets to the end
of the ribbon, and then the guide holds up the long strip full of
holes, much as you have seen the dough after the cook has cut out her
ginger-snaps. These perforated bars go back to the furnace to be melted
over.

"The planchets," says the guide, "after being annealed in those
furnaces which you see at the rear of the room, are taken upstairs and
most carefully weighed."

None but women are employed in the weighing-room, and so delicate are
the scales that they will move with the weight of a hair. If a planchet
is found too light, it is thrown aside to be remelted; if only slightly
over the proper weight, a tiny particle is filed off from the edge; but
if the weight is much in excess, it is to go back to the furnace.
Nothing but perfection passes here, you see.

Now, one final washing in acid, then in water, and these much-enduring
bits of metal are admitted to the coining-room, there to receive the
stamp which testifies to their worth.

In the coining-room the planchets are first given to the
milling-machine. They are laid down flat between two steel rings, and
as the rings move one draws nearer to the other, and the planchets are
squeezed and crowded on every side, and finding no escape they turn up
about the edges and come out at the end of the sorry little journey
with a rim raised around the edges. Beyond the milling-machines stand
the ten coining-presses. These presses are attended by women. Watch
this one near us. At her right hand is a box containing silver
planchets, which are to be coined into fifty-cent pieces. On that round
"die," which you see in the center of the machine, are engraved the
letters and figures which are to appear on the back of the half-dollar.
Directly above the die, on the end of a rod, which works up and down
with the most exquisite accuracy, is the sunken impression of the face.

[Illustration: THE CUTTING PRESS.]

The woman gathers up a handful of the planchets and drops them one at a
time into a brass tube, which they just fit. They slip down in the
tube, and as the lowest planchet slides from under the tube, two small
steel arms spring out and grasp it and lay it on the die. At the same
instant, the upper die descends with a quick thump, and the silver
counter, stamped in a twinkling on both sides, falls into a box below.
In an instant, another takes its place, and thus they go on dropping
under the swiftly moving rod, and turning into coins in a flash.

[Illustration: "THE LONG STRIP FULL OF HOLES."]

Take up one of the coins and study it carefully. Every mark, letter,
number and bit of decoration is deeply cut in the metal. Even the
"reeding," or roughened edge, is stamped sharply, and we can tell just
what the coin is by feeling of it with the finger, even in the dark.
This last step finishes the work. The money is made, coined and ready
for exchange in the shop and market. Sometimes you may have noticed
that coins, like the nickel five-cent and the silver twenty-cent piece,
have smooth edges. In these coins the reeding is omitted. The dies in
the presses have only the letters and figures of the face and back of
the coin, and when the planchet is caught between them the metal is
squeezed up against the smooth sides of the die, and none of the little
reeding marks on the edge are formed.

"And now," says our kind conductor, "you have seen all the process of
making money. This next room is the cabinet, and here you can remain as
long as you please."

But I have not time to tell you half the curious and instructive things
you may see in this apartment. There are coins of all nations and ages.
Egyptian, Greek, and Roman, bearing effigies of forgotten kings and
emperors; curious oblong coins, of very fine workmanship, from China
and Japan, and others of a square shape with a hole in the middle, that
they may be strung on a string, instead of putting them into a purse.
Smallest of all, so small that you might overlook it, if your attention
was not especially drawn to it, is the "widow's mite." Perhaps----who
knows?--this may be the very coin which, dropped into the
trumpet-shaped mouth of the treasury, called forth the commendation of
the Savior upon the poor giver.

In other cases are the coins of England, France, Germany and other
modern nations; some more beautiful than our own, others far inferior
to them in design and workmanship. The cases around the wall are filled
with beautiful minerals, and, in particular, many fine specimens of
gold in its native state.

For so long a time have we been using paper money in this country that
it seemed almost useless to have mints to make coins, when ordinary
people never saw any of them, excepting those made of copper or nickel.

But our merchants, and others dealing with foreign countries, needed
gold, for our paper money could not be sent to Europe, or anywhere out
of the United States, to pay for goods; and so gold eagles and
double-eagles and half-eagles and quarter-eagles and gold dollars were
coined to be sent away, or to be used here to pay duties on imports.
Silver coins also were made, to be used in foreign countries, and among
these was the trade-dollar, which many of you may have seen.

[Illustration: THE COINING-PRESS.]

When silver small-change lately came into use again, there were many
boys and girls who had never seen a quarter or a half dollar. When they
spoke of fifty or twenty-five cents, they meant a piece of paper
currency, printed like a bank-note, of no value in itself, but only a
promise to pay.

But, since Congress has decided that we are to have not only silver
small-change, but also silver dollars, and now that these have became
again a part of the legal currency of the country; all three of our
mints have gone to work and are coining dollars as fast as they can,
for millions of them will be required, if we are all to use them.

I hope that you and I, dear reader, may be able to get as many of these
new dollars as we actually shall need, though perhaps none of us may
ever have as many of them, or of any other kind of money, as we think
we should like to have.




A SONG OF SPRING.

BY CAROLINE A. MASON.


O the sweet spring days when the grasses grow.
And the violets blow,
And the lads and the lassies a-maying go!

When the mosses cling in their velvet sheen,
Like a fringe of green,
To the rocks that o'er the deep pools lean;

When the brooks wake up with a merry leap
From their winter sleep,
And the frogs in the meadows begin to peep;

When the robin sings, thro' the long bright hours,
Of his southern bowers,
With a dream in his heart of the coming flowers;

When the earth is full of delicious smells
From the ferny dells,
And the scent of the breeze quite plainly tells

He has been with the apple-blooms! They fly
From his kisses sly
Like feathery snow-flakes scurrying by!

O the saucy pranks of the madcap breeze
In the blossoming trees!
O the sounds that thrill, and the sights that please,

And the nameless joys that the May days bring
On their glad, glad wing!
O the dear delights of the sweet, sweet spring!




SAM'S BIRTHDAY.

BY IRWIN RUSSELL.


On the nineteenth day of last month, Sam could and would have
testified, from information and belief, that he was "eight yeahs ol',
gwine on nine;" but on the morning of the twentieth, that interesting
infant of color was informed by his mother, as soon as he awoke, that
he was "nine yeahs ol', gwine on ten." When Aunt Phillis imparted this
surprising intelligence to her son, he was greatly amazed and
confounded; and he immediately began to speculate as to what
extraordinary combination of circumstances could have so suddenly
wrought this remarkable change.

"Hoo-_ee_!" he cried, "whut a pow'ful while I mus' ha' slep'! Or else I
grows wuss an' dat ar Jonus's gourd you tol' me 'bout, whut wuz only a
_teenchy_ leetle simblin at night, and got big as de hen-house afore
mornin'--early sun-up. Hm! hey! look heah, mammy, is I skipped any
Christmusses?"

"No, chile," replied his mother; "you aint skipped nuffin. Dis is yo'
buff-day: de 'fects ob which is, dat it's des so many yeahs sence you
wuz fust borned. I don't know how 't 'll be, Sam,--folks is sim'lar to
de cocoa-grass, whut grows up mighty peart, tell 'long come somebody
wid a hoe to slosh it down,--but ef you libs long enough, an' nuffin
happens, you'll keep on habbin a buff-day ebry yeah wunst a yeah till
you dies. An' ebry time you has one, son, you'll be one yeah older."

"Fine way to git gray-headed," said Sam.

At this moment a mighty crash resounded from the kitchen, down-stairs,
and Aunt Phillis descended the steps with great precipitation. Then Sam
heard her shouting, angrily:

"You, Bose! Oh, you _bettah_ git, you mean ole no-'count rascal! I do
'_spise_ a houn'-dog!"

Sam went on with his toilet, musing, the while, upon the probability of
his ever getting to be as old as Uncle "Afrikin Tommy," who was the
patriarch of the plantation, and popularly supposed to be "cluss onto"
two hundred years of age; and who was wont to aver that when _he_
arrived in that part of the country, when he was a boy, the squirrels
all had two tails apiece, and the Mississippi River was such a small
stream that people bridged it, on occasion, with a fence-rail. Thus
meditating upon the glorious possibilities of his future, Sam got ready
for breakfast, and went down. It was not until he had absorbed an
enormous quantity of fried pickled-pork and hot corn-cakes, and finally
with reluctance ceased to eat, that his mother told him what had caused
the noise a little while before,--how old Bose, the fox-hound, had with
felonious intent come into the kitchen, and surreptitiously "supped up"
the chicken-soup that had been prepared for Sam's birthday breakfast;
and further, how the said delinquent had added insult to injury, by
contemptuously smashing the bowl that he had emptied.

"I alluz did 'low," exclaimed Sam, in justifiable wrath, "as dat 'ar
ole houn' Bose wuz de triflin'est meanest dog in de whole State ob
Claiborne County!"

Sam, however, was too true a philosopher to cry long over spilt
milk--or soup. He reflected that the breakfast he had just taken would
prevent his eating any soup, even if he had it. "I isn't injy-rubber,"
said he to himself, with which beautiful and happy thought his frown
was superseded by a smile, the smile developed into his normal grin,
and he began to chant an appropriate stanza from one of his favorite
lyrics:

"O-o-o-old Uncle John!
A-a-a-aunt Sally Goodin!
When you got enough corn-bread
It's des as good as puddin'."

The excellent Aunt Phillis was much affected by this saint-like
conduct on the part of her son. She sighed; fearing that the boy was
too good to live.

"Nemmind, Sam," said she; "you needn't tote no wood to-day, or fetch no
water, or do nuffin. Go down to de quarters, an' git Pumble to play wid
you."

Pumble was a boy who in age and tastes corresponded closely with Sam,
as he did in complexion. His real name, at full length, was
Pumblechook,--he having been so christened at the instance of Mahs'r
George, in honor of the immortal corn-and-seedsman. Off went Sam in
search of this boy; and he found him at the back of the maternal
mansion splitting up pine-knots for kindlings. Sam approached him with
a very slow, dignified step, and a look of commiseration.

"Hey, nigger!" said Sam, "dat's all you fit for, is to work. Why don't
you be a gemman like me, whut aint a-gwine to do a lick o' work dis
whole day?"

"Done runned away, is you?" answered Pumble. "Well, I'll come 'round
dis ebenin, when de ole ooman gibs you a dose ob hickory-tea."

"Dat'll do, boy;" said Sam. "Let you know dis is my buff-day, an' _I_
wont work for _no_body, on _my_ buff-day. Go ax yo' mammy kin you come
up an' play wid me; tell her _my_ mammy sont word for you to come."

Pumble dropped the hatchet, stared ecstatically, and ran in to obtain
the desired permission. It was granted. Then this dialogue occurred:

"Be a good chile!"

"Yes'm."

"Don't forgit yo' manners!"

"Nome."

"'Member you's _my_ son!"

"Yes'm."

"Don't you git into no mischuf!"

"Nome."

"Ef you dose, I'll w'ar you out, sah! Now, go 'long!"

The boys trotted merrily away together. But they had not gone fifty
rods before they heard Pumble's mother calling him. They stopped to
listen.

"_Take--keer--ob yo'--clo'es!_" she shouted, and then went back into
her house.

Under a great pecan-tree, on the lawn before the "big house," Sam and
Pumble sat down to consider and consult, or, as they expressed it, "to
study up whut us gwine to do."

"Shill I tell a story?" asked Pumble.

"Does you know a good one?" inquired Sam.

"Dis story's gwine to be a new one," said Pumble "beakase I'll make it
up as I go 'long."

"Tell ahead," said Sam.

"Wunst apon a time--" began Pumble.

"What time?" interrupted Sam.

"Shut up! Wunst upon a time. Dey wuz a man. An' dis heah man lighted up
he pipe, an' started out on de big road. An' he went walkin' along.
Right stret along. An' walkin' along, an' walkin' along, _an'_ walkin'
along. An' _walkin'_ along. An' walkin' along, an' walkin' along--"

"Dat man wuz gwine all de way, wuzn't he?" interjected the listener.

[Illustration: "THE BOYS TROTTED MERRILY AWAY TOGETHER."]

"He hadn't got _no_ way, hardly, yit," said Pumble, "but he kep'
a-walkin' along. An' walkin' along, an' walkin' along, an' walkin'
along, an' walkin' along, an' walkin' along, an' walkin' along, an'
walkin' along, an' walkin' along--."

"Stop dat walkin' now," said Sam, "and tell whut he done when he _got
froo_ walkin'."

"He come to de place he wuz a-gwine to," said Pumble.

"Did he, sho' enough?" exclaimed Sam. "I wuz kinder skeered he wudn't
nebber git dar at all. Whut did he don nex'?"

"De nex' t'ing he done," said Pumble, impressively, "wuz to turn right
'round an' go back whar he come from. An' dat's all!"

As was his invariable custom when deeply impressed Sam began to sing,
Pumble joining in:

"Jay-bird a-settin
On a swingin' limb,
He wink at Stephen,
Stephen wink at him;
Stephen pint de gun,
Pull on de trigger,
Off go de load--
An' down come de nigger!"

Greatly refreshed and invigorated by the chanting of this touching
ballad, Sam and Pumble returned to the consideration of their day's
programme. A great many amusements were proposed, discussed, and
rejected in their respective turns. Almost any one of them would have
been held entirely satisfactory on any ordinary occasion, but Sam
thought none of them good enough for his birthday. He required
something extraordinary.

"Kaint you think up nuffin else?" he asked his friend, after a long
pause.

"I done thinked plumb to de back o' my head a'ready," replied Pumble.

"Den I tell you what," said Sam; "I heared my pappy say dis: when a
pusson want to think _rale strong_, he mus' lay down on de flat ob his
back and shet his eyes; an' den, putty soon, he kin think anything he
wants to. Let's try it."

This plan was immediately experimented on. Pumble instantly succeeded
in thinking; but he only thought that he wished he could have a
"buff-day" of his own. Very soon afterward, he ceased to think at all.
As for Sam, _his_ thoughts were for some time very ordinary--of too
commonplace a nature to be here recorded; but they gradually assumed
such an odd and remarkable shape that they may fairly be described as a
vision. It seemed to Sam that the whole country around, as far as one
could see, was transformed into one great field, in a perfect state of
cultivation. But the growing "crop" was not one of cotton, or corn, or
cow-peas, or sorghum, or anything else that he had ever before seen in
such a place. Coming up out of the ground were long rows of very
singular bushes, whereof the stalks were sticks of candy, and the
leaves were blackberry pies, and over the whole field was falling a
drenching rain of molasses. Sam, however, was most astonished at the
curious fruit that the bushes bore. The twigs of some of them supported
jew's-harps and tin trumpets; others bent beneath a wealth of
fire-crackers and Roman candles; others, again, were weighted with his
favorite sardines; and so on in endless variety. It is not at all
surprising that the idea occurred to him that this crop ought to be
"picked." He found himself becoming highly indignant at the negligence
of the planter--whoever he might be--in leaving all these good things
to spoil on the bushes; and he burned with a desire to have them
properly gathered, and to assist in that work himself. Accordingly, he
was just about to reach for a pie and a jew's-harp, by way of
beginning, when he found that this was made impossible, by the fact of
himself having been suddenly and incomprehensibly changed to a huge
water-melon. Over him grew one of the largest bushes, from whose
branches depended seven roasted 'possums. It was some consolation to
look at them, and imagine how good they would taste if he only _could_
taste them. Presently a little gingerbread bird flew down and began to
peck at him, and say, "Git up, Sam! You Sam! Sam!"

He woke up, and found that the wonderful field had vanished, and that
he was lying under the old pecan-tree instead of the 'possum-bush; and
there was his mother shouting in his ear:

"Sam! don't you heah me, you lazy--_S-a-m_! _Git_ up dis minnit an' go to
de well for a bucket ob water, sah, foah I _whoop_ you!"

Pumble sat up and stared.

"Why, mammy," said Sam, "you tol' me I needn't do no work, kase it's my
buff-day."

"I's ben countin' it up ag'in," said Aunt Phillis, "an' foun' out where
I made a mis-figger, de fust time, and tallied wrong altogedder.
'Cordin' to de _c'rect_ calkilation, yo' buff-day was one day _las'
month._ WALK arter dat water!"




WAIT

BY DORA READ GOODALE.


When the icy snow is deep,
Covering the frozen land,
Do the little flowerets peep
To be crushed by Winter's hand?

No, they wait for brighter days,
Wait for bees and butterflies;
Then their dainty heads they raise
To the sunny, sunny skies.

When the cruel north winds sigh,
When 'tis cold with wind and rain,
Do the birdies homeward fly
Only to go back again?

No, they wait for spring to come,
Wait for gladsome sun and showers;
Then they seek their northern home,
Seek its leafy, fragrant bowers.

Trustful as the birds and flowers,
Tho' our spring of joy be late,
Tho' we long for brighter hours,
We must ever learn to wait.




THE STORY OF MAY-DAY.

BY OLIVE THORNE.


Alas, children! the world is growing old. Not that dear old Mother
Earth begins to show her six thousand (more or less) years, by stiff
joints and clumsy movements, by clinging to her winter's rest and her
warm coverlet of snow, forgetting to push up the blue-eyed violets in
the spring, or neglecting to unpack the fresh green robes of the trees.
No, indeed! The blessed mother spins around the sun as gayly as she did
in her first year. She rises from her winter sleep fresh and young as
ever. Every new violet is as exquisitely tinted, as sweetly scented, as
its predecessors of a thousand years ago. Each new maple-leaf opens as
delicate and lovely as the first one that ever came out of its tightly
packed bud in the spring. Mother Nature never grows old.

But the human race changes in the same way that each one of us does.
The race had its childhood when men and women played the games that are
now left to you youngsters. We can even see the change in our own day.
Some of us--who are not grandmothers, either--can remember when youth
of fourteen and fifteen played many games which, nowadays, an
unfortunate damsel of six years--ruffled, embroidered, and white
gowned, with delicate shoes, and hips in the vice-like grasp of a
modern sash--feels are altogether too young for her. I dare say I shall
live to see the once-beloved dolls abandoned to babies; and I fear the
next generation will find a Latin grammar in the cradle instead of a
rattle-box, and baby cutting his teeth scientifically, with a surgical
instrument, instead of on a rubber ring.

Well, well! What _do_ you suppose our great-grandchildren will do?

We must not let these old-fashioned customs be forgotten, and I want to
tell you the story of May-day. A curious tale is told of the beginning
of the May-day celebration, which is of more venerable age than perhaps
you know. You shall hear it, and then you can believe as much as you
choose, as all the rest of the world takes the liberty of doing; for
although the grave old Roman writers put it in their books for truth,
it is very much doubted by our modern wiseheads, because it is so
unreasonable, and so inelegant (as our dainty critic says). As though
the world was always reasonable, forsooth! or undoubted historical
facts did not sometimes lack the important quality of elegance!

However it may be, here is the story: Many hundred years ago,--about
two hundred before Christ, in fact,--there lived in Rome a beautiful
woman named Flora. Had she lived in these luxurious days, she would
have enjoyed another name or two; but in those simple times she was
plain Flora.

Being human, this lady had a great dread of being forgotten when she
had left the world. So she devised a plan to keep her memory green. She
made a will giving her large fortune to the city of Rome, on condition
that a festival in her memory should be celebrated every year.

When the will came before the grave and reverend Roman senators, it
caused serious talk. To decline so rich a gift was not to be thought
of; yet to accept the condition they did not like, for it was a bold
request in Madam Flora, who had, to say the least, done nothing worthy
of celebrating. At last, according to the old story-tellers, a way out
of the difficulty was found, as there generally is; and the city
fathers decided to accept the terms, and make Flora worthy of the honor
by placing her among their minor deities, of which there were no less
than thirty thousand. She took her place as Goddess of Flowers, with a
celebration about the first of May, to be called Floralia, after her.

This little story may be a fable; but now I shall tell you some facts.
When the Romans came to Britain to live, many hundred years ago, they
brought, of course, their own customs and festivals, among which was
this one in memory of Flora. The heathen--our ancestors, you
know--adopted them with delight, being in the childhood of their race.
They became very popular; and when, some years later, a good priest,
Gregory, came (from Rome also) to convert the natives, he wisely took
advantage of their fondness for festivals, and not trying to suppress
them, he simply altered them from heathen feasts to Christian games, by
substituting the names of saints and martyrs for heathen gods and
goddesses. Thus the Floralia became May-day celebration, and lost none
of its popularity by the change. On the contrary, it was carried on all
over England for ages, till its origin would have been lost but for a
few pains-taking old writers, who "made notes" of everything.

The Floralia we care nothing for, but the May-day games have lasted
nearly to our day, and some relics of it still survive in our young
country. When you crown a May queen, or go with a May party, you are
simply following a custom that the Romans began, and that our remote
ancestors in England carried to such lengths, that not only ordinary
people, but lords and ladies, and even king and queen, laid aside their
state and went "a-Maying" early in the morning, to wash their faces in
May dew, and bring home fresh boughs and flowers to deck the May-pole,
which reared its flowery crown in every village.

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