I didn't want more than was coming to me, so I
handed out a nickle and said, 'There, that makes it right.' The
man looked at it, laughed, and pushed it back, and said, 'Keep
it, sonny; I haven't got any chickens.' Now, I'd like to know
what it all meant."
We both laughed, and when Jack recovered his composure he
said:
"It means simply that we're getting out into the mining
country, where no coin less than a dime circulates. He didn't
happen to have three dimes, so the best he could do was to give
you either twenty-five or thirty-five cents, and he was letting
you have the benefit of the situation by making it thirty-five. A
bit is twelve and a half cents, and a short bit is ten cents. A
two-bit piece is a quarter."
"Yes; but what about his not keeping chickens?"
"Oh, that was simply his humorous way of saying that all
coins under a dime are fit only for chicken-feed."
We camped that night beside the trail near a little log
store. "What you want to do," said the man in charge, "is to take
your horses down there behind them trees to park 'em for the
night.
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