ONCE upon a time, a penny was money. I know, because my mother, scandalized, said, ‘Oh, but you mustn’t accept money from little boys.’
This was soon after my entrance into the world, as the world is represented by the first grade. The little boys were blond and angelic, with wide frilled collars over their woolen jackets, or they were shaggy-headed and bare of foot. They slipped their pennies into the hands of pigtailed little girls in white pinafores, or laid them, more or less anonymously, on their desks. How this custom was discovered at home I have forgotten, — certainly the penny’s worth was always devoured at the first recess, — but I can imagine that perhaps an attack of indigestion was inquired into. ‘What have you been eating?’ ‘Well, I had some stick candy.’ ‘And where did you get it?’ . . . There could have been no question of a penny bestowed at home and not mentioned : any such largesse was received with whoops of joy, and the coin rubbed up, on the carpet, until it shone like gold. . . .
I remember, though, how I hated to refuse the next offering, and how little sense there seemed to be in the dictum of authority.
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