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MRS. PARTINGTON ON THE CURRENCY.
“It 's always so,” said Mrs. Partington, turning over
in her hand a Spanish quarter of a dollar; and Ike, who
was tackling Lion to the clothes-basket, lifted up his
eyes inquiringly to her face. “It 's always so,” she
continued, “that the muscular gender is put before the
ephemeral. No matter what it 's about. If a baby is
born into a family, it is Mr. So-and-so's baby — the
mother has n't anything to do about it. She is n't anywheres
in courts of law or iniquity, and her rights is
thought no more of than the wind, which goes where it
listeth. She has n't nothing to say about the disposition
of her property, or that of her children, though
heaven knows their disposition would be bad enough
unless she did have something to do with it. And
everything bad is laid against her. Now, here is this
occurrency business, as soon as its value is deprecated
the women is blamed for it.” Ike got up and looked
at the coin, and thought how many marbles, and how
many peanuts, and how many oranges, and how many
sticks of molasses candy, it would buy, and asked her
if it was n't a good one. “Yes,” replied she; “it is
good as far as it goes, and this is the mischief of it —
par value, and now that it is cut down it is mar value.
It 's always so about everything. There an't nothing
like justice ever done to the women.” She dropped
the coin into her pocket, and it jingled merrily among
the keys; and the seven copper cents, and the old silver
thimble, and the scissors, and the knitting-sheath, and
the steel spectacle-case, as if it were not a poor, depreciated
thing at all, but were yet a full quarter. And
Ike thought out this moral from it, with the help of
Lion: That, though the world depreciate us twenty
per cent., we should feel just as happy with a self-consciousness
of par value at heart, and jingle on merrily
among the old copper or brass that may be around us.
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