“1792” the man replied. “We turn out gold and silver and copper here and we’ve done a great deal of minting for South America, and, of late years, for the Philippines.”
The boys were most interested in the processes by which the discs were cut out of plain sheets of metal and were then fed into tubes of just the right size to hold them, until they reached the stamping machine which gave them the impress they were to wear through life.
“Those new gold pieces are certainly beauties,” said Roger, looking at the eagle flying through the air on one coin and then at the same majestic bird standing with dignity on another.
“I don’t think this Indian has a very handsome nose,” said Ethel Blue, critically, as she examined a five-cent piece.
“But think how appropriate it is,—the noble red-man on one side of the nickel, and the buffalo of the plains on the other,” returned James.
The girls were more interested in the coin collection in the Mint’s museum. Here they saw not only American coins, from the earliest to the most recent, but coins of other countries. One of them was the tiny bit of metal known as the “Widow’s Mite.”
“The Widow didn’t have to be very muscular to carry that around,” commented Roger.
“But she must have had a separate bag to put it in or it would have been lost,” returned practical Ethel Brown.
“There’s nothing doing in the Academy of Fine Arts now, ma’am,” the chauffeur told Mrs. Morton, when she got into the car again. “It has a grand exhibition every winter but it’s closed for the summer. Would you like to see the collections?”
The question was put to the party and they agreed that they would prefer to stay out of doors in this brilliant summer weather.