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.'
'Alec. Check your pockets.'
'Huh?'
'While he 'Was kissing me, Steve whispered to me to tell you to check your pockets and to say, "The Lord will provide."'
I found it in my left-hand coat pocket: a gold eagle. Never before had I held one in my hand. It felt warm and heavy.
Chapter 16
Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a
man be more pure than his maker?
Job 4:17
Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause
me to understand wherein I have erred.
Job 6:24
AT A drugstore in downtown Flagstaff I exchanged that gold eagle for nine cartwheels, ninety-five cents in change, and a bar of Ivory soap. Buying soap was Margrethe's idea. 'Alec, a druggist is not a banker; changing money is something he may not want to do other than as part of a sale. We need soap. I want to wash your underwear and mine, and we both need baths... and I suspect that, at the sort of cheap lodging Steve urged us to take, soap may not be included in the rent.'
She was right on both counts. The druggist raised his eyebrows at the ten-dollar gold piece but said nothing. He took the coin, let it ring on the glass top of a counter, then reached behind his cash register, fetched out a small bottle, and subjected the coin to the acid test.
I made no comment. Silently he counted out nine silver dollars, a half dollar, a quarter, and two dimes. Instead of pocketing the coins at once, I stood fast, and subjected each coin to the same ringing test he had used, using his glass counter
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