Chapter XVII - Page 2

rub on his corns to arrest indigestion and keep him
from having the toothache, twenty-five cents was the price, every time.
When we looked at the shot-bag of silver, now and then, we seemed to be
wasting our substance in riotous living, but if we referred to the
expense account we could see that we had not been doing anything of the
kind.

But people easily get reconciled to big money and big prices, and fond
and vain of both--it is a descent to little coins and cheap prices that
is hardest to bear and slowest to take hold upon one's toleration. After
a month's acquaintance with the twenty-five cent minimum, the average
human being is ready to blush every time he thinks of his despicable
five-cent days. How sunburnt with blushes I used to get in gaudy Nevada,
every time I thought of my first financial experience in Salt Lake.
It was on this wise (which is a favorite expression of great authors, and
a very neat one, too, but I never hear anybody say on this wise when they
are talking). A young half-breed with a complexion like a yellow-jacket
asked me if I would have my boots blacked. It was at the Salt Lake House
the morning after we arrived. I said yes, and he blacked them. Then I
handed him a silver five-cent piece, with the benevolent air of a person
who is conferring wealth and blessedness upon poverty and suffering. The
yellow-jacket took it with what I judged to be suppressed emotion, and
laid it reverently down in the middle of his broad hand. Then he began
to contemplate it, much as a philosopher contemplates a gnat's ear in the
ample field of his microscope. Several mountaineers, teamsters, stage-
drivers, etc., drew near and dropped into the tableau and fell to
surveying the money with that attractive indifference to formality which
is noticeable in the hardy pioneer. Presently the yellow-jacket handed
the half dime back to me and told me I ought to keep my money in my
pocket-book instead of in my soul, and then I wouldn't get it cramped and
shriveled up so!

What a roar of vulgar laughter there was! I destroyed the mongrel
reptile on the spot, but I smiled and smiled all the time I was detaching
his scalp, for the remark he made was good for an "Injun."

Yes, we had learned in Salt Lake to be charged great prices without
letting the inward shudder appear on the surface--for even already we had
overheard and noted the tenor of conversations among drivers, conductors,
and hostlers, and finally among citizens of Salt Lake, until we were well
aware that these superior beings despised "emigrants." We permitted no
tell-tale shudders and winces in our countenances, for we wanted to seem
pioneers, or Mormons, half-breeds, teamsters, stage-drivers, Mountain
Meadow assassins--anything in the world that the plains and Utah
respected