The Rural Voice, 1978-04, Page 37remembered the talk of funny money when the counterfeiters
had been around. He became even' quieter.
The next few days Peter was torn between his young honesty.
and his love of printing. On the one hand he felt that he should
show the plates to his father or the police. On the other he
thought how challenging it would be to try to turn out as near
perfect as possible copies of real money.
The week that followed made Mac glow with pride. His son
spent hours at a time buried in his little print shop. Mac never
went doom. he didn't want to push the boy. He was delighted
%.'hen Peter even began to turn up around the printing plant after
school.
The problem as far as Peter was concerned was paper. Mac,
the Scot that he was. didn't provide the best of paper for his
son's hobby. mostly old. yellowed newsprint. This, Peter
decided. was out of the question for his project. So, on one of his
forays into his father's shop, he sneaked out a bundle of common
writing bond.
The next problem was ink. since all he had was black and 20
dollar bills v.crc not black. A short time after one of Peter's visits
one of the men at the plant noticed a small can of green ink was
n,i''ing.
And so it vent until on Saturday evening Peter finally
produced a hill that he was satisfied with. It wasn't too bad,
considering the primitive equipment, makeshift ink and the age
of the printer. but to anyone who took more than a passing look,
it v. as a definite forgery. The paper was the wrong texture: the
ink the wrong shade and with a tendency to rub off on the hands
of the holder. Yet Peter was justifiably proud.
Hc had to face a decision now. Should he destroy the bill?
Somehow looking at his "masterpiece". the product of his own
hands he couldn't face that decision. in fact, the idea that even
by accident this lone specimen might be destroyed set him to
making more copies. By nine: when his mother called him to go
to bed. he had a nice little stack of seven bills on one corner of
the workbench.
His mother had called twice by the time he had finished the
seventh bill so he hurried up the steps, forgetting to hide the
bills away.
After Sunday School the next day, Peggy was on her way home
with Brian -McGintee and Michael Townshend. Somehow the
topic of the package she had found that day had come up and the
boys hadn't believed her when she told them about the printing
plates. She was going to prove her point by showing them to the
boys.
She led the way into the shop. She picked up the plates and
was showing them to Brian when Michael Townshend discovered
the little cache of bills and gasped. He wasn't allowed to roam
his father's bank like the other boys could in their father's offices
so although he was near money most of the time in his apartment
home above the bank, he very seldom saw more than his 50 cent
allowance.
"Oh, that", said Peggy when she was the object of his
astonishment, "that's just play money that'Peter ran off from the
plates. Here, have some if you want."
The boys took three of the bills each as they left and would
have argued over the seventh if Peggy hadn't intervened.
When Peter came home from church a little later he went
straight to the shop, after a stopover to change from his suit to
his bluejeans. When he saw only the one bill left he called
Peggy.
I gave them to the boys", she explained simply.
The older, wiser brother froze in fear. He knew now that he
shouldn't have made the bills.
"Look.Peg," he said, "don't tell anybody about the bills or the
plates or anything. Promise me now, promise me."
Bewildered, Peggy promised. Peter sent her out right away.
Then he tore the last of the bills into tiny bits and took the plates
and buried them deep in the garbage can that would be picked
up early the next morning. He settled down fearfully to wait what
was certain to happen.
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THE RURAL VOICE/APRIL 1978. PG. 37.