STORIES, LEGENDS & TALES

Of
PIKE COUNTY ILLINOIS




Dorothy & George Kirtright

Contributed by Carmen Megehe
Story told by Herman Allensworth

Dorothy and George Kirtright, they used to run this restaurant right over here ya know, and had Martha. Martha’s my age. Went in there and ate breakfast. Anyway, this day she said “look what I got out of the whatnots.” You’d go over to Dudley’s, they ran an IGA store, and for 2 cents, you’d get a “whatnot”. You’d get 2 candy kisses in there and a surprise. She said “see what I got”, she pulled it out and there was a rubber dollar bill. She said “let’s go to the store and we’ll get some candy.” So she went up to the store and an old man, it was Carrie’s dad I think. Anyway, she said “Mr. So-n-so, I’d like to have some candy.” He said “You got money?” She says “yeah” and she held the dollar out, he took it ya know. I was a dollar, looked just like a dollar, only it was rubber. She said “I’ll take a little of this, a little of this, and a little of this.” 10 cents worth. He put it all in a bag, one bag, mixed it all up. And he said “That’ll be a dime and I’ll give you back 90 cents.” And she says “Oh mister, I can’t do that, that’s a rubber dollar.” And that old man, instead of givin her that sack of candy, sit down on that stool and picked out piece by piece and put em back. Well, ya know, back then a dime would buy a loaf of bread. Hell, ya got all kinds of candy for a dime! But, that’s what we went through right there.