THE BELLE RIVER COMMUNITY 121

dreamer. He was a dreamer, and more than that. He was modern—a modern in the sixteenth century telling people how to live in the twentieth. Plato’s description of the Ideal Republic might be a present- day description of Belle River, though he thought it out nearly two thousand years ago.

Every kind of work, says Plato, requires a particular kind of aptitude and training. If we wish to have good shoes, our shoes must be made by a shoemaker and not by a weaver; and in like manner, every man has some particular calling to which his genius leads him, and he finds a happiness for himself and usefulness to his fellows when he is employed in that calling.

More, too, practically described the Island: “Two hundred miles broad, shaped something like a crescent, with an entrance into its great bay which lends itself to defense ”

How accurate!

I was brought back to earth by Jean's voice.

“ Coins, ” she said, “are certainly the most fascinat- ing things I know of.”

“And the fewer you have—the more fascinating!” I agreed.

Coins . . . Island coins . . . What glamour and history lies back of the commonest ones.

A story which many people have often chuckled over concerned Governor Smith, the Holy Dollar, and of course, the inevitable Scotsman. In the days of Governor Smith there was always, invariably, a scarcity of small change on the Island. As there were no banks, and no bills of exchange, merchants had to send cash to Halifax for their goods. The result was that silver dollars left the Island just as fast as they came in.