"I wish I had something to do besides housework. It's a kind of a putterin' job, best ye can do," she'd say merrily, just to see the others stare. "There's too much moppin' an' dustin'. Seems 's if a woman used up half her life on things that don't amount to anything, don't it?"
"I tell yeh that feller's a scallywag. I know it buh the way 'e walks 'long the sidewalk," Mrs. Bingham insisted to her son, who wished her to put her savings into the bank.
The youngest of a large family, Link had been accustomed all his life to Mrs. Biugham's many whimsicalities.
"I s'pose you can smell he's a thief, just as you can tell when it's goin' to rain, or the butter's comin', by the smell."
"Well, you needn't laugh, Lincoln. I can," maintained the old lady stoutly. "An' I ain't goin' to put a red cent o my money mto his pocket-f'r there's where it 'ud go to."
She yielded at last, and received a little bankbook in return for her money. "Jest about all I'll ever get," she said privately; and thereafter out of her' brass-bowed spectacles with an eagle's gaze she watched the banker go by. But the banker, seeing the dear old soul at the window looking out at him, always smiled and bowed, unaware of her suspicion.
At the end of the year he bought the lot next to his rented house and began building one of his own, a modest little affair, shaped like a pork pie with a cupola, or a Tamo'-Shanter cap-a style of architecture which became fashionable at once.
He worked heroically to get the location of the plow factory at Bluff Siding, and all but succeeded; but Tyre, once their ally, turned against them, and refused to consider the fact of the Siding's position at the center of the county. However, for some reason or other, the town woke up to something of a boom during the next two years. Several large farmers decided to retire and live off the sweat of some other fellow's brow, and so built some houses of the pork-pie order and moved into town.
This inflow of moneyed men from the country resulted in the establishment of a "seminary of learning" on the hillside, where the Soldiers' Home was to be located. This called in more farmers from the country, and a new hotel was built, a sash-and-door factory followed, and Burt McPhail set up a feed mill.
An this improvement unquestionably dated, from the opening of the bank, and the most unreasonmg partisans of the banker held him to be the chief cause of the resulting development of the town, though he himself modestly disclaimed any hand in the affair.
Had Bluff Siding been a city, the highest civic honors would have been open to Banker Sanford; indeed, his name was repeatedly mentioned in connection with the county offices.
"No, gentlemen," he explained firmly, but courteously, in Wilson's store one night; "I'm a banker, not a politician. I can't ride two horses."
In the second year of the bank's history he went up to the north part of the state on business, visiting West Superior, Duluth, Ashland, and other booming towns, and came back full of the wonders of what he saw.
"There's big money up there, Nell," he said to his wife.
But she had the woman's tendency to hold fast to what she had, and would not listen to any plans about moving.
"Build up your business here, Jim, and don't worry about what good chances there are somewhere else."
He said no more about it, but he took great interest in all the news the "boys" brought back from their annual deer hunts "up North." They were all enthusiastic over West Superior and Duluth, and their wonderful development was the never-ending theme of discussion in Wilson's store.
II
The first two years of the bank's history were solidly successful, and "Jim" and "Nellie" were the head and front of all good works and the provoking cause of most of the fun. No one seemed more carefree.
"We consider ourselves just as young as anybody," Mrs. Sanford would say, when joked about going out with the young people so much; but sometirnes at home, after the children were asleep, she sighed a little.
"Jim, I wish you was in some kind of a business so I could help. I don't have enough to do. I s'pose I could mop an' dust, an' dust an' mop; but it seems sinful to Waste time that way. Can't I do anything, Jim?"
"Why, no. If you 'tend to the children and keep house, that's all anybody asks of you."
She was silent, but not convinced. She had a desire to do something outside the walls of her house-a desire transmitted to her from her father, for a woman inherits these things.
In the spring of the second year a number of the depositors drew out money to invest in Duluth and Superior lots, and the whole town was excited over the matter.
The summer passed, Link and Sanford spending their tirne in the bank-that is, when not out swimming or fishing with the boys. But July and August were terribly hot and dry, and oats and corn were only half-crop; and the farmers were grumbling. Some of them were forced to draw on the bank instead of depositing.
McPhail came in, one day in November, to draw a thousand dollars to pay for a house and lot he had recently bought.
Sanford was alone. He whistled. "Phew! You're comin' at me hard. Come in tomorrow. Link's gone down to the city to get some money."
"All right," said MePhail; "any time."
"Goin' t' snow?"
"Looks like it. I'll haf to load a lot o' ca'tridges ready fr biz."
About an hour later old lady Bingham burst upon the banker, wild and breathless. "I want my money," she announced.
"Good morning, Mrs. Bingham. Pleasant-"
"I want my money. Where's Lincoln?"
She had read that morning of two bank failure-one in Nova Scotia and one in Massachusetts-and they seemed providential warnings to her. Lincoln's absence confirmed them.
"He's gone to St. Paul-won't be back till the five-o'clock train. Do you need some money this morning? How much?"
"All of it, sir. Every cent."
Sanford saw something was out of gear. He tried to explain. "I've sent your son to St. Paul after some money-"
"Where's my money? What have you done with that?" In her excitement she thought of her money just as she hand handed it in-silver and little rolls and wads of bills.
"If you'll let me explain-"
"I don't want you to explain nawthin'. Jest hand me out my money."
Two or three loafers, seeing her gesticulate, stopped on the walk outside and looked in at the door. Sanford was annoyed, but he remained calm and persuasive. He saw that something had caused a panic in the good, simple old woman. He wished for Lincoln as one wishes for a policeman sometimes.
"Now, Mrs. Bingham, if you'll only wait till Lincoln-"
"I don't want 'o wait. I want my money, right now."
"Will fifty dollars do?"
"No, sir; I want it all-every cent of it-jest as it was."
"But I can't do that. Your money is gone-"
"Gone? Where is it gone? What have you done with it? You thief-"
"'Sh!" He tried to quiet her. "I mean I can't give you your money-"
"Why can't you?" she stormed, trotting nervously on her feet as she stood there.
"Because-if you'd let me explain-we don't keep the money just as it comes to us. We pay it out and take in other-"
Mrs. Bingham was getting more and more bewildered. She now had only one clear idea-she couldn't get her money. Her voice grew tearful like an angry child's.
"I want my money-I knew you'd steal it-that I worked for. Give me my money."
Sanford hastily handed her some money. "Here's fifty dollars. You can have the rest when-"
The old lady clutched the money, and literally ran out of the door, and went off up the sidewalk, talking incoherently. To everyone she met she told her story; but the men smiled and passed on. They had heard her predictions of calamity before.
But Mrs. McIlvaine was made a triffe uneasy by it "He wouldn't give you y'r money? Or did he say he couldn't?" she inquired in her moderate way.
"He couldn't, an' he wouldn't!" she said. "If you've got any money there, you'd better get it out quick. It ain't safe a minute. When Lincoln
comes home I'm goin' to see if I can't-"
"Well, I was calc'latin' to go to Lumberville this week, anyway, to buy a carpet and a chamber set. I guess I might 's well get the money today."
When she came in and demanded the money, Sanford was scared. Were these two old women the beginning of the deluge? Would McPhail insist on being paid also? There was just one hundred dollars left in the bank, together with a little silver. With rare strategy he smiled.
"Certainly, Mrs. McIlvaine. How much will you need?" She had intended to demand the whole of her deposit-one hundred and seventeen dollars-but his readiness mollified her a little. "I did 'low I'd take the hull, but I guess seventy-five dollars 'll do."
He paid the money briskly out over the little glass shelf. "How is your children, Mrs. McIlvaine?"
"Purty well, thanky," replied Mrs. McIlvaine, laboriously counting the bills.
"Is it all right?"
"I guess so," she replied dubiously. "I'll count it after I get home."
She went up the street with the feeling that the bank was all right, and she stepped in and told Mrs. Bingham that she had no trouble in getting her money.
Alter she had gone Sanford sat down and wrote a telegram which he sent to St. Paul. This telegram, according to the duplicate at the station, read in this puzzling way:
E. O., Exchange Block, No. 96. All out of paper. Send five hundred noteheads and envelopes to match. Business brisk. Press of correspondence just now. Get them out quick. Wire.
SANFORD
Two or three others came in after a little money, but he put them off easily. "Just been cashing some paper, and took all the ready cash I can spare. Can't you wait till tomorrow? Link's gone down to St. Paul to collect on some paper. Be back on the five o'clock. Nine o'clock, sure."
An old Norwegian woman came in to deposit ten dollars, and he counted it in briskly, and put the amount down on her little book for her. Barney Mace came in to deposit a hundred dollars, the proceeds of a horse sale, and this helped him through the day. Those who wanted small sums he paid.
"Glad this ain't a big demand. Rather close on cash today," he said, smiling, as Lincoln's wife's sister came in.
She laughed, "I guess it won't bust yeh. If I thought it would, I'd leave it in."
"Busted!" he said, when Vance wanted him to cash a draft. "Can't do it. Sorry, Van. Do it in the morning all right. Can you wait?"
"Oh, I guess so. Haf to, won't I?"
"Curious," said Sanford, in a confidential way. "I don't know that I ever saw things get in just such shape. Paper enough-but exchange, ye know, and readjustment of accounts."
"I don't know much about banking, myself," said Vance, good naturedly; "but I s'pose it's a good 'eal same as with a man. Git short o' cash, first they know -ain't got a cent to spare."
"That's the idea exactly. Credit all right, plenty o' property, but-" and he smiled and went at his books. The smile died out of his eyes as Vance went out, and he pulled a little morocco book from his pocket and began studying the beautiful columns of figures with which it seemed to be filled. Those he compared with the books with great care, thrusting the book out of sight when anyone entered.
He closed the bank as usual at five. Lincoln had not come couldn't come now till the nine-o'clock accommodation. For an hour after the shades were drawn he sat there in the semidarkness, silently pondering on his situation. This attitude and deep quiet were unusual to him. He heard the feet of friends and neighbors passing the door as he sat there by the smoldering coal fire, in the growing darkness. There was something impressive in his attitude.
He started up at last and tried to see what the hour was by turning the face of his watch to the dull glow from the cannon stoye's open door.
"Suppertime," he said and threw the whole matter off, as if he had decided it or had put off the decision till another time.
As he went by the post office Vance said to McIlvaine in a smiling way, as if it were a good joke on Sanford:
"Little short o' cash down at the bank."
"He's a good fellow," McIlvaine said.
"So's his wife," added Vance with a chuckle.
III
That night, after supper, Sanford sat in his snug little skting room with a baby on each knee, looking as cheerful and happy as any man in the village. The children crowed and shouted as he "trotted them to Boston," or rode them on the toe of his boot. They made a noisy, merry group.
Mrs. Sanford "did her own work," and her swift feet could be heard moving to and fro out in the kitchen. It was pleasant there; the woodwork, the furniture, the stove, the curtains-all had that look of newness just growing into coziness. The coal stove was lighted and the curtains were drawn.
After the work in the kitchen was done, Mrs. Sanford came in and sat awhile by the fire with the children, looking very wifely in her dark dress and white apron, her round, smiling face glowing with love and pride-the gloating look of a mother seeing her children in the arms of her husband.
"How is Mrs. Peterson's baby, Jim?" she said suddenly, her face sobering.
"Pretty bad, I guess. La, la, la-deedle-dee! The doctor seemed to think it was a tight squeak if it lived. Guess it's done for-oop 'e goes!"
She made a little leap at the youngest child and clasped it convulsively to her bosom. Her swift maternal imagination had made another's loss very near and terrible.
"Oh, say, Nell," he broke out, on seeing her sober, "I had the confoundedest time today with old lady Bingham-"
"'Sh! Baby's gone to sleep."
After the children had been put to bed in the little alcove off the sitting room, Mrs. Sanford came back, to find Jim absorbed over a little book of accounts.
"What are you studying, Jim?"
Someone knocked on the door before he had time to reply.
"Come in!" he said.
'Sh! Don't yell so," his wife whispered.
"Telegram, Jim," said a voice in the obscurity.
"Oh! That you, Sam? Come in.
Sam, a lathy fellow with a quid in his cheek, stepped in. "How d' 'e do, Mis' Sanford?"
"Set down-se' down."
"Can't stop; 'most train time."
Sanford tore the envelope open, read the telegram rapidly, the smile fading out of his face. He read it again, word for word, then sat looking at it.
"Any answer?" asked Sam.
"All right. Good night."
"Good night."
After the door slammed, Sanford took the sheet from the envelope and reread it. At length he dropped into his chair. "That settles it," he said aloud.
"Settles what? What's the news?" His wife came up and looked over his shoulder.
"Settles I've got to go on that nine-thirty train."
"Be back on the morning train?"
"Yes; I guess so-I mean, of course-I'll have to be-to open the bank."
Mrs. Sanford looked at him for a few seconds in silence. There was something in his look, and especially in his tone, that troubled her.
"What do you mean? Jim, you don't intend to come back!" She took his arm. "What's the matter? Now tell me! What are you going away for?"
He knew he could not deceive his wife's ears and eyes just then, so he remained silent. "We've got to leave, Nell," he admitted at last.
"Why? What for?"
"Because I'm busted-broke-gone up the spout-and all the rest!" he said desperately, with an attempt at fun. "Mrs. Bingham and Mrs. McIlvaine have busted me-dead."
"Why-why-what has become of the money-all the money the people have put in there?"
"Gone up with the rest."
"What 've you done with it? I don't-"
"Well, I've invested it-and lost it."
"James Gordon Sanford!" she exclaimed, trying to realize it. "Was that right? Ain't that a case of-of-"
"Shouldn't wonder. A case of embezzlement such as you read of in the newspapers." His tone was easy, but he avoided the look in his wife's beautiful gray eyes.
"But it's-stealing-ain't it
?" She stared at him, bewildered by his reckless lightness of mood.- "It is now, because I've lost. If I'd'a won it, it 'ud 'a' been financial shrewdness!"
She asked her next question after a pause, in a low voice, and through teeth almost set. "Did you go into this bank to-steal this money? Tell me that!"
"No; I didn't, Nell. I ain't quite up to that."
His answer softened her a little, and she sat looking at him steadlly as he went on. The tears began to roll slowly down her cheeks. Her hands were clenched.
"The fact is, the idea came into my head last fall when I went up to Superior. My partner wanted me to go in with him on some land, and I did. We speculated on the growth of the town toward the south. We made a strike; then he wanted me to go in on a copper mine. Of course I expected-"
As he went on with the usual excuses her mind made all the allowances possible for him. He had always been boyish, impulsive, and lacking in judgment and strength of character. She was humiliated and frightened, but she loved and sympathized with him.
Her silence alarmed him, and he made excuses for himself. He was speculating for her sake more than for his own, and so on.
"Cho-coo!" whistled the far-off train through the still air.
He sprang up and reached for his coat.
She seized his arm again. "Where are you going?" she sternly asked.
"To take that train."
'When are you coming back?"
"I don't know." But his tone said, "Never."
She felt it. Her face grew bitter. "Going to leave me and-the babies?"
"I'll send for you soon. Come, goodbye!" He tried to put his arm about her. She stepped back.
"Jim, if you leave me tonight" ("Choo-choo!" whistled the engine) "you leave me forever." There was a terrible resolution in her tone.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I'm going to stay here. If you go-I'll never be your wife-again-never!" She glanced at the sleeping children, and her chin trembled.
"I can't face those fellows-they'll kill me," he said in a sullen tone.
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