But many people weren’t in the mood for a party. One of the worst financial disasters to ever hit the United States threw hundreds of thousands of people out of work. Banks closed. Railroads went out of business. People faced starvation. And in Minneapolis, a major fire destroyed businesses and homes.
The idea that Emily and Ted think of to help so many poor families actually was thought of by children in Minneapolis at the time. They played a large role in making adults aware of how big the problem of hunger in their city was.
To Donna Winters, friend and fellow writer.
Thank you for your assistance in researching
the Columbian Exposition.
CONTENTS
1. Danger at the Bank
2. The Accident
3. The Surprise
4. An Unexpected Meeting
5. Mr. Hill’s Story
6. The Adventure Begins
7. At the Fair
8. Mr. Edison Arrives
9. Trouble on the Midway
10. The Mysterious Boy
11. Caught!
12. Frank’s Escape
13. The Falling Statue
14. One Accident Too Many
15. Fire!
16. Emily’s Prayer
17. The Plan
18. Christmas Eve
CHAPTER 1
Danger at the Bank
Twelve-year-old Emily Allerton leaned close to her cousin Ted Kerr, who shared the double wooden school desk. “What do you think the teachers keep meeting about?” she whispered in his ear.
Ted’s almost-black eyes turned toward tall, lanky Mr. Evans and short, stout Mr. Timms where they stood in the doorway. Mr. Evans shoved his round, wire-rimmed glasses up his skinny nose, all the time whispering furiously to Mr. Timms. Mr. Timms pressed his lips tightly together and shook his head, his round cheeks bouncing.
“I don’t know,” Ted whispered back. “This is the third time Mr. Evans has come to our room this morning.”
One of Mr. Evans’s long arms shot out, and he pounded a fist in the air between himself and Mr. Timms. His pointed chin stuck out defiantly. Emily couldn’t hear everything he said, but one phrase reached her ears.
She whipped her head toward Ted. He stared back at her, his eyes as wide as she knew her own must be.
“Did he say ‘Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank’?” she asked. Ted nodded. “That’s where Uncle Enoch works.” “Why would Mr. Evans be upset about the bank?”
“I heard Father and Mother talking after church yesterday about the bank. They said there was a rumor in the city that the bank doesn’t have enough money.”
“How can a bank not have enough money? Doesn’t money come from banks?”
Ted shrugged, his shoulders lifting the brown jacket that covered his white shirt with its round collar. “I don’t know, but the rumor said the bank was going to close.”
Fear tightened Emily’s stomach. “Will Uncle Enoch lose his job?”
Ted rolled his eyes. “Uncle Enoch isn’t going to lose his job. It’s just a rumor. Father says the bank is solid as rock.”
“Whew.” Emily’s stomach felt normal again. She’d heard her parents talk about hard times in the country. Money was tight and people were losing their jobs. She didn’t want Uncle Enoch to be one of those people.
The lunch bell rang, cutting off her thoughts. Mr. Evans dashed away. The students rushed toward the door, eager for the freedom of the lunch period and a chance to talk and laugh with their friends.
In the crowded hallway, Emily saw Mr. Evans again. He was shoving his black bowler hat over his straight, dark hair and pushing his way through the students. Where is he going? she wondered. The teachers usually ate with the students and made sure the children didn’t get too rowdy.
“Hi, Emily. Want to eat lunch together?”
Emily turned to her fourteen-year-old sister, Anna. “Sure.” She immediately forgot all about Mr. Evans.
Half an hour after lunch, the principal came into the room and whispered in Mr. Timms’s ear. Emily turned to Ted again. “This is getting stranger and stranger.”
Mr. Timms shook his round head as the principal left the room. With a sigh, he turned toward the class. “Will all of you please move closer together in your seats? Mr. Evans hasn’t returned from lunch. His business must have taken longer than he planned. Some of his students will be joining us until he returns.”
Mr. Evans’s class began filing into the room as Mr. Timms finished explaining. Emily scooted closer to Ted.
“You’re right,” he whispered. “This is strange.”
Emily didn’t like being crowded in between Ted and the blond-haired boy from Mr. Evans’s class. It’s only until Mr. Evans returns, she reminded herself.
But Mr. Evans didn’t return.
After school, Anna told them that her teacher, too, had left for lunch and not returned. “Another teacher, Miss Truman, told me that my teacher and some others went to the Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank at lunchtime. They were going to take out all the money they had at the bank.”
“Why?” Emily asked. “Are they going to buy something with it?”
Anna shook her head. The brown curls so like Emily’s brushed the shoulders of Anna’s blue school dress. “No. They want to take their money out because they don’t think the bank is a safe place to keep it anymore. Miss Truman says there’s a run on the bank.”
A chill shivered up Emily’s spine. “A run,” she repeated. She didn’t truly understand what a run was. All she knew was that she’d heard her parents and Uncle Enoch talk about runs that happened on other banks. When there were runs on banks, people who kept their money in the banks lost their savings, and people who worked at the banks lost their jobs.
“Mother and Father keep their savings at that bank,” she said to Anna. “Uncle Enoch works there. Wouldn’t he have told them if their money wasn’t safe?”
“I’m sure he would have.” Anna’s voice sounded positive, but her eyes looked troubled.
Anna left to walk home with a friend, and Emily went looking for Ted. They were cousins, but they’d also been best friends all their lives. She told him what Anna had said about the bank.
Ted drew his eyebrows together in a frown beneath his red hair. “Let’s go down by the bank and see whether Anna is right. Maybe it’s only another rumor that there’s a run on the bank.”
Emily and Ted had strict orders to go straight home from school each day, but she didn’t think twice before agreeing.
When they reached Fourth Street where the bank stood, they couldn’t see the doors and windows of the buildings for all the people.
“We’ll never get close to the bank in this crowd,” Ted complained. He climbed up on a bench that stood beneath a streetlamp. “Maybe I can see what’s going on from up here.”
Emily climbed right up behind him. She stared in amazement. “So this is what a bank run looks like.”
“Looks like a sea of men’s suit coats and hats to me,” Ted said. They were across the street from the bank. “There’s hardly an inch of space between the people.”
“I don’t think the trolley car can move.” Emily pointed at the top of the colorful car that stood in the middle of the street.
She didn’t stare at it long. The bank was what interested her. There were three huge, round-topped archways two or three stories high across the front of the tall stone building. The entryway through the middle arch was mobbed with men.
A man with a large camera jumped up on the bench beside them. Emily gasped and grabbed the light post. Ted grabbed onto Emily with one hand and the hat covering his red hair with the other.
The man didn’t seem bothered by the rocking bench. He pointed the large black box toward the bank and waited until the bench stilled. Pouf! A small black cloud appeared as he snapped his shot.
Ted peered around Emily, squinting. “You a newspaper man, mister?”
The man grinned at him and winked. “Yep. I’m a
photographer for the Minneapolis Tribune.“
“The people in the bank’s doorway don’t seem to be moving,” Emily said. “Do you know why not?”
The photographer nodded sharply. “That’s because inside the bank, people are packed as solidly as they are out here in the street.”
Emily looked back at the bank building. “It doesn’t seem like any bank in the world could have enough money to pay all these people in one day.”
The photographer grunted as he jumped down from the bench. “This one might not have enough, either. A bank down the street had a run this morning. Closed their doors at noon when they ran out of money.”
Emily thought his voice sounded awfully cheerful to be telling such bad news. She watched, amazed, as the young man started off through the crowd with a bounce in his step and a whistle on his lips.
“Do you see either of our fathers?” she asked Ted.
He shook his head. “Not a chance of seeing them in this crowd.”
“I hope they got our families’ savings out. It would be awful if the bank paid out all its money before our fathers got here.”
“Maybe we’d better get home and make sure they know about the run.” Ted jumped down from the bench. Emily was right behind him.
They tried to hurry through the crowd, but hurrying was impossible. “I think I’ve said ‘Excuse me, please’ one hundred times in the last twenty feet,” Emily complained.
Ted grinned. “I quit after the first dozen. No one seemed to be paying any attention to us anyway.”
A few feet farther along, a tall man with a gray handlebar mustache stopped a younger man with a brown mustache that turned down along the sides of his wide mouth. “Hi ya, Fred. Are ya here to get yer money out of the bank?”
Fred gave his friend a grin. “Well, I came to get my money out, but a funny thing happened. I was in the lobby of the bank and feeling like a sardine squeezed into a can for all the people. Then a fellow pokes me in the arm and says, ‘Mister, I’ll give you fifty dollars for your place in line.’”
“Did you give it to him?” the friend asked.
“For fifty dollars? You betcha!” Fred chuckled. “I only have thirty dollars in my savings account. I figured I’d made good money for the day. I been standing in this crowd since ten this morning trying to get into that bank. I took the fifty dollars, and I’m going home.”
Emily and Ted exchanged looks. Emily thought Ted looked as worried as she felt. Imagine paying someone fifty dollars just for his place in line! Things must be even worse than she’d thought.
Slowly they continued making their way through the crowd. As they walked farther from the bank, the number of people thinned. Soon they could walk easily along the boardwalk without bumping into people.
Ted hurried across the street. Emily followed, dodging business wagons with tall, white, wooden covers. Names like “Hodge’s Emporium,” “Olsen’s Meat Market,” “Himmelsback’s Furniture,” and “Zuckerman’s Dry Goods” were painted in large letters on the sides of the wagons.
“Yuck!” She jumped to one side just in time to miss a smelly pile left by one of the horses pulling a wagon.
Watching the road carefully for more piles, she caught the heel of her shoe in the rail for the trolley cars. “Oof!” She landed flat on her face in the street, her shoe still caught by the rail and her foot stuck in her shoe. She tried to push herself up but couldn’t. She couldn’t even breathe.
I just knocked the air out of my lungs, she thought. I’ll be all right in a minute. She fought down her fear, trying to stay calm even though her chest and throat ached from lack of air.
Suddenly she became aware of a familiar clanging sound. A trolley car bell! She twisted her head. A trolley car was only a block away and headed right for her.
Her gaze darted toward Ted. He had reached the other side of the street and was starting down the boardwalk. He hadn’t even noticed that she wasn’t beside him.
She opened her mouth, gasping for air, and struggled to sit up. The clanging grew louder. She glanced in its direction. Fear spun through her. The trolley was almost on top of her!
CHAPTER 2
The Accident
From behind, strong hands grabbed her beneath her shoulders and tugged. Emily’s foot wouldn’t budge from the rail. “My foot!” The bell’s clang and the clatter of the wheels of the electric trolley car banged in her ears like cymbals. She turned her head away from the trolley barreling toward her. She felt a hand on her ankle. With a strong jerk, her foot was free.
“Ugh!” She heard a groan burst from the person who yanked at her arms, pulling her—almost throwing her—from the path of the trolley.
Emily could feel the wind created by the trolley car as it whizzed by. “Thank you, God,” she whispered. “Are you all right?” a boy’s voice asked.
She looked up. A boy about her age with straight, dark brown hair beneath a brown bicycle hat stared down at her with dark eyes. His face was tanned, but his lips looked almost white. She wondered if that was because he’d been afraid, too. “Are you … are you the one who helped me?” she asked in a shaky voice.
He nodded. “Are you hurt?”
Emily wasn’t sure. She ached everywhere. Her ankle hurt, and she wondered whether she had twisted it. Her arms felt like they’d almost been pulled from her body when the boy grabbed her. The palms of her hands smarted from the gravel that had been driven into them when she fell. Still, she wasn’t hurt so badly that she needed a doctor. “I … I’ll be all right.”
Suddenly Ted loomed over her. “Are you all right? I turned around just in time to see this guy pull you out from in front of the trolley.”
“I’m all right,” she repeated. She glanced up at the boy. “Thank you. I guess you about saved my life.”
Ted looked at the boy with admiration shining from his eyes. “That was mighty brave of you.”
The boy stood up and kicked at a pebble with the toe of a worn shoe. “Aw, it wasn’t so much. Anybody would have done the same thing.”
“Not anybody,” Ted said. “Plenty of people wouldn’t have risked their life for someone else like that, especially for someone they didn’t know.”
The boy held out his hand. “I’m Erik Moe.”
Ted shook his hand. “Ted Kerr.”
“I’m Emily Allerton, Ted’s cousin.”
Erik grinned. “So now we know each other, and we’re not strangers anymore, so you can quit gushing all over yourselves thanking me.” They all laughed.
Emily tried to stand up, pushing against the paved street with her scraped hands. “Oooh!” Her ankle buckled, setting her down hard.
Ted and Erik both grabbed for her. “Is it your ankle?” Erik asked.
Emily nodded, holding her ankle above the buttoned shoe. She bit her bottom lip and blinked hard, trying to keep back the tears in her eyes.
“Is it broken?” Ted knelt down and tried to feel it. “Move your hand, Emily, and let me see.”
Emily didn’t move her hand. “I’m sure it’s not broken. I think it’s only twisted. It will be all right in a few minutes.”
A wagon rumbled by. The horse pulling it snorted in their direction.
“You can’t keep sitting in the street,” Erik said. “How about if we help you over to the boardwalk?”
With one of the boys on each side of her, Emily made her way to the boardwalk, trying not to cry out at the pain in her ankle. She was glad to sit on the edge of the boardwalk with her feet in the street and lean against the bottom of a telegraph pole.
She glanced back at the tracks where she’d fallen. “My school-books!”
“I’ll get them.” Ted hurried across the busy street. He was back in a minute with the books. “Your geography book looks all right, but I think you’ll need a new arithmetic book.” He held it up. The trolley’s wheels had completely destroyed it.
“You should be more careful crossing the trolley tracks,” Erik said.
His scolding tone
embarrassed Emily. “I was watching where I was going. The heel of my shoe got caught in the track. I couldn’t help that, could I?”
Ted nudged her shoulder. “If it weren’t for Erik, your leg would be smashed like your arithmetic book.”
She wrinkled her nose at him.
Erik set down the bag he’d been carrying slung over one shoulder. He leaned against the telegraph pole and looked down at her. His brown eyes were serious. “Trolley tracks can be as dangerous as railroad tracks. You have to be careful around them. My pa worked for the railroad. He saw a lot of people hurt there. He … he even lost four fingers off one of his hands in an accident at the railroad yard near here.”
Emily saw pain flash through Erik’s eyes as he told of his father’s accident. Ted exclaimed, “That’s rough!” then murmured, “I’m sorry, Erik.”
Hearing about Erik’s father made Emily suddenly ashamed of the way she’d snapped at him a moment ago. “I’m sorry, too. You were right about the trolley tracks being dangerous. I’ll be more careful after this.”
“My father works for the railroad, too,” Ted said. “He’s an engineer for the Great Northern Railroad.”
“Has he ever been hurt in an accident?” Erik asked.
Ted shook his head. “No, but I always worry about him when he’s working.”
Emily glanced at him in surprise. “You never told me that!”
Ted shrugged. “Lots of people are killed in railroad accidents each year, both railroad workers and passengers. Father has been in some accidents, but only small ones. No one has ever been killed on any of the trains he was driving.”
“What railroad does your father work for?” Emily asked Erik. Lots of different railroad companies had stations in Minneapolis.
Erik plunged his hands into the pockets of his worn brown corduroy trousers. The wooden boardwalk thunked as he knocked the heel of his shoe against the side of it. “He doesn’t work for any railroad anymore. The railroad he was with is having hard times, so they fired some of their workers. Since Pa lost all the fingers on one hand and only has a thumb left, he was one of the first people the company fired.”
American Rebirth Page 35