CHAPTER VILOUIE COMES TO THE RESCUE
When she heard the cry, “Put it in Grey’s Bank, where Sheldon has put his,” she started quickly, struck with a thought of something she had read about. Going into the bank, where two or three were already depositing their money, she drew her father aside and said:
“Do you think the White Bank can stand the run?”
“Doubtful, if the most of them pitch in as they seem likely to do. They are just crazy, and one excites the other.”
“Then we must help him,” Louie said.
“Help him? We can’t disperse that rabble, and the entire scum of the town is here. Every depositor may ask for his money. No bank can stand that,” her father answered.
“I don’t mean to disperse the rabble,” Louie replied. “Many of them are bringing their money to you, and as fast as they bring it we can take it through our back door into the back door of the other bank and keep it circulating.”
Mr. Grey knew what she meant, and rememberedhaving heard of one bank helping another in such an emergency and had thought it a big joke, and now the idea struck his sense of humor, and made him laugh.
“By George, Lou,” he said, “that would be heaping coals of fire on the old reprobate’s head. He has never let a chance slip for a fling at me when he could get it. Why, on the balcony when making his speech he hinted that I was the instigator of the run. Yes, I’ll help him—but how, and keep it dark?”
“I know. I’ll manage it,” Louie said. “As the money comes in at the front door and is recorded, I’ll take it through the rear door to the other bank. I’ll go now and tell Herbert.”
She was off in a flash through the back door of her father’s bank, and into the rear office of the White Bank, where she found both Fred Lansing and Herbert conferring together. The latter was pale and trembling with anger and excitement, and looked perfectly dazed when she told why she was there.
“I don’t quite understand. I’m all used up and could be knocked down with a feather,” he said.
Louie saw he was no good, and, turning to Fred Lansing, she continued:
“You know what I mean. I will bring the money in here. Somebody must be ready to take it and write down how much there is and whose itis, as it will have to go back to us when the run is over.”
She had not been formally presented to Mr. Lansing, but it didn’t matter. He knew who she was, and looked at her in unbounded admiration for her forethought and bravery as well as for her beauty, which blazed with unwonted brilliancy in her excitement and earnestness.
“I understand,” he said. “I’ll keep tally, while Herbert gets the money quietly into the cashier’s hands.”
“All right,” Louie responded, and was off before Herbert fully realized what she meant to do.
When Fred explained to him, he brightened at once, and hurrying into the front room told the cashier, who, having heard of something like it, nodded that he understood and would do his part to hoodwink the crowd again trying to get in.
“Open the door, I tell you,” the judge said feebly, fanning himself with a newspaper and wiping the sweat from his face with his shirt sleeve.
He had been wet with perspiration when he went out upon the balcony, and now there was scarcely a dry thread on him, and he hardly knew what he was about. His head ached. His heart was beating with great thuds, which he could hear above the noise outside, and a spasm of fear seized him when a face appeared at the window. Some onehad climbed up the water-pipe and was looking at him threateningly.
“Oh,” he gasped, “this is terrible. I shall have to go home. I b’lieve I am dying. Herbert! Herbert! Come here!”
Herbert came quickly, and said to him: “Brace up and put on your coat. We are going through. They can run till doomsday, and we’ll hold out.”
The judge did not know what he meant, but he felt cheered in some way, and put on his coat, and was standing up when the door swung open a second time and four women came in, headed by Nancy Sharp, who thrust her great bare red arm through the opening in the screen and said to the cashier, “I want my money—twenty good round silver dollars, honestly earned by washing.”
She might have told for whom she had washed, as she did to Louie, if the woman behind her had not struck her in the back and bidden her “hold her yap and hurry up,” while the clerk replied, “You shall have it,” and he counted it out in bills.
“No you don’t,” Nancy said, drawing back. “I put in round silver dollars, and I want ’em.”
She had reasoned that a bank which was shaky might pass spurious bills, and she would have none of them. She wanted silver dollars, and she meant to have them.
“Very well,” the clerk said, taking back the bills and counting out twenty silver dollars. “Wasthere a private mark on them, by which you can know if these are the same?” he asked, with a merry twinkle in his eyes.
“No,” she answered, “but I’ll put one on ’em, so if they are not good I can bring them back. Give me a pencil.”
He gave her one, and, wetting it with her lips, she made a little cross on each of her twenty dollars, and stood aside for the women crowding against her. Within ten or fifteen minutes her account in the Grey Bank was increased by twenty dollars, and rather reluctantly she went back to her washing, finding the fire out and her water cold. But she did not mind it. She was safe, and cared but little how the tide of battle ebbed and flowed, although she would like to have stayed and seen it out.
It was moving briskly now and very satisfactorily on both sides, although for a few moments there had been a tremendous panic when a rumor went through the crowd that the cashier had deserted his post and the bank had stopped paying. This arose from the fact that Herbert had asked the cashier to step into the rear office, while they explained more fully to him what was being done, and how they were doing it.
Seeing his place vacant, and no one in the room but the office boy and the judge, who, having got his coat on, was sitting quietly by himself, thewhispered words “The bank has bust” went from lip to lip, eliciting something like an angry growl from those who fancied themselves left out in the run. But this ceased as soon as the cashier returned, more bland, more smiling than ever, and business began again, while Herbert and the boy made frequent trips to the rear office without any one suspecting what they were doing, or that their money was scarcely deposited in the Grey Bank before it was carried out by Louie, who was entering heart and soul into the matter.
It was fortunate that the rear doors of the banks opened into the same yard, which was shut in from the street by a close high fence over which no one could look. And thus no one saw Louie hurrying back and forth with flushed cheeks and eyes like stars as they confronted Fred Lansing, who, in watching her, sometimes came near forgetting what he was doing, until her voice, asking if he understood and had it down all right, made him pull himself together and go on with his business of keeping account of all the money which passed through his hands into the bank beyond, with the names of the owners.
“Tom Carson, one hundred dollars,” she would say to him, and he would write it down and report “Tom Carson, one hundred dollars.” “John Brown, two hundred dollars;” “John Brown, two hundred dollars;” “Sarah Jones, fifty dollars;”“Sarah Jones, fifty dollars;” “Joel Carpenter, twenty-five dollars;” “Joel Carpenter, twenty-five dollars;” “Nancy Sharp, twenty dollars;” “Nancy Sharp, twenty dollars—all in silver, too,” Fred said, as he received and recorded the amount.
Louie had said to her father’s cashier, “Give me silver when you can. Some of the women ask for it;” so Nancy’s twenty dollars, with the pencil cross upon them went through four times, till they were as familiar to Fred as an old friend. At last, “Godfrey Sheldon, one thousand dollars,” was reported to him, with the whispered words, “He has four thousand more we can have, but father thought he’d better start with one. Aren’t they nearly through?”
She was very tired—not so much with fatigue as with the pitch of excitement, to which she was strung up, and she wondered if it would never end, and the last depositor depart.
The end came at last, as the town clock struck twelve, and the crowd began to disperse rapidly—some with their money in their hands, while others left it in the Grey Bank, and others still, when they saw how readily the payments were made, had concluded to leave what they had in the White Bank, which had shown no signs of giving out.
Not so many had demanded their money as would seem from this written account, but the withdrawal and transfer had all taken time, and three hourshad elapsed between the opening of the doors and the closing of them upon the last claimant for forty dollars. Quiet was restored. The run was over, and Judge White was listening with wonder to the cashier’s account of the manner in which the bank had been saved.
“The Grey girl did it! Where is she?” he asked, and the cashier motioned him toward the outer room, where Louie lay fainting in Fred Lansing’s arms.
The day was hot and sultry, and, overcome by the heat and the excitement, she had felt her strength giving way for some little time before. Herbert said to her, “Don’t bring any more. The people are going home.”
Then everything began to turn dark; the floor came up to meet her, and with a cry she fell forward, while Fred Lansing, who had seen how white she was growing, sprang forward and caught her.
When she came to herself her head was lying on his shoulder. His arm was round her, and her hair and shirtwaist were as wet as if she had been in a bathtub. Her father and Wilson, his cashier, the judge and his cashier, with Herbert were fanning her and calling her by name. They could think of nothing else to do except to drench her with water, which they did effectually, while Fred, with his handkerchief, tried to wipe some of it from her face and hair.
With a long gasp she came back to consciousness, but did not try to lift up her head. It seemed to her she could never lift it again, she was so tired and exhausted. Raising her eyes she saw who was holding her so carefully, and for a moment a hot flush stained her face, then faded and left it as pale as before. She did not at first realize that quiet was restored, and said:
“I must have fainted. I am so sorry, but there are piles of money yet. Mr. Sheldon’s three thousand, and Nancy Sharp’s twenty dollars ready to circulate again, if they must have silver.”
Then Fred laughed and said, “We are through with Nancy Sharp’s twenty dollars, though I confess I’d like to see them once more. The run is over and you are the heroine of the day. You saved the bank!”
“Yes, by George, you did,” the judge exclaimed in a shaky voice. “You are a plucky girl and I shan’t forget it. No, sir; I shan’t forget it. Not but we could have pulled through, but you were plucky just the same. And now, as soon as things are straightened and everything made right with ‘tother bank—the accounts, I mean—and the money returned which we didn’t use, we ought to go home. Susan has telephoned two or three times. Lunch is early to-day, because of the party.”
“Yes, it is time Louie was home,” Mr. Grey said, asking if she felt equal to mounting her wheel.
Up to this time the judge had paid no attention to Mr. Grey, but now he turned to him and said, “I must say, Grey, that girl of yours has a head on her. Yes, sir, a head on her to think of such a plan, though ’tain’t original. Such things have been done before, but all the same I’m obliged to you, I am sure. I guess, though, we could have pulled through.”
“No we couldn’t,” Herbert exclaimed, chagrined that his father evinced so little gratitude for Mr. Grey’s help. “I was in it—was behind the scenes and I know we would have gone to the wall if the other bank hadn’t helped us, and we ought to be eternally grateful.”
The judge frowned, straightened himself up, threw out his stomach, and said, “Certainly, of course, we are grateful and glad the thing is over. I was never so insulted in my life. Yes, sir, we are grateful.”
He bowed rather stiffly to Mr. Grey, on whose face there was an amused smile as he replied, “You are quite welcome to any service we rendered you. I am very glad your bank stood the test.”
“Stood! of course it stood,” the judge answered testily, unwilling, in his small soul, to acknowledge, as he ought, the great favor which had been shown him, or that his bank, the First National, could possibly have been in any real danger.
At this moment the White carriage with theblack horses drew up before the door, and Fred suggested that Louie be sent home in that. She was too dazed to object to anything, and was soon seated, with the judge beside her, and Fred and Herbert in front of her, and was driven in state through the village, where knots of men were still congregated at the corners of the streets, talking the matter over and feeling ashamed of the part they had had in it.
“Stood like a rock!” they said, referring to the bank; “and it almost seemed as if the more we took out the more there was to take.” And not one of them had a suspicion of the truth, so well had it been managed.
As the White carriage passed them a few turned their faces away, while others nodded hesitatingly, and one, bolder than the rest, called out, “Hello, Judge, I congratulate you. Yes, I do. The old bank stood fire well.”
The judge neither looked at the men, nor answered the salutation, but his face was like a thunder cloud as he muttered to himself, “Go to the d—— with your congratulations. Nobody wants them.”
Fred Lansing, on the contrary, touched his hat, and his example was followed by Herbert, who, however, felt more like fighting than being civil to the men who had made them so much trouble. When Mr. Grey’s gate was reached both Fred andHerbert accompanied Louie to the house, one on either side of her, and each with a hand on her arm as if she needed support.
“I trust your fatigue will not prevent you from coming to-night. You will be the star of the evening,” Fred said, as they reached the door.
Louie looked at him half bewildered at first; then she replied:
“Oh, no, we have sent our regrets. Didn’t you know it? I shall not be there.”
“Not be there!” Fred repeated, feeling that the party, for which he did not particularly care, would lose all interest for him if this girl, to whom he had never spoken until this morning, were not there.
There was no time for further remark or expostulation, for Mrs. Grey had come to meet her daughter, whose long absence had made her very anxious, and whom she took at once into the house, asking in much concern what had happened and why her dress was so wet.
Herbert tried to explain, but he was too much excited and fatigued himself to make it very clear, and as his father was growing impatient, he said good-by, and with Fred returned to the carriage, which was driven rapidly away.