PLEASANT TIMES IN MAIN STREET
Phil, on her way to a tea, reached Main Street shortly before three
o'clock. Her forehandedness was due to the fact that her hostess (the
wife of the college president) had asked her to perform divers and
sundry preliminary offices pertaining to refreshments, and it had
occurred to Phil that it would be as well to drop in at the Bartletts'
to see whether Rose had sent the cakes she had contracted to bake for
the function, as the sophomore who delivered Rose's creations was
probably amusing himself at the try-out of baseball material on Mill's
Field.
Shopkeepers restlessly pacing the sidewalk before the doors of their
neglected stores informed Phil of the meeting at the court-room, and of
the panicky rumors. No good reason occurred to Phil for absenting
herself from a mass meeting at which her Uncle Alec was to speak. Phil
liked meetings. From the crest of a stack of chicken crates near the
freight depot she had heard Albert Jeremiah Beveridge speak when that
statesman had vouchsafed ten minutes to the people of Montgomery the
preceding autumn. She had heard such redoubtable orators as William
Jennings Bryan, Charles Warren Fairbanks, and "Tom" Marshall, and when a
Socialist had spoken from the court-house steps on a rainy evening,
Phil, then in her last year in high school, had been the sole
representative of her sex in the audience.
Waterman was laboriously approaching his peroration when she reached the
packed court-room. Men were wedged tightly into the space reserved for
the court officials and the bar, and a number stood on the clerk's desk.
She climbed upon a chair at the back of the room, the better to see and
hear. There were other women and girls present--employees of the
furniture factory--but it must be confessed that even without their
support Phil would not have been embarrassed.
Waterman was in fine fettle, and cheers and applause punctuated his
discourse.
"I am not here to arouse class hatred, or to set one man against
another. We of Montgomery are all friends and neighbors. Many of you
have lived here, just as I have, throughout your lives. It is for us to
help each other in a neighborly spirit. Factories may close their doors,
banks may fail, and credit be shaken, but so long as we may appeal to
each other in the old terms of neighborliness and comradeship, nothing
can seriously disturb our peace and prosperity.
"It grieves me, however, to be obliged to confess that there are men
among us who have not felt the responsibility imposed upon them as
trustees for the less fortunate. I have already touched on the immediate
plight of those of you who are thrown out of employment, with your just
labor claims unpaid. There are others--and some of them are perhaps in
this room--who entrusted their savings to the Sycamore Traction Company,
and who are now at the mercy of the malevolent powers that invariably
control and manipulate such corporations. I shall not be personal; I
have no feelings against any of those men. But I say to you, men and
women of Montgomery, that when I heard this morning from the lips of an
industrious and frugal German mechanic that a certain financier of this
town had bought from him a traction bond that represented twenty years
of savings--then my blood boiled with righteous indignation.
"My friends, a curious situation exists here. Why is it--why is it, I
repeat, while one of our fellow-citizens pretends to be trying to
safeguard by legal means all the local interests involved in that
traction company, another person who stands close to him is buying the
bonds of laborers and mechanics, widows and orphans, at little more than
fifty per cent of their face value? My friends, when you find a corrupt
lawyer and a rapacious banker in collusion, what chance have the people
against them?"
Apparently the people had no chance whatever, in the opinion of the
intent auditors. The applause at this point was long continued, and
Waterman, feeling that he had struck the right chord, hurried on.
"Who are these men who have plundered their own people, thrust their
hands into the pockets of their fellow-citizens, and filched from them
the savings of years? Who are they, I say? My friends, in a community
like this, where we are all so closely knit together,--where on the
Sabbath day we meet in the church porch after rendering thanks unto God
for his mercies,--where in the midweek prayer-meeting we renew and
strengthen ourselves for the battle of life,--it is a serious matter to
stand in a forum of the people before the tabernacle the law has given
us for the defense of our liberties, and impugn the motives of our
fellows. I shall not--"
"Name them!" chorused a dozen voices.
Waterman's histrionic sense responded to the demand. With arm uplifted,
he deliberated, turning slowly from side to side. He was a master of the
niceties of insinuation. Innuendo he had always found more effective
than direct statement. He shook his head deprecatingly, reluctant to
yield to the clamor for the names of the human vultures he had been
arraigning.
"Name them! Tell who they are!"
He indulged these cries with a smile of resignation. They had a right to
know; but it was left for him, in his superior wisdom, to pass upon
their demands.
"Hit 'em, Alec! Go for 'em!" yelled a man in the front row.
"Why," the orator resumed, "why," he asked, "should I name names that
are in every mind in this intelligent audience?" There was absolute
quiet as they waited for the names, which he had not the slightest
intention of giving.
"Why--"
"_Coward!_"
The carrying power of Phil's voice had been deplored from her earliest
youth by her aunts. Her single word, flung across the heads of the
auditors, splashed upon the tense silence like a stone dropped suddenly
into a quiet pond.
"Put him out!" yelled some one who attributed this impiety to the usual
obstreperous boy. A number of young fellows in Phil's neighborhood, who
knew the source of the ejaculation, broke into laughter and jeers.
Alexander Waterman knew that voice; he had seen Phil across the room,
but had assumed that her presence was due to her vulgar curiosity, on
which his wife had waxed wroth these many years. In his cogitations Phil
was always an unaccountable and irresponsible being: it had not occurred
to him that she might resent his veiled charges against her father and
Amzi. Waterman, by reason of his long experience as a stump speaker,
knew how to deal with interruptions. He caught up instantly the
challenge Phil had flung at him.
"Coward?" he repeated. "I should like to ask you, my fellow-citizens,
who is the coward in this crisis? Is it I, who face you to-day clothed
in my constitutional guaranty of free and untrammeled speech, to speak
upon the issues of this grave crisis; or is it the conspirators who meet
in dark rooms to plot and plunder?"
Applause and cheers greeted this reply. Men looked at each other and
grinned, as much as to say, "Alec knows his business." In Phil's
immediate vicinity a number of young men, lost in admiration of her
temerity, and not without chivalrous instincts, jeered the orator's
reply. In the middle of the room Fred Holton, who had gone to the
meeting with some of his farmer neighbors that he met in Main Street,
turned at the sound of Phil's voice. Before Waterman, luxuriating in his
applause, could resume, Fred was on his feet.
"As this was called as a meeting of citizens, I have a right to be here.
We have listened for nearly an hour to a speech that has made nothing
any clearer--that has, in fact, gone all round the pump without finding
the handle. It's time we knew what it is the speaker wants done; it's
time he came to the point and named these men who have robbed their
friends and neighbors. Let's have the names right now before we go any
further."
"Who's that talking? Put him out!"
The meeting was in disorder, and a dozen men were trying to talk.
Waterman, smiling patiently, rapped with the official gavel that Judge
Walters wielded when counsel, in the heat of argument, transcended the
bounds of propriety.
"It's Fred Holton," bellowed some one.
Waterman smiled in quiet scorn. He had recognized Fred Holton and was
ready with his answer. One of his friends who had pushed through the
crowd whispered in his ear.
"My friends," he began, in the indulgent tone of a grieved parent, "the
gentleman who spoke a moment ago was quite right in remarking that this
is a meeting of citizens. No one denies his right to speak or to
interrupt other speakers if such be his idea of courtesy. But he will
pardon me for suggesting that it is remarkable that he of all men should
interrupt our friendly conference here and demand that names be
mentioned, when, prompted by a sense of delicacy, I have refrained from
mentioning his own name in this unpleasant connection. It's a name that
has been identified far too closely with the affairs of this town. I
should like to know how a member of the Holton family dare come to this
meeting, when the suspension of one of our chief industries and the
embarrassments of the Sycamore Traction Company are directly
attributable to the family of which this young gentleman is a member.
And while we sit here in conference, there are grave rumors afloat that
we are threatened with even more serious difficulties. Within a few
minutes word has reached me that a run is in progress upon certain of
our banks." (There was a commotion throughout the room, and those near
the doors were already pushing toward the street.)
"I beg of you, be not hasty; the hour calls for wise counsel--"
The shuffling of feet and overturning of chairs deadened the remainder
of his speech.
Phil escaped quickly from the court-house, and seeing the throng in Main
Street began a detour to reach Montgomery's Bank. Fred caught up with
her and begged her to go home.
"There's going to be a row, Phil, and you'd better keep out of the way."
"If there's a row, that silly Waterman is responsible," Phil replied.
"I'm going to the bank to see Amy."
People were flocking to Main Street from all directions, and finding
that she persisted in going on, Fred kept close beside her.
"He'll scold you if you do; you'd better go home," Fred urged as they
reached Franklin Street, a block south of Main, and saw the packed
streets at the First National corner.
They debated a moment; then Phil was seized with an idea.
"Fred, run over to the college and bring all the boys you can find at
Mill's Field. Bring them up Main Street singing, and send a flying wedge
through the mob;--that will smash it. Beat it, before the boys hear the
row and mix in!"
Fred was off for the athletic field before she had finished speaking,
and Phil sought the side door of Montgomery's Bank.
The throng at the intersection of Franklin Street and Main faced the
First National. When the court-house clock boomed three the clerks
inside made an effort to close the doors, and this had provoked a sharp
encounter with the waiting depositors on the bank steps. The crowd
yelled as it surged in sympathy with the effort to hold the doors open.
Some one threw a stone that struck the window in the middle of
"National" in the sign, and this caused an outbreak of derisive cheers.
An intoxicated man on the steps turned round with difficulty and waved
his hat.
"Come on, boys; we'll bust the safe and find out whether they've got any
money or not."
Some of those who had gained entrance to the bank came out by the side
door, and this served to divert attention to Franklin Street for a
moment. There were cries that a woman who had received her money had
been robbed, and this increased the uproar.
When Amzi took a last survey from his bank steps at three o'clock, some
one yelled, "Hello, Amzi!" A piece of brick flung with an aim worthy of
a nobler cause whizzed past his head and struck the door-frame with a
sharp thwack and blur of dust. Amzi looked down at the missile with
pained surprise and kicked it aside. His clerks besought him to come in
out of harm's way; and yet no man in Montgomery had established a better
right than he to stand exactly where he stood and view contemporaneous
history in the making.
Howls and cat-calls followed the casting of the brick. Amzi lifted his
hand to stay the tumult, but in his seersucker coat and straw hat his
appearance was calculated to provoke merriment.
"Shoot the hat! Where's your earmuffs?" they jeered.
He could not make himself heard, and even if his voice had been equal to
the occasion no one was in humor to listen to him. Bankers were
unpopular in Montgomery that afternoon. No one had ever believed before
that Amzi was capable of taking unfair advantage of his fellow-men; and
yet Waterman's hearers were circulating the report in Main Street that
Amzi had been buying Sycamore bonds at an infamously low price.
He flourished his cigar toward the First National, and then pointed it
at his own door, but this bit of pantomime only renewed the mirth of the
assemblage. It seemed to be the impression that he was trying to
advertise his bank, in the fashion of a "demonstrator" in a shop-window.
The disorder increased. Some one yelled:--
"What are you paying for Sycamore bonds?"
This was followed by an ominous turning and shifting. Amzi withdrew,
closed and locked the bank doors, and showed his scorn of his
calumniators by reversing with deliberation the tin card so that it
announced "Bank Shut."
Amzi, his dignity ruffled by the reception accorded him, had retired to
his private room when a familiar knock sounded on the Franklin Street
door and he turned the latch to admit Phil.
"You--! what you doing down here? What right have you to be running the
streets on a day like this?" he blurted, his eyes bulging wrathfully.
"Oh, chuck it, Amy! This is the best show we've had since the calliope
blew up and killed the elephant in the circus when I was seven years
old. I've been to the meeting. The Honorable Alec delivered a noble
oration; he told them that everybody, including you and daddy, is
crooked; he's the only honest man. It was the supreme and ultimate
lim_ite_!"
"Want to burn me in effigy? Call me a horned plutocrat?"
"Oh, he didn't mention you, or daddy either, by name; just hinted that
you were both trying to rob the Sycamore bondholders."
Amzi put his feet on a chair, settled his hat comfortably on the back of
his head, and chewed his cigar meditatively.
"Thunder! You'd better keep away from indignation meetings where Alec's
going to speak. You're likely to get shot."
"Not I, sir. I called him a coward, right there in the meeting. A most
unladylike proceeding; indeed, it was, Amy.
"When rose the maid upon a chair,
Some called her false: none named her fair:
Nathless she saw nor sneer nor frown,
But 'C-o-w-a-r-d' flung her challenge down."
Amzi ignored her couplets--Phil's impromptu verses always embarrassed
him--and demanded the particulars. He chuckled as she described the
meeting. He cross-examined her to be sure that she omitted nothing. Her
report of his brother-in-law's tirade gave him the greatest delight. As
they talked, they heard plainly the commotion in the streets.
"I like the way you take things," said Phil. "The town's gone crazy, and
there's a mob in front of your little toy bank, but you're not even
peevish."
"Some old schoolmate threw a brick at me awhile ago when I went out for
air and that annoyed me," Amzi admitted. "If those fellows out there who
haven't any money in any bank, and never will have any, would only go
home, I'd do something to relieve the pressure. I hanker for a chance to
cross the street, but they won't let me. I called the mayor on the
telephone and demanded that he send over the fire department and
sprinkle 'em, but he said he couldn't unless I'd turn in an alarm--had
the nerve to tell me it would be against the city ordinances! What do
you think of that, Phil? Guess the police force is under the bed at
home. But I can wait. There's nothing like waiting. Take it from me that
you'd better trot along to your tea. You're rather cute in that hat. I
suppose it burnt a hole in a ten-dollar-bill."
"Twenty-five, Amy."
"No wonder there's a panic! Go out and show yourself, so they can see
what a plutocrat looks like. I guess that would cause 'em to break
windows all right."
"Ungrateful old man! Main Street will be opened for traffic in a few
minutes, thanks to the head under the hat you feign to despise. I sent
Fred over to the college to bring the boys down to clean things up.
They're about due, methinks."
"Fred in town?"
"Why ask? It's Saturday and he's a farmer."
"Your thinker thinks, Phil. Would that I loved prayer-meeting as much as
you love trouble! As trustee of Madison, I wish you'd left the boys at
play. That last Washington's Birthday row almost broke up the college."
Phil jumped down from the table suddenly and flung the door open. Above
the murmur of the restless shuffling crowd rose the sound of singing.
* * * * *
The sunny afternoon had brought to Mill's Field budding baseballists and
candidates for track teams and a gallery of critics of their
performances. Fred Holton's name was written high in the athletic
records of Madison, and a few words bawled from the bleachers served to
assemble all the students in sight.
"There's an ugly mob downtown, boys; and it may do mischief if it hangs
together until dark. If we can pry 'em apart, they'll go home and forget
it."
Fifty students immediately formed in line. "No clubs or sticks, boys.
We'll march down Main Street in good order and see what a peaceful
demonstration will do. Forward! March!"
As they crossed the campus at double-quick, students poured out of the
library and joined the battalion. Others came tumbling out of the
fraternity houses in Buckeye Lane, anxious to join in the lark. Before
entering Main Street, Fred gave his last orders, which were accepted
without question from an alumnus whom they had all learned to know of
late as a sympathetic and stimulating visitor to the Gym, and the
adviser for the Thanksgiving football game in which they had scored a
victory over the hosts of Purdue.
Two blocks from the bank they re-formed in four lines, extending from
curb to curb, and went forward to the strains of "Old Madison":--
"What shall we do for Madison, for Madison, for Madison?
What shall we do for Madison, our college and her men?"
To the familiar strains of the college song, Montgomery had frequently
wept not without reason, for the young Madisonians had been much given
in recent years to ebullitions of college spirit. The timid mayor heard
it now, looked out upon the lines of marching students, and pulled down
his office blinds to avoid witnessing the inevitable collision between
town and gown.
As the students approached, women and timorous men began trying to
escape. Fred signaled to the yell leader, who began beating time, and
the street rang with the college cheer. They gave it over and over
again; they cheered the college and every bank in town, and between
cheers Fred moved the lines forward. The mechanics and farmers, who,
alarmed for the security of their savings, had formed the nucleus of the
crowd, began to disperse before the advance of the students, but the
sidewalks filled with those who expected an encounter and wished to view
it in safety. Merchants closed and barred their doors against possible
invasion. The rougher element, that had attached itself to the throng
and given it the semblance of a mob, now organized hastily for a
counter-demonstration.
"Smash the college dudes!" bawled a big fellow, throwing himself forward
as leader. There was a rush and a sharp struggle. The collegians stood
fast. The town phalanx withdrew to Franklin Street, and, considerably
increased, rushed again upon the collegians. A lively fist-fight now
engaged the vanguard for a minute, to the delight of the spectators.
Hard blows were struck on both sides. While this was in progress, Fred
withdrew the rear ranks of his army, massed them compactly, and led them
in a gallant charge through the shattered line of their comrades,
against the enemy. The students wavered at the moment of collision;
there was sharp tackling and the line broke, closed again, and swept on,
beyond Franklin Street and for half a block further; then effected a
quick about-face in readiness for another charge but found the field
clear. Some one on the packed sidewalk proposed a cheer for the college,
and it was given with a will, and the collegians resumed their cheering.
A few missiles flung by the vanquished town men rained upon them, but
the war was over. Fred's lines were flung across the intersecting
streets like pickets, and, impressed by their quiet order, the
belligerent town men began to mingle peacefully with the lingering
crowd on the pavements.
Mr. Amzi Montgomery appeared on the steps of his bank, and glanced up
and down the street, and at the courthouse clock, like a pigeon emerging
from its cote after a shower. Phil, having been warned to remain inside,
naturally joined him an instant later. Amzi was saluted with a cheer in
recognition of his dignity as treasurer of Madison's board of
trustees,--a greeting he acknowledged by puffing his cheeks and
guardedly lifting his hat. And all these things pleased Main Street. An
attack on the First National had been averted; the students had made
amends for many affronts to municipal dignity; and it was in the air
that other and equally interesting incidents would add further to the
day's entertainment.
The jubilant yell leader, seeing Phil beside Amzi, decided that she,
too, was deserving of attention.
"For the girl on the bank steps--all together!"
While this rah-rahing was in progress, Amzi left the steps and started
across the street. Now, while Amzi Montgomery had been seen of all men
in all years and at all seasons, standing on the steps of his bank in
the old straw hat, with his seersucker coat buttoned tightly round his
sturdy figure, he had never before been known to descend into Main
Street in that garb. The crowd immediately began closing in upon him and
Fred detached a squad of his brawniest men to act as the banker's
bodyguard.
Amzi moved with great serenity towards the First National Bank, and
appeared to be examining the sunburst the hostile stone had stamped upon
the plate-glass window. Amzi never hurried, and he appeared to be in no
haste now. Main Street was pleased that he deliberated. The longer the
entertainment lasted the better. The door of the First National had been
closed with little difficulty during the diversion afforded by the
arrival of the college men, but the steps and sidewalk were filled. Amzi
looked over the crowd musingly, and beckoned to Fred.
"Get me a box to stand on and a piece of soap--laundry soap. I want
to--"
He waved his cigar toward the window in vague explanation, and Fred
dived into a grocery and came back with the articles demanded. Main
Street's curiosity had never been so whetted and teased. If it had been
any one but Amzi; but it was so unmistakably Amzi! Amzi placed the box
under the window and stood upon it. Then with characteristic nonchalance
he removed the wrapper from the cake of soap, while the crowd surged and
shuffled, filling the street again in its anxiety to miss nothing. Amzi
broke the bar of soap in two, and calmly trimmed half of it to serve as
a crayon. As he began to write upon the glass, his guards were
hard-pressed to hold back the throng that seemed bent upon pushing the
banker through his rival's window. To ease the tension the boys struck
up--
"The pirates of the Wabash,
A jolly crowd are they."
Amzi wrote slowly, in a large round hand, beginning immediately under
the "First National Bank" lettering. The faint tracings of the soap were
legible only a few yards away and the yell-leader began reading for the
benefit of the crowd. And this was Amzi's announcement:--
I hereby guarantee all deposits in this bank.
Interest on Sycamore Traction bonds will be paid here April 1.
Persons from whom I have bought such bonds may redeem same at
price I paid for them, without discount.
A. MONTGOMERY.
When he had completed his first sentence, he paused to inspect it.
Murmurs of astonishment gave way to shouts of approval, and then the
street grew silent as the remainder was read word by word.
"Let her go now, for A. Montgo_meree_!" cried the yell-leader, and while
necks craned and men jostled and pushed, the students cheered. When
Amzi had written, "at the price I paid for them," he made a period, and
then, after a moment's reflection, drew out his handkerchief and erased
it to add--"without discount."
He threw away the soap and began to retrace his steps, but the whole
town seemed now to have massed itself in the intersecting streets. The
nearest students flung themselves together as an escort, and amid cheers
Amzi returned to his own bank, where Phil opened the door and demanded
to know what he had been doing to be cheered as only a football hero is
cheered when his name is read at commencement.
"Thunder!" said Amzi. "I just wanted to take the gas out of Alec's
speech. What are those fools doing now?"
Phil, Fred, and Amzi, with several of the students who had acted as the
banker's bodyguard, gathered at the front window. Amzi's announcement
that the Sycamore interest would be paid had brought Kirkwood into the
minds of many who knew of his efforts to save the company. His name
shouted here and there in the street directed attention to his office
windows. As a former member of the faculty of Madison, Kirkwood appeared
usually on the platform at commencement, and now that he was mentioned
the students improvised a cheer for him that Kirkwood's building flung
back at Montgomery's Bank. The demonstration continued with increased
volume, until finally Kirkwood opened a window and looked down. A shout
rose as he appeared. The tears sprang to Phil's eyes as she saw her
father's tall figure, his stoop accentuated as he bent under the window.
He had really achieved at last! She only vaguely grasped the import of
what Amzi had told her in a few abrupt sentences after his return to the
bank, but her heart beat fast at the thought that her father shared in
the day's honors. He had been of real service to his fellow-townsmen and
they were now demanding a speech. He bowed and vanished; but when the
cheering was renewed and long continued, he came back, and when silence
fell upon the crowd (Phil wondered if they, too, felt the pathos in him
that had always touched her, and which just then brought the tears to
her eyes!) he spoke slowly and clearly.
"My friends, this is the best town and its people are the best and
kindest people in the world. If I have done anything to win your praise
I am glad. This community is bound to prosper, for it is founded, not
upon industry and thrift alone, but upon faith and honor and
helpfulness; and these, my good friends, are the things that endure
forever."
"I couldn't hear that," said Amzi to Phil, as her father disappeared
into his office amid the loudest cheers of the day, "but I reckon Tom
said about the right thing."
"I'm sure he did," replied Phil, drying her eyes, "and it's all true,
too!"