LOUIE 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 remembered having 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 it is, 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 one had 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. “Was there 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,
the whispered 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
hours had 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 the black 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 and Herbert 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.