BACK TO PENNINGTON
Jeff had often seen Mr. Davidson on the streets of New City and on the
few occasions when he had been in the Third National Bank for some
reason or another, but except for the talk he had had with him over
the telephone that afternoon he had never really had any personal
contact with him. Somehow he had always gone on assuming that he was a
crotchety sort of an individual, dyspeptic and irritable and perhaps
close fisted and stingy. In truth, he subconsciously had that opinion
of all bank officials, and the result was that he was very nervous and
ill at ease when he entered the waiting room behind the glass paneled
door marked President and gave his name to the girl who occupied the
room, and who, he correctly concluded, was Mr. Davidson’s secretary.
She disappeared into the inner office to reappear after a moment.
“He’ll see you in just a moment, Mr. Thatcher. Take a chair, please,”
she said in such a formal way that Jeff, fingering his hat brim
nervously, sat down on the very edge of one of the big mahogany chairs
lined up against the wall, wondering the while just how he was going to
get on with the town’s most important banker.
Fortunate for the state of his nerves he did not have long to wait,
for presently a buzzer, somewhere in the room, sounded sharply, and
reminded Jeff of the noise an angry hornet makes just before it is
ready to sting. The girl at the desk looked up at him and smiled.
“All right. You may go in now,” and Jeff mechanically got to his feet,
opened another glass paneled door and discovered himself facing Mr.
Davidson.
The banker looked at him coldly for a moment over the rims of his
glasses and Jeff stood awkwardly in the doorway, hardly knowing just
what to say or do.
Then a strange transformation took place on the countenance of
Mr. Davidson. He smiled, and in his smile was all the warmth and
good-fellowship Jeff could ask for. Immediately he felt at ease in the
banker’s presence.
“Hello, young man. So you are Thatcher, the chap the _Freeman_ printed
so much about this morning, eh?” he said.
“Yes, sir,” admitted Jeff, “but you see I am on the staff and I guess
that Sullivan, he’s the man who wrote the story, felt obliged to
develop a hero so he picked on me. I didn’t do a thing that any other
chap wouldn’t have done under the same circumstances, so I don’t
deserve much credit,” and Jeff’s sincerity concerning his modesty made
Mr. Davidson smile broader than ever.
“That’s a fine way to feel about it, my boy. But my inquiries, and I
have made a number of them to-day, reveal to me that you are not fully
aware of what you have done. The facts remain, Thatcher, that you saved
a poor unfortunate from being burned to death and you recovered one
hundred thousand dollars in Liberty Bonds. It seems to me that these
things speak for themselves and speak rather plainly.” Again he smiled
and Jeff felt decidedly self-conscious and embarrassed.
“You legitimately won a reward of $2,000, my boy,” went on the banker,
“and it is yours if you care to claim it. You see――”
Jeff interrupted him.
“No, no. I can’t. It is not my place to take that money. Give it to Tim
Crowley who was the one to discover Hammond pinned down there in the
wreckage. Or, better still, divide it among the men of the wrecking
crew. They earned it. If they had not come to the scene of the trouble
the bonds and Hammond would have been destroyed in the fire and no one
would have known a thing about them beyond the fact that a poor hobo
had been caught in the wreck.”
“That’s all true enough and good reasoning, Thatcher. Somehow it
pleases me to hear you speak that. I am going to see that Crowley and
his men are properly rewarded for their part in it. But you,――what am I
to do about you? Here is $2,000. It’s yours.”
Jeff hesitated a moment. Then shook his head.
“No, I can’t take it. Somehow it doesn’t seem right. I went down in
that hole to save a man’s life if I could, not to earn $2,000.”
“Oh, fine. That’s just what I wanted to hear,――hoped you would say,”
exclaimed Mr. Davidson jumping to his feet and coming over to Jeff’s
side. He went on:
“I don’t want you to take the $2,000. Not now. That is too much money
to give to an eighteen-year-old boy and the fact that you refuse
to take it leaves the way open for me to help you the way I would
prefer to help you,――the way I had planned to help you ever since Dr.
Livingston called me up this morning. Thatcher, I want to send you back
to Pennington at my expense,――or rather at the expense of the bank. I
will see that your tuition is paid and your room and board cared for.
Whatever money you need outside of that you will have to earn yourself
as soon as you are permitted the privilege. Dr. Livingston assures me
you are perfectly capable of doing that too after this term. Until that
time comes I’ll advance you a little to help out. Will you let me――let
the bank rather, do that for you?”
Just why a strange mistiness gathered before his eyes and why a
lump should rise in his throat as Mr. Davidson spoke Jeff could not
understand. Nor could he comprehend why he found it so difficult to say
anything without gulping hard to keep from crying. Somehow the banker’s
kindness simply overwhelmed him. It was the one thing in the world he
wanted most and now to have it possible seemed too good to be true.
Mr. Davidson saw how it affected him and pressed his shoulder kindly,
almost fatherly.
“There I knew you would let us do it. That’s fine. It pleases me a lot
to be able to help you, Thatcher. I guess I told you over the telephone
that I am an old Pennington boy myself. I worked my way through the
same as you were doing until――until that mess you got into sort of
killed your chances of staying on for the rest of the term. I know all
about it, Thatcher. Dr. Livingston told me and how he regretted the
necessity of making you live up to the rules of the institution. Of
course, you realize he really had no alternative. Rules and laws are
rigid things, my boy. I hope you never have to feel the seriousness of
them any more than you have already.”
He was silent for a moment after that and so was Jeff. Then, suddenly,
he exclaimed:
“They tell me you are a baseball man, Thatcher. That’s fine. I used to
pitch for Pennington in my day. I want you to go back there and make
the team this year and I’ll be out to see you play often. That’s all,
boy. Take care of yourself and write to me the same as you would to
your father.”