It might have been said by a cynic that Banker Sanford had all the virtues of a defaulting bank cashier. He had no bad habits beyond smoking. He was genial, companionable, and especially ready to help when sickness came. When old Freeme Cole got down with delirium tremens that winter, Sanford was one of the most heroic of nurses, and the service was so clearly disinterested and maguanimous that everyone spoke of it.
His wife and he were included in every dance or picnic; for Mrs.
Sanford was as great a favorite as the banker himself, she was so sincere, and her gray eyes were so charmingly frank, and then she said "such funny things."
"I wish I had something to do besides housework. It's a kind of a putterin' job, best ye can do," she'd say merrily, just to see the others stare. "There's too much moppin' an' dustin'. Seems 's if a woman used up half her life on things that don't amount to anything, don't it?"
"I tell yeh that feller's a scallywag. I know it buh the way 'e walks 'long the sidewalk," Mrs. Bingham insisted to her son, who wished her to put her savings into the bank.
The youngest of a large family, Link had been accustomed all his life to Mrs. Biugham's many whimsicalities.
"I s'pose you can smell he's a thief, just as you can tell when it's goin' to rain, or the butter's comin', by the smell."
"Well, you needn't laugh, Lincoln. I can," maintained the old lady stoutly. "An' I ain't goin' to put a red cent o my money mto his pocket-f'r there's where it 'ud go to."
She yielded at last, and received a little bankbook in return for her money. "Jest about all I'll ever get," she said privately; and thereafter out of her' brass-bowed spectacles with an eagle's gaze she watched the banker go by. But the banker, seeing the dear old soul at the window looking out at him, always smiled and bowed, unaware of her suspicion.
At the end of the year he bought the lot next to his rented house and began building one of his own, a modest little affair, shaped like a pork pie with a cupola, or a Tamo'-Shanter cap-a style of architecture which became fashionable at once.
He worked heroically to get the location of the plow factory at Bluff Siding, and all but succeeded; but Tyre, once their ally, turned against them, and refused to consider the fact of the Siding's position at the center of the county. However, for some reason or other, the town woke up to something of a boom during the next two years. Several large farmers decided to retire and live off the sweat of some other fellow's brow, and so built some houses of the pork-pie order and moved into town.
This inflow of moneyed men from the country resulted in the establishment of a "seminary of learning" on the hillside, where the Soldiers' Home was to be located. This called in more farmers from the country, and a new hotel was built, a sash-and-door factory followed, and Burt McPhail set up a feed mill.
An this improvement unquestionably dated, from the opening of the bank, and the most unreasonmg partisans of the banker held him to be the chief cause of the resulting development of the town, though he himself modestly disclaimed any hand in the affair.
Had Bluff Siding been a city, the highest civic honors would have been open to Banker Sanford; indeed, his name was repeatedly mentioned in connection with the county offices.
"No, gentlemen," he explained firmly, but courteously, in Wilson's store one night; "I'm a banker, not a politician. I can't ride two horses."
In the second year of the bank's history he went up to the north part of the state on business, visiting West Superior, Duluth, Ashland, and other booming towns, and came back full of the wonders of what he saw.
"There's big money up there, Nell," he said to his wife.
But she had the woman's tendency to hold fast to what she had, and would not listen to any plans about moving.
"Build up your business here, Jim, and don't worry about what good chances there are somewhere else."
He said no more about it, but he took great interest in all the news the "boys" brought back from their annual deer hunts "up North."
They were all enthusiastic over West Superior and Duluth, and their wonderful development was the never-ending theme of discussion in Wilson's store.
II
The first two years of the bank's history were solidly successful, and "Jim" and "Nellie" were the head and front of all good works and the provoking cause of most of the fun. No one seemed more carefree.
"We consider ourselves just as young as anybody," Mrs. Sanford would say, when joked about going out with the young people so much; but sometirnes at home, after the children were asleep, she sighed a little.
"Jim, I wish you was in some kind of a business so I could help. I don't have enough to do. I s'pose I could mop an' dust, an' dust an' mop; but it seems sinful to Waste time that way. Can't I do anything, Jim?"
"Why, no. If you 'tend to the children and keep house, that's all anybody asks of you."
She was silent, but not convinced. She had a desire to do something outside the walls of her house-a desire transmitted to her from her father, for a woman inherits these things.
In the spring of the second year a number of the depositors drew out money to invest in Duluth and Superior lots, and the whole town was excited over the matter.
The summer passed, Link and Sanford spending their tirne in the bank-that is, when not out swimming or fishing with the boys. But July and August were terribly hot and dry, and oats and corn were only half-crop; and the farmers were grumbling. Some of them were forced to draw on the bank instead of depositing.
McPhail came in, one day in November, to draw a thousand dollars to pay for a house and lot he had recently bought.
Sanford was alone. He whistled. "Phew! You're comin' at me hard.
Come in tomorrow. Link's gone down to the city to get some money."
"All right," said MePhail; "any time."
"Goin' t' snow?"
"Looks like it. I'll haf to load a lot o' ca'tridges ready fr biz."
About an hour later old lady Bingham burst upon the banker, wild and breathless. "I want my money," she announced.
