XIX. PETER GOES TO TOWN
ONE DAY, if we saw a woman gowned as Mrs. Montgomery was gowned when she visited Riverbank, we would laugh her to ridicule, but the toys Peter Lane whittled that winter are still admired for their design and execution. There is a collection of them in the rooms of the Riverbank Historical Society. We laugh, too, when we see photographs of Main Street as it was when Peter came to town after his winter on Big Tree Lake, with the mud almost hub deep. That was before the new banks were built or the brick-paving laid, and Main Street was a ragged, ill-kept thoroughfare, with none of the city airs it has since donned. But as Peter stepped out of the First National Bank, and stood for a minute on the steps in the warm spring sunshine, the street looked like an old friend, and this was the more odd because it had never looked like a friend before.
Jim Vandyne had just cashed the checks and money orders Peter had accumulated during the winter. They were for small amounts—a few dollars each—and not until the cashier had pushed the pile of crisp bills under the wicket, mentioning the amount, did happy-go-lucky Peter realize how much his winter earnings had amounted to.
“Quite a lot of money,” Jim had said. “How would you like to open an account?” and Peter had opened his first bank account. The warm, leather-bound bank-book now reposed in his pocket. Peter could feel it pressing against him, and he could feel the extra bulge the check-book made in his hip pocket. He felt like a serf raised to knighthood, with armor protecting him against harm. As he stood there, Mr. Howard, the bank's president, came briskly down the street. He was a short, chubby man, and he had always nodded cheerfully to Peter, but now he stopped and extended his hand.
“How do you do!” he said cheerfully. “Jim Vandyne has been telling me what you have been doing this winter. Glad to know you are making a go of it.”
It was not much. The bank president was not a great bank president, and the bank was not much of a bank—as great banks go—and he had not, after all, said much, but it made Peter's brown cheeks glow. Bank presidents do not often stop to shake hands with shanty-boatmen, nor do they pause to congratulate them, although the bank president may be an infernal rascal and the shanty-boatman a moral king. But Peter did not philosophize. He knew that if enough bank presidents shake the hand of an ex-shanty-boatman the world will consider the shanty-boatman respectable enough to raise one freckle-faced, kinky-headed little waif of a boy.
Peter raised his head higher than ever, and he had always held it high. He was a man, like other men, now. He could, if he wished, build another shanty-boat. He could hire it built. He could rent a house and put a carpet on the parlor floor. He could say he was going to Florida and people would believe him. He could—buy a suit of clothes! A whole, complete, entire suit, vest and all! It had been years and years since he could do that, and when he had been able to do it he had always spent the money otherwise. Now he crossed the street and entered the Riverbank Clothing Emporium. It gave him a warming feeling of respectability to be buying clothes, but he did not plunge recklessly. He bought everything he needed, from socks and shoes to tie and hat, but the shoes were stout and cheap, and the shirt a woolen one, and the hat a soft felt that would stand wind and weather.
Mr. Rosenheim himself came and stood by Peter when he was trying on the shoes.