The Merivale banks

by Mary Jane Holmes

What ailed the girl? She was certainly a little disagreeable in her questioning, and for almost the first time in his life her father answered crossly, “Pay! Of course I could! What are you worrying about? I can manage the bank.”

After that he tried to seem more natural and cheerful, but it was at last a dismal failure. His headaches were more frequent. He could not sleep; he ate scarcely anything, and would sometimes sit for an hour without speaking, with his eyes closed, as if thinking intently. His trips to New York were more frequent. He was consulting a physician for nervous dyspepsia, he said, but he usually returned worse than when he went. To his wife’s and Louie’s inquiries he would answer lightly that he would be all right with a change of air. Narragansett Pier and sea baths would bring him up at once, and days came and went, and in the social atmosphere of Merivale there was no sign of the impending storm which would make the great run seem like a bubble.

The beginning of the end came one Saturday afternoon when the bank was to close earlier than usual. Knowing this, Nancy Sharp hurried to get in a few dollars she had been laying by, and which she thought too large a sum to be quite safe in her house over Sunday. Her example was followed by Widow Brown and two or three more, one of whom made a deposit of a hundred dollars which he said he should want on Monday.

There was a strange look in Mr. Grey’s eyes, and he seemed half uncertain whether to take the money, but as he could give no good reason why he should not, he took it, but put Nancy’s five dollars in the box where he had kept her twenty marked dollars. The rest went into the common fund, and then the work of the day was done.

Wilson, who had been in the bank since it started, closed the doors, put up the shutters and went out for his few hours’ holiday, leaving both keys with Mr. Grey, who was alone but not idle. Every account was gone over again and again, every dollar counted, and some of it transferred from the safe to his pocket.

“I shall put it back on Monday, of course,” he said to himself; “but I must have something to pay bills to-night and for church to-morrow. I have never failed to put a dollar on the plate. I shall pay it Monday.” He kept repeating this, “I shall pay it Monday. Help will surely come then, or to-morrow.”

Many a time during the last few weeks he had said, “Help will come to-morrow,” and he had waited with feverish impatience for the morrow and the help which did not come. He was usually among the first at the post-office, his pulse throbbing and his heart beating, as he waited for his mail. As he took his letters from his drawer, and glancing at the addresses, knew that the one he wanted was not among them, there always came over him a feeling of nausea and blackness for a moment, and he stumbled against the people jostling him as the eager crowd came in. Then with a mighty effort which made every nerve quiver, he recovered himself, bowed to every one he knew, and with a pleasant word passed out into the fresh air where he could breathe more freely. This had been repeated for days and days, and the strain was becoming unbearable.

“Better know the worst than endure this suspense any longer,” he said on the Saturday when matters were reaching a crisis.

A few small depositors who wanted their money, took it out in the morning, and he could have shouted for joy when they did so.

“There will be less to consign me to perdition when the crash comes,” he thought, and was sorry for any fresh deposit made that day.