Now that he had made a beginning, and the burden was in a way shifted from his shoulders to another’s, he felt better. It was not often that Mrs. Grey attended service in the evening, and as it was so warm, Louie decided to remain at home. Mr. Grey, however, went, and shook hands with a good many people, and appeared so affable and friendly and talked and laughed so much that it was commented upon by his friends and remembered afterwards as a sign that he was a little off in his brain. When service was over, he walked part way home with a neighbor, then saying good-night, he went to his bank, and, locking the door and lighting the gas, took a sheet of foolscap, and with a blue crayon wrote upon it in letters which could be read across the street: “THIS BANK CLOSED FOR THE PRESENT.”
He made two or three copies before he was suited. “I want it so plain that he who runs may read,” he said, holding the paper off to get the effect. “This will do. This will catch their eyes the first thing in the morning,” he said, and pinning the paper on the wall sat staring at it until the letters were like blue tongues before his eyes. Many times he repeated the words, “THIS BANK IS CLOSED FOR THE PRESENT,” until they burned like fire in his brain, and he laughed aloud as he thought of the consternation they would produce and the rapidity with which the news would spread, and the crowd it would bring to the spot. He could not put the paper outside that night, for the moonlight would betray him. It must be done in the early morning, before anyone was up.
“And I shall be here at the opening of the play,” he said, as with a last glance at the blue letters he put out the gas, locked the door and started for home, wondering why his legs trembled so and why he felt so weak.
Once he sat down on a bench by the side of the road near his home with a feeling that his strength was gone.
“This will never do. If I die, I’ll die game,” he said at last, and rousing up and pulling himself together he walked very steadily to his house, finding both his wife and Louie waiting for him with a tempting little lunch on the dining-room table.
“Service was either very long, or you have been somewhere. It is nearly ten o’clock,” Louie said, as she gave him the cup of cocoa which he usually had on Sunday nights after church.
“I’ve been somewhere,” he said, taking the cocoa and compelling himself to eat and to talk and seem natural, and when lunch was over, he asked Louie to sing him something before she retired.
“What shall it be?” she said, seating herself at the piano.
“Oh, anything,” he answered. “Or, yes, I think I’d like
‘Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;