Otherwise Phyllis Part 50

"Fred in town?"

"Why ask? It's Sat.u.r.day and he's a farmer."

"Your thinker thinks, Phil. Would that I loved prayer-meeting as much as you love trouble! As trustee of Madison, I wish you'd left the boys at play. That last Washington's Birthday row almost broke up the college."

Phil jumped down from the table suddenly and flung the door open. Above the murmur of the restless shuffling crowd rose the sound of singing.

The sunny afternoon had brought to Mill's Field budding baseballists and candidates for track teams and a gallery of critics of their performances. Fred Holton's name was written high in the athletic records of Madison, and a few words bawled from the bleachers served to a.s.semble all the students in sight.

"There's an ugly mob downtown, boys; and it may do mischief if it hangs together until dark. If we can pry 'em apart, they'll go home and forget it."

Fifty students immediately formed in line. "No clubs or sticks, boys.

We'll march down Main Street in good order and see what a peaceful demonstration will do. Forward! March!"

As they crossed the campus at double-quick, students poured out of the library and joined the battalion. Others came tumbling out of the fraternity houses in Buckeye Lane, anxious to join in the lark. Before entering Main Street, Fred gave his last orders, which were accepted without question from an alumnus whom they had all learned to know of late as a sympathetic and stimulating visitor to the Gym, and the adviser for the Thanksgiving football game in which they had scored a victory over the hosts of Purdue.

Two blocks from the bank they re-formed in four lines, extending from curb to curb, and went forward to the strains of "Old Madison":--

"What shall we do for Madison, for Madison, for Madison?

What shall we do for Madison, our college and her men?"

To the familiar strains of the college song, Montgomery had frequently wept not without reason, for the young Madisonians had been much given in recent years to ebullitions of college spirit. The timid mayor heard it now, looked out upon the lines of marching students, and pulled down his office blinds to avoid witnessing the inevitable collision between town and gown.

As the students approached, women and timorous men began trying to escape. Fred signaled to the yell leader, who began beating time, and the street rang with the college cheer. They gave it over and over again; they cheered the college and every bank in town, and between cheers Fred moved the lines forward. The mechanics and farmers, who, alarmed for the security of their savings, had formed the nucleus of the crowd, began to disperse before the advance of the students, but the sidewalks filled with those who expected an encounter and wished to view it in safety. Merchants closed and barred their doors against possible invasion. The rougher element, that had attached itself to the throng and given it the semblance of a mob, now organized hastily for a counter-demonstration.

"Smash the college dudes!" bawled a big fellow, throwing himself forward as leader. There was a rush and a sharp struggle. The collegians stood fast. The town phalanx withdrew to Franklin Street, and, considerably increased, rushed again upon the collegians. A lively fist-fight now engaged the vanguard for a minute, to the delight of the spectators.

Hard blows were struck on both sides. While this was in progress, Fred withdrew the rear ranks of his army, ma.s.sed them compactly, and led them in a gallant charge through the shattered line of their comrades, against the enemy. The students wavered at the moment of collision; there was sharp tackling and the line broke, closed again, and swept on, beyond Franklin Street and for half a block further; then effected a quick about-face in readiness for another charge but found the field clear. Some one on the packed sidewalk proposed a cheer for the college, and it was given with a will, and the collegians resumed their cheering.

A few missiles flung by the vanquished town men rained upon them, but the war was over. Fred's lines were flung across the intersecting streets like pickets, and, impressed by their quiet order, the belligerent town men began to mingle peacefully with the lingering crowd on the pavements.

Mr. Amzi Montgomery appeared on the steps of his bank, and glanced up and down the street, and at the courthouse clock, like a pigeon emerging from its cote after a shower. Phil, having been warned to remain inside, naturally joined him an instant later. Amzi was saluted with a cheer in recognition of his dignity as treasurer of Madison's board of trustees,--a greeting he acknowledged by puffing his cheeks and guardedly lifting his hat. And all these things pleased Main Street. An attack on the First National had been averted; the students had made amends for many affronts to munic.i.p.al dignity; and it was in the air that other and equally interesting incidents would add further to the day's entertainment.

The jubilant yell leader, seeing Phil beside Amzi, decided that she, too, was deserving of attention.

"For the girl on the bank steps--all together!"

While this rah-rahing was in progress, Amzi left the steps and started across the street. Now, while Amzi Montgomery had been seen of all men in all years and at all seasons, standing on the steps of his bank in the old straw hat, with his seersucker coat b.u.t.toned tightly round his st.u.r.dy figure, he had never before been known to descend into Main Street in that garb. The crowd immediately began closing in upon him and Fred detached a squad of his brawniest men to act as the banker's bodyguard.

Amzi moved with great serenity towards the First National Bank, and appeared to be examining the sunburst the hostile stone had stamped upon the plate-gla.s.s window. Amzi never hurried, and he appeared to be in no haste now. Main Street was pleased that he deliberated. The longer the entertainment lasted the better. The door of the First National had been closed with little difficulty during the diversion afforded by the arrival of the college men, but the steps and sidewalk were filled. Amzi looked over the crowd musingly, and beckoned to Fred.

"Get me a box to stand on and a piece of soap--laundry soap. I want to--"

He waved his cigar toward the window in vague explanation, and Fred dived into a grocery and came back with the articles demanded. Main Street's curiosity had never been so whetted and teased. If it had been any one but Amzi; but it was so unmistakably Amzi! Amzi placed the box under the window and stood upon it. Then with characteristic nonchalance he removed the wrapper from the cake of soap, while the crowd surged and shuffled, filling the street again in its anxiety to miss nothing. Amzi broke the bar of soap in two, and calmly trimmed half of it to serve as a crayon. As he began to write upon the gla.s.s, his guards were hard-pressed to hold back the throng that seemed bent upon pushing the banker through his rival's window. To ease the tension the boys struck up--

"The pirates of the Wabash, A jolly crowd are they."

Amzi wrote slowly, in a large round hand, beginning immediately under the "First National Bank" lettering. The faint tracings of the soap were legible only a few yards away and the yell-leader began reading for the benefit of the crowd. And this was Amzi's announcement:--

I hereby guarantee all deposits in this bank.

Interest on Sycamore Traction bonds will be paid here April 1.

Persons from whom I have bought such bonds may redeem same at price I paid for them, without discount.

A. MONTGOMERY.

When he had completed his first sentence, he paused to inspect it.

Murmurs of astonishment gave way to shouts of approval, and then the street grew silent as the remainder was read word by word.

"Let her go now, for A. Montgo_meree_!" cried the yell-leader, and while necks craned and men jostled and pushed, the students cheered. When Amzi had written, "at the price I paid for them," he made a period, and then, after a moment's reflection, drew out his handkerchief and erased it to add--"without discount."

He threw away the soap and began to retrace his steps, but the whole town seemed now to have ma.s.sed itself in the intersecting streets. The nearest students flung themselves together as an escort, and amid cheers Amzi returned to his own bank, where Phil opened the door and demanded to know what he had been doing to be cheered as only a football hero is cheered when his name is read at commencement.

"Thunder!" said Amzi. "I just wanted to take the gas out of Alec's speech. What are those fools doing now?"

Phil, Fred, and Amzi, with several of the students who had acted as the banker's bodyguard, gathered at the front window. Amzi's announcement that the Sycamore interest would be paid had brought Kirkwood into the minds of many who knew of his efforts to save the company. His name shouted here and there in the street directed attention to his office windows. As a former member of the faculty of Madison, Kirkwood appeared usually on the platform at commencement, and now that he was mentioned the students improvised a cheer for him that Kirkwood's building flung back at Montgomery's Bank. The demonstration continued with increased volume, until finally Kirkwood opened a window and looked down. A shout rose as he appeared. The tears sprang to Phil's eyes as she saw her father's tall figure, his stoop accentuated as he bent under the window.

He had really achieved at last! She only vaguely grasped the import of what Amzi had told her in a few abrupt sentences after his return to the bank, but her heart beat fast at the thought that her father shared in the day's honors. He had been of real service to his fellow-townsmen and they were now demanding a speech. He bowed and vanished; but when the cheering was renewed and long continued, he came back, and when silence fell upon the crowd (Phil wondered if they, too, felt the pathos in him that had always touched her, and which just then brought the tears to her eyes!) he spoke slowly and clearly.

"My friends, this is the best town and its people are the best and kindest people in the world. If I have done anything to win your praise I am glad. This community is bound to prosper, for it is founded, not upon industry and thrift alone, but upon faith and honor and helpfulness; and these, my good friends, are the things that endure forever."

"I couldn't hear that," said Amzi to Phil, as her father disappeared into his office amid the loudest cheers of the day, "but I reckon Tom said about the right thing."

"I'm sure he did," replied Phil, drying her eyes, "and it's all true, too!"

CHAPTER XXIV

THE FORSAKEN GARDEN

It's pleasant, on the whole, to do something worth doing; to make gra.s.s grow where it has never grown before; to put the last touch to a canoe-paddle of exactly the right weight and balance; to bring to something approximating one's ideal of a sound sentence the last stubborn, maddening clutter of words in a ma.n.u.script that has grown from a pen-scratch on the back of an envelope into a potential book. And Tom Kirkwood was not without his sense of satisfaction. He had without litigation straightened the Sycamore Company's financial tangles. Its physical deficiencies were being remedied and its service brought to standard. He had never in his life felt so conscious of his powers. He was out of debt--having paid back two thousand dollars Amzi had loaned him in the fall, after Phil had raised the red flag of danger in their affairs. The load was off his back; men spoke to him in the street with a new cordiality; the "Evening Star," in an excess of emotion following the taking-over of the First National Bank by Amzi and all the moving incidents connected with the drama of Main Street's greatest day,--the "Evening Star" had without the slightest provocation, declared that the Honorable Thomas Kirkwood was just the man for governor. The Desbrosses Trust & Guaranty Company had not only paid him handsomely, but was entrusting him with the rehabilitation of a traction company in Illinois that was not earning dividends.

He came back to Montgomery to try some cases at the April term of court and sent his trunk to the Morton House.

"It isn't square, daddy," said Phil, breaking in upon him at his office on the day of his arrival. "We were to open the house again when you had finished at Indianapolis. And here you are, not even telling me you were coming."

The office was dingier and dustier than ever. She abused him for not at least giving her a chance to clean it against his coming.

"I have to be off again in a week; it didn't seem worth while to put you to the trouble of opening the house just for that," he replied evasively. His own affairs again occupied his mind, and the sight of Phil gave a keen edge to his curiosity as to her life at Amzi's.

"Your new suit is certainly some clothes, and a glimpse of that four-in-hand makes the world a n.o.bler and better place to live in! If the Indianapolis boulevards can do that for you, it's too bad I didn't know it long ago. I have an idea"--and she paused pensively in the act of dusting a chair--"I'm a good deal worried by the idea that you ought to be mussed!"

He pleaded mockingly for mercy, calling attention to her inconsistency in admiring his raiment while at the same time threatening it with destruction.