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"Their boom is our bust," was McPhail’s comment.

"I don’t think so," said Sanford, who had entered in time to hear these last two speeches. They all looked at him with deep interest. He was a smallish man. He wore a derby hat and a neat suit. "I’ve looked things over pretty close–a man don’t like to invest his capital" (here the rest looked at one another) "till he does; and I believe there’s an opening for a bank. "

As he dwelt upon the scheme from day to day, the citizens, warmed to him, and he became "Jim" Sanford. He hired a little cottage and went to housekeeping at once; but the entire summer went by before he made his decision to settle. In fact, it was in the last week of August that the little paper announced it in the usual style:

Mr. James G. Sanford, popularly known as "Jim," has decided to open an’ exchange bank for the convenienee of our citizens, who have hitherto been forced to transact business in Lumberville. The thanks of the town are due Mr. Sanford, who comes well recommended from Massachusetts and from Milwaukee, and, better still, with a bag of ducats. Mr. S. will be well patronized. Success, Jim!

The bank was open by the time the corn crop and the hogs were being marketed, and money was received on deposit while the carpenters were still at work on the building. Everybody knew now that he was as solid as oak.

He had taken into the bank, as bookkeeper, Lincoln Bingham, one of McPhail’s multitudinous nephews; and this was a capital move. Everybody knew Link, and knew he was a McPhail, which meant that he "could be tied to in all kinds o’ weather. " Of course the McPhails, McIlvaines, and the rest of the Scotch contingency " banked on Link. " As old Andrew McPhail put it:

"Link’s there, an’ he knows the bank an’ books, an’ just how things stand"; and so when he sold his hogs he put the whole sum–over fifteen hundred dollars–into the bank. The McIlvaines and the Binghams did the same, and the bank was at once firmly established among the farmers.

Only two people held out against Sanford, old Freeme Cole and Mrs. Bingham, Lincoln’s mother; but they didn’t count, for Freeme hadn’t a cent, and Mrs. Bingham was too unreasoning in her opposition. She could only say:

"I don’t like him, that’s all. I knowed a man back in New York that curled his mustaches just that way, an’ he wa’n’t no earthiy good. "

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.