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The youngest of a large family, Link had been accustomed all his life to Mrs. Biugham’s many whimsicalities.

"I s’pose you can smell he’s a thief, just as you can tell when it’s goin’ to rain, or the butter’s comin’, by the smell. "

"Well, you needn’t laugh, Lincoln. I can," maintained the old lady stoutly. "An’ I ain’t goin’ to put a red cent o my money into his pocket–f’r there’s where it ‘ud go to. "

She yielded at last, and received a little bankbook in return for her money. "Jest about all I’ll ever get," she said privately; and thereafter out of her’ brass-bowed spectac
les with an eagle’s gaze she watched the banker go by. But the banker, seeing the dear old soul at the window looking out at him, always smiled and bowed, unaware of her suspicion.

At the end of the year he bought the lot next to his rented house and began building one of his own, a modest little affair, shaped like a pork pie with a cupola, or a Tam o’Shanter cap–a style of architecture which became fashionable at once.

He worked heroically to get the location of the plow factory at Bluff Siding, and all but succeeded; but Tyre, once their ally, turned against them, and refused to consider the fact of the Siding’s position at the center of the county. However, for some reason or other, the town woke up to something of a boom during the next two years. Several large farmers decided to retire and live off the sweat of some other fellow’s brow, and so built some houses of the pork-pie order and moved into town.

This inflow of moneyed men from the country resulted in the establishment of a "seminary of learning" on the hillside, where the Soldiers’ Home was to be located. This called in more farmers from the country, and a new hotel was built, a sash-and-door factory followed, and Burt McPhail set up a feed mill.

An this improvement unquestionably dated, from the opening of the bank, and the most unreasonmg partisans of the banker held him to be the chief cause of the resulting development of the town, though he himself modestly disclaimed any hand in the affair.

Had Bluff Siding been a city, the highest civic honors would have been open to Banker Sanford; indeed, his name was repeatedly mentioned in connection with the county offices.

"No, gentlemen," he explained firmly, but courteously, in Wilson’s store one night; "I’m a banker, not a politician. I can’t ride two horses. "

In the second year of the bank’s history he went up to the north part of the state on business, visiting West Superior, Duluth, Ashland, and other booming towns, and came back full of the wonders of what he saw.

"There’s big money up there, Nell," he said to his wife.

But she had the woman’s tendency to hold fast to what she had, and would not listen to any plans about moving.

"Build up your business here, Jim, and don’t worry about what good chances there are somewhere else. "

He said no more about it, but he took great interest in all the news the "boys" brought back from their annual deer hunts "up North. " They were all enthusiastic over West Superior and Duluth, and their wonderful development was the never-ending theme of discussion in Wilson’s store.

II

The first two years of the bank’s history were solidly successful, and "Jim" and "Nellie" were the head and front of all good works and the provoking cause of most of the fun. No one seemed more carefree.

"We consider ourselves just as young as anybody," Mrs. Sanford would say, when joked about going out with the young people so much; but sometirnes at home, after the children were asleep, she sighed a little.