17
In school, it was impossible to concentrate.
Although I was trying my best to learn, my mind was in commotion, rumbling like a threatening storm. All I thought about was one worry. Our farm.
Becky Lee Tate brought a extra-size noon bag, as she often did, then politely claimed that her appetite was off feed. We both realized the ruse to stuff food into me. Yet we didn’t discuss it. Becky refused to be thanked. Nevertheless, I ate in silent gratefulness.
As we sat together, I couldn’t talk to her. My mind wasn’t at school. It was home. Without closing my eyes I could see our little orchard. Four trees and four graves: A cousin. My brothers, Charles and Edward. And my father, Haven Peck.
How would I tell Mama and Aunt Carrie that we could no longer hold the land that held our dear?
“Thanks to you, I didn’t fail at school. But since Papa died, I certain did as a farmer.”
Becky took my hand.
“Nobody’s a failure at thirteen,” she said. “Allow yourself a chance. Even if you might have to give up farming or lose the place, it doesn’t mean you stop living.” She paused. “It makes poor sense to burn all your woodpile before the weather quits at winter.”
“Today,” I said, “might prove to be tougher than I am.”
Then I told Becky Lee about what I was having to face after school. Going to the bank. Hoping I’d be man enough to handle matters.
“Walk in tall, Rob. A bank is only a building. Hold your head up high and be the gentleman you always are.” She poked my ribs. “Well, almost always.”
My last period was a study hall, supervised by Miss Malcolm. Explaining that I had important banking to do, I asked her to be excused early.
“Go,” she said, “and be Ivanhoe.”
After leaving the school, I got to appreciating all of the good people I’d come to know. So many. Their faces appeared, smiling, one by each. Wealth, I was concluding, wasn’t money. Losing friends would be more painful than losing a farm.
Inside the bank, I yanked off my wool mittens and hat, then asked a woman at the first desk if I could please see Mr. Gamp. I give her my name.
“He’s very busy,” she said. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No, ma’am. Not really. But …”
“Then I’ll take your telephone number.” She smiled. “As soon as Mr. Gamp has a vacancy in his schedule, we’ll contact you.”
“We don’t have a telephone. Our place is over a mile uproad. I go to school weekdays, and it don’t recess before the bank closes at three o’clock. Please let me see Mr. Gamp. He wants to see me. Just yesterday, he told Mr. Porter Ferguson that I ought to stop by here.”
“Well … all right. You wait here, young man, while I go back and check to see if Mr. Gamp is available.”
She marched away. A minute or so later, to my surprise, Mr. Gamp returned with her, extended a hand, and then guided me to his office.
“Please have a chair,” he said.
We both sat.
“Robert,” he said, “in the past, you and I have had a few unpleasant meetings. Today will be one more.”
Right then, I wanted to leave. Jump out of his big leathery chair and escape out the door.
“Believe me,” he said, “I take no personal pleasure in any foreclosure. Unfortunately, a bank is often the instrument that separates a family from a home. And it’s worse when the home is a farm.”
“Then we are going to lose it?”
Mr. Gamp nodded. “In these matters, I alone do not decide. The board does. The action we take is not motivated by meanness. Instead, it’s responsibility.” He removed his glasses to wipe the lenses and left them off. “Lately, I have been working at this desk seven days a week, long hours, trying to keep the town’s one bank on firm footing.” He sighed. “It’s uphill plowing.”
Recalling what Mr. Ferguson had told me about other banks closing their doors, I believed what Mr. Gamp was saying. He looked tired, and worried.
“We have a duty to our depositors as well as to shareholders. We are a mutual trust. That means that many local citizens own the bank in common. In a sense, you are one of them. If our bank fails, it would be a calamity to the entire village, to the paper mill, for everyone.”
“I understand, Mr. Gamp. But I have to find out what’s going to happen to us.”
“First off, allow me to say that there’s always existed a respect in Learning for your father. And also for you. During your first visit, you placed twelve dollar bills here.” His finger tapped the desk. “You probably thought that I coldly scooped up those dollars with little concern for your hardship. Sometimes, I confess, I’m overly abrupt. We are in hard times. Nonetheless, our bank enjoys no pleasure in squeezing good people.”
“In other words,” I said, “it’s a matter of choices.”
“Yes. That’s very perceptive. Robert, our bank has to survive. Circumstances are forcing us to act. We, as a business, can see no possible alternative. No way that you Pecks can continue to skid deeper into debt.”
“This isn’t too easy to take.”
“No. It is not. And if you doubt that the bank regrets its action, I can’t blame you. But someday, after you’re fully grown to manhood, I may be no longer around. Yet there will still be a bank here, a place of commerce where you’ll be able to conduct business. A bank to make loans to merchants and farmers that perpetuate a thriving community.”
“What’s going to happen, sir?”
“The bank is taking your farm.”
“Couldn’t we get some sort of a loan?”
“You already had one. That’s what a mortgage is. Thus a secondary mortgage is not feasible.”
I nodded. “Mr. Ferguson sort of warned me. But I guess I had to come and hear it direct.”
“That’s the nutshell. The land will be put up for public auction. When the sale to a new owner is approved and legally completed, equity funds will be placed in a bank account in your name. It won’t be much, because it’s only five acres, and the market is meager. Few buyers.”
“I understand, sir.”
“I’m glad you do.”
Mr. Gamp stood, as a signal for me to leave. Our business was over. So I stood as well and then offered him a handshake. He walked me to his door. It was surprising when he put a hand on my shoulder.
“A lot of people,” he said, “think that I’m the meanest snake in town. After what I’ve just done to you, I’m convinced they’re right.”
“You had to do it, Mr. Gamp.”
“Yes,” he said, “I truly did.”
Ferguson’s Feed & Seed was a place I had to pass on the way home. In need of seeing a friendly face, I popped in. There was also another reason for a visit.
“Mr. Ferguson,” I asked him, “now that you’ve had a chance to consider, do you still want us to live upstairs? I hope so. We got nowheres else to go.”
He smiled. “Yup. Deal’s a deal.”
“Sir, we’ll soon be coming. Three of us.”
“You’ll be welcomed.”