“Oh, Hume, I’ll bet you have plenty of time for your lady friends, don’t you?”
He blushed and glanced around, as if seeking a quick exit. “Well, now, sometimes it gets busy at the store.”
“Don’t pay any attention to her, Hume,” I told him. “That’s just for my benefit. I’ve been neglecting her lately.”
Hume Baxter spread out his drop cloths and opened the can of pink paint. “Well, now,” he replied, entering into the banter, “I don’t rightly see how anyone could be too busy for you, Miss Miranda.”
“Thank you, Hume. You’re a sweetheart!”
“You send me a bill for this paintin’,” Vera told him. “I’ll see to it the government pays.”
“Sure will, Vera. I pay enough taxes. If l can get something back from them I’ll take it.”
He set to work with his paint brush while Vera opened the sack of morning mail and began sorting it into the pigeonholes behind the counter.
“Guess we’ll be going along,” I said, “and leave you to your work, Vera.”
“Might as well wait another few minutes, Doc, and you can take your mail along.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said, “if you don’t mind us cluttering up your new place.”
“I think I’ll wait for my mail too,” Miranda decided. She was working afternoons at the hospital as a nurse’s aide, but I knew her mornings were free.
Hume Baxter had started painting at the front, working back toward the counter. “What did you think of the World Series, Doc?” he asked. “Never thought them Athletics would beat the Cubs.” Philadelphia had defeated Chicago in four out of five games the previous week.
“I only got to hear part of one game on the radio,” I admitted. “It was a busy week for me.”
Our conversation was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Anson Waters, the town banker and one of our most distinguished citizens — except that he wasn’t looking too distinguished at the moment. He carried a thin manila envelope as he hurried up to the counter.
“Land sakes, Mr. Waters,” Vera Brock said, “you certainly look flustered this morning.”
“Haven’t you heard the news? The stock market is collapsing again! My broker just telephoned me from New York.”
I was vaguely aware from the newspaper that there’d been heavy losses in the market on Monday, and again on Wednesday, but it had seemed then to be a world apart from my existence. I couldn’t help thinking that while Baxter talked of the World Series and Waters of the stock market, my world was different from theirs.
“What’s happening?” Miranda asked him.
“It’s a panic down on Wall Street,” the banker informed her. “The scene on the stock exchange floor is so wild they’ve closed the visitors’ gallery. And the ticker tape is so far behind actual sales that nobody knows what’s happening. My broker needs cash from me to cover some stock I bought on margin.”
“I can’t help you there,” Vera told him in her joking way. “This here’s just a post office. Unless maybe he’ll take stamps.”
“It’s nothing funny, Vera.” He handed her the envelope. “This is addressed to my broker. It contains a railroad bearer bond in the amount of ten thousand dollars. I want to register this and mail it. He must have it by tomorrow—”
“I can’t promise that,” Vera told him.
“—or by Saturday morning at the latest. It’s a short session on Saturday, so he’d need it before noon.”
Vera was busy stamping the envelope and making an entry in her register. “This bond is negotiable?”
“That’s right. My broker can cash it at once.”
“Dangerous thing to send through the mails.”
“That’s why I want it registered.”
“You said the value was ten thousand?”
“That’s correct.”
She totaled up the postage and registry fee and he paid them. Then Vera turned and placed the envelope on the desk behind her for special handling.
“You think the panic will last?” I asked Waters.
“If it does the whole country’s in trouble. It could even throw us into a depression. The banking structure of this country is in bad shape, and I’m the first to admit it.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” I said.
“I hope so too.” He pocketed his registry receipt and headed for the door. “I have to get back to the telephone. I only pray things haven’t gotten worse in the last half hour.”
Vera bustled around behind the counter, sorting more of the morning’s mail. “Land sakes, people like Anson Waters spend so much time watchin’ their money they don’t have time to enjoy it.”
“That’s the most unsettled I’ve ever seen him,” April admitted. “In the bank he’s usually like an iceberg.”
“Maybe we should be glad we’re not rich,” Hume Baxter said. He was making good progress with the painting and was over half finished already.
Vera completed the last of the sorting. “Well, now, I can give you your mail, Doc. And yours too, Miranda. Just one letter for you today.”
I took the little stack she handed me and glanced through it. There was nothing of importance, only a couple of bills and an announcement that a new salesman would be calling on me from one of the pharmaceutical houses. “This too,” Vera said, and reached across the counter with a weekly medical journal to which I subscribed. My parents had given me my first subscription when I graduated from medical school, and I’d been getting it ever since.
April and Miranda and I were starting for the door when it opened to admit the formidable bulk of Sheriff Lens, carrying a large cardboard box tied with stout cord. “Morning, folks,” he greeted us, making for the counter. He stopped almost at once and stared at the walls. “Pink?” he asked of no one in particular.
“Yes, pink!” Vera shot back. “I’m not taking any guff from you today, Sheriff. State your business and be gone!”
“I gotta mail this box off to Washington,” he said meekly. “It’s got some bottles in it that’re evidence in a bootlegging case.”
Vera lifted the middle section of the counter and opened a doorway that allowed him to pass through.
“Bring it back here,” she ordered. “I’m not goin’ to be lifting heavy boxes around.”
He did as he was told and set the box on her desk. “This okay?”
“Not on my desk, you old fool!” Her voice was so sharp that Sheriff Lens jerked the box off her desk and took a few steps back the way he’d come, almost tripping over Hume’s drop cloth. Vera sighed and said, “I’m sorry. Put it on this back shelf, Sheriff.”
He followed her instructions and deposited his burden on the shelf by the pigeonholes. “Sorry I offended you, Vera. I’m just tryin’ to do my job.”
“I’m too edgy this morning,” she admitted. “Opening this new place and all is a lot of work.”
“That’s all right, Vera,” Sheriff Lens told her with uncharacteristic restraint. “I understand.”
“I finished your paint job,” Hume Baxter announced, gathering up his drop cloths. “Don’t get too near the wall till it dries.” He bent to touch up a spot that he’d missed just above the floor level and near the counter as Vera came out to inspect his work.
“A right fine job, Hume, and much faster than I could ever have done it. What does the government owe you for it?”
“Couldn’t charge more than five dollars, Vera. I was here less than an hour.”
“Bill me for ten — it’s worth it. I’ll see that you get it.”
Once more the women and I started to leave, but this time we found the doorway blocked by the return of Anson Waters. The little banker seemed even more distraught than before. “I’m being wiped out!” he screamed. “U.S. Steel’s down twelve points!” In his hand he carried an engraved bond of some sort.