Part 8 (2/2)
The Little Woman bought many papers during the day. In some of them early stock quotations were printed in red, so it might be truly said that these were red-letter days for the Little Woman. When she heard ”_Extra!_” being shouted in the street far below she could not dispossess herself of the idea that it had been issued to announce a sensational advance of the Stock. Even as late as ten o'clock one night she insisted on my going down for one, though I explained that the Stock Exchange had closed some seven hours before. The Precious Ones fairly kept the elevator busy during the afternoon, going for extras, and when the final Wall Street edition was secured they would come shouting in,
”Here it is. Look at the Stock, quick, Mamma, and see how much we've made to-day!”
Truly this was a gilded age; though I confess that it did not seem quite real, and looking back now the memory of it seems less pleasant than that of some of the very hard epochs that had gone before. Still, it occupies a place all its own and is not without value in life's completed scheme.
The Stock did not go to fifty. It limped before it got to forty, and we began to be hara.s.sed by paltry fractional advances, with even an occasional fractional decline. We did not approve of this. It was annoying to look in the Wall Street edition and find that we had made only twelve dollars and a half, instead of a hundred or two, as had been the case in the beginning. We even thought of selling Calfskin Common and buying a stock that would not act that way; but my friend of the exchange advised against it. He said this was merely a temporary thing, and that fifty and a hundred would come along in good time. He adjusted the stop-loss for us so that there was no danger of the Stock being sold on a temporary decline, and we sat down to wait and watch the papers while the Stock gathered strength for a new upward rush that was sure to come, and would place us in a position to gratify a good many of the ambitions lately formed.
A feverish and nerve-destroying ten days followed. The Stock had become to us as a personal Presence that we watched as it stumbled and struggled and panted, and dug its common Calfskin toes into things in a frantic effort to scale the market. I know now that the men who had organized the deal were boasting and shouting, and beating the air in their wild encouragement, while those who opposed it were hammering, and throttling and flinging mud, in as wild an effort to check and demoralize and destroy. At the time, however, we caught only the echo of these things, and believed as did our friend on the exchange, that a great capitalist was in control of Calfskin Common and would send it to par.
Only we wished he would send it faster. We did not like to fool along this way, an eighth up and an eighth, or a quarter down, and all uncertainty and tension. Besides, we needed our accruing profits to meet our heavily increased expenses which were by no means easy to dispose of with our normal income, improved though it was with time and tireless effort.
Indeed, most of the eighths and quarters presently seemed to be in the wrong direction. It was no fun to lose even twelve dollars and a half a day and keep it up. The Presence in the household was in delicate health. It needed to be coddled and pampered, and the strain of it told on us. The Little Woman developed an anxious look, and grew nervous and feverish at the clamor of an ”extra.” Sometimes I heard her talking ”plus” and ”minus” and ”points” in her sleep and knew that she had taken the Stock to bed with her.
The memory of our old quiet life in the Suns.h.i.+ne and Monte Cris...o...b..gan to grow in sweetness beside this sordid and gilded existence in the Apollo. The ma.s.sive portals and towering masonry which at first had been as a solid foundation for genuine respectability began to seem gloomy and overpowering, and lacking in the true home spirit we had found elsewhere. The smartly dressed and mannered people who rode up and down with us on the elevator did not seem quite genuine, and their complexions were not always real. It may have been the condition of the Stock that disheartened us and made their lives as well as ours seem artificial. I don't know. I only know that I began to have a dim feeling that we would have been happier if we had been satisfied with our oriental rugs and antique furniture, and the remnant of the Sum, without the acquaintance of the Stock and the fallen n.o.bleman below stairs. But, as I have said, all things have their place and value, I suppose, and our regrets, if they were that, have long since been dissipated, with the things that made them possible.
Quickly, as they had come, they pa.s.sed, and were not. I was working busily one morning in my south front study when the Little Woman entered hurriedly. It was late April and our windows were open, but being much engaged I had not noticed the cries of ”extra!” that floated up from the street below. It was these that had brought the Little Woman, however, and she leaned out to look and listen.
”They are calling out something about stocks and Wall Street,” she said, ”I am sure of it. Go down and see, quick! Calfskin Common must have gone to a hundred!”
”Oh, pshaw!” I laughed, ”it's only the a.s.sa.s.sination of a king, or something. You're excited and don't hear right.”
Still, I did go down, and I fumed at the elevator-boy for being so slow to answer, though I suppose he was prompt enough. The ”extra” callers had pa.s.sed by the time I got to the street, but I chased and caught them. Then I ran all the way back to the Apollo, and plunged into the elevator that was just starting heavenward.
I suppose I looked pretty white when I rushed in where the Little Woman was waiting. But the type that told the dreadful tale was red enough, in all conscience. There it was, in daubed vermilion, for the whole world and the Little Woman to see.
”PANIC ON WALL STREET.
”Break in Leather stocks causes general decline. Calfskin Common falls twenty points in ten minutes. Three failures and more to come!”
Following this was a brief list of the most sensational drops and the names of the failing firms. For a moment we stared at each other, speechless. Then the Little Woman recovered voice.
”Oh,” she gasped, ”we've caused a panic!”
”No,” I panted, ”but we're in one!”
”And we'll lose everything! People always do in panics, don't they?”
I nodded gloomily.
”A good many do. That is, unless----”
”But the stop-loss!” she remembered joyfully, ”we've got a stop-loss!”
”That's so!” I a.s.sented, ”the stop-loss! Our stock is already sold--that is if the stop-loss worked.”
”But you know you said it worked automatically.”
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