Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 7, 1922 — page 40: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

186 ness. Benson had even been known to tip off the Sands County people when the bank examiner dropped in out of a clear sky. But something told old Joe that Ed French was likely to stir things up a bit. Already there was a considerable difference in policy between the two institutions. People who dealt with the Benson Bank always felt that old Joe’s personality per- vaded it. To be sure, he had a carefully picked board of directors, and a few small blocks of stock had been parceled out among influential Templetonians who could and did influence business his way; but, to | all intents and purposes, Joe Benson was the Benson Bank, and people knew it. Of course, old Joe was old fashioned. He possessed a tremendous civic pride, and it had always seemed to him that what his bank could do for the community it was in duty bound to do. The bank made money, but that wasn’t Joe’s primary object in run- ning it. He was too shrewd not to make money, but he was too good a citizen of this small industrial center to let acquisi- tiveness dominate his relations with his neighbors. The Sands County Trust & Savings Com- pany, however, had been started, frankly, as a money-making enterprise. It went after business with aggressiveness and de- termination, and got it. But there was very little of the personal in its attitude toward its patrons. That may not be a fault, to be sure. Some people like one thing, some another. As one merchant put it, he didn’t want to have to go and cry down old Joe Benson’s neck to get a couple of thousand dollars to take his discounts. Old Joe knew altogether too much about the affairs of individuals in Templeton; yes, sir! On the evening following young Joe’s declination of the presidency of his fa- ther’s bank the latter brought up the mat- ter again. Joe’s sister Beth was at home; oddly enough, she wasn’t going anywhere, but seemed quite content to sit and read a magazine. I'll tell you a little more about Beth later—what sort of girl she was, and what she looked like, and all that. Just now her father was telling young Joe some- thing about banking. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “Greatest business in the world,” he orated. “Gosh! You deal in money,-~same as a storekeeper deals in groceries or dry goods. Fascinatin’, I tell you. And, say, there never was a time when there was such a chance for developing new business as there is to-day. Here we are, right in the midst of a good, fat farming country. When have the farmers been so prosperous as they’ve been in the last few years? Not so long ago, when you said ‘ farmer,’ you about the same as said ‘ pauper.’ Farmin’ was the hardest, most thankless, unprofit- able thing a man could do. No farmer ever saw ten dollars in cash money from one month’s end to another. Look at the farm- ers to-day. “* And they don’t know, comparatively, a dog-gone thing about what the banks can do for ’em. Not around here; of course, in some communities they have learned a little ahead of the rest of us. ‘““'The country hereabouts is pretty near virgin territory. I’ve never had time to develop it—bank grew too fast as it was. I could of done a lot if I’d wanted to. Now, with our new building, and better fa- cilities—and, incidentally, increased over- head—we can take care of all the farmer business we can get. “And, by the way, it isn’t so terrible easy to get. A farmer isa funny bird. He doesn’t fall for new ideas very easy, and— apparently—he’s cagey with his money. He hangs onto it, and gets suspicious of every one who looks cross-eyed @# his pocket- book; and then, like as not, he buys a whole boilin’ of stock in the Lucky Jinx Oil Com- pany from some total stranger with a plaid suit and a diamond scarfpin. Same time, he wouldn’t buy a block of the safest bonds ever issued. “You got to study him and work your way into his confidence. He’s hard to teach, but he learns his lesson well, and he’s well worth the trouble, if you’re pa- tient. Anybody that ’d make a special study of farmers and their peculiarities and needs would find a dozen ways of servin’ ’em, helpin’ the community, and at the same time making a good thing out of the busi- ness that would develop.” ‘“ What’s the matter with Garvin?” asked comicboooks C©