The Darling Dahlias and the Silver Dollar Bush

Nobody had to ask what Earlynne meant by “the situation everywhere.” For almost three years, the nation had been plagued by a series of bank panics—“runs,” they were called. People would hear that their bank was in trouble and rush to withdraw their money, which naturally meant that the bank really was in trouble. Everybody hoped that things would get better after President Roosevelt took office, but they hadn’t—at least, not yet. The president had decided to close all the national banks in the country until the bank examiners figured out how many assets each bank really had on its books, now that so many factories had closed and businesses had gone bankrupt. Some banks were sound enough to reopen quickly without any help, while others needed a bailout from the Federal Reserve. And there were others that would never open again. Lots of people had been urging President Hoover to set up some kind of federal deposit insurance, so that people’s money wouldn’t go down the drain when their bank closed. But President Hoover hadn’t done it—and it wasn’t clear that President Roosevelt would do it, either. If your bank failed, you were just out of luck. Your money was gone. Gone forever.

But Mr. Johnson had always said that the Darling Savings and Trust was as sound as a gold dollar. And when the president’s official bank holiday was over, back in March, Mr. Johnson was proved right. The Darling Savings and Trust had sailed through the storm like a proud ship, all flags flying. Until last week, that is, when the bank examiners showed up again, and somebody hung the CLOSED sign on the front door and—

“Tar and feathers?” Lizzy whispered to herself, thinking that maybe she should call Mr. Moseley and tell him about this new development. She glanced at Verna, wondering if she would have an opinion about this, and was surprised to see an uncharacteristically wrinkled forehead and a worried look. Verna knew something, Lizzy realized, and whatever it was, it wasn’t pleasant. She probably wouldn’t tell them, either.

But Verna did say something. “Oh, I don’t think it’ll come to that,” she remarked casually.

“Tar and feathers,” Earlynne repeated bitterly, as if Verna hadn’t spoken. “He’ll be lucky if that’s all they do to that—” She shook her head disgustedly. “I’m too much of a lady to say the word I’m thinking.”

Bessie chuckled wryly. “It’s the same word I’m thinking, Earlynne.” Her voice dropped and she sighed heavily. “I just don’t know how any of us are going to manage.”

The others sat silent over their tea and cookies, and even Verna didn’t look at all happy. Like it or not, Bessie was right.

Because the truth was that the whole, entire town of Darling, Alabama, was very nearly out of something that everybody in the world had to have in order to just get along.

They were out of money. Totally, terribly out of money.





TWO


The Root of All Evil



Charlie Dickens unlocked the front door of the Darling Dispatch and print shop and went inside, pulling in a deep lungful of the perfume of printers’ ink and solvents and newsprint that smacked everybody right in the face the minute they walked in. And which, if you were a newspaperman, was more seductive than any woman’s perfume, anywhere, anytime. His father, who had owned the Dispatch before Charlie took it over, always said that once you got that smell in your blood—and on your hair and your clothes—you were a goner. You’d be a newspaperman until your dying day.

But Charlie knew for damned sure that printers’ ink in your blood was no guarantee of happiness, for he himself was not a happy man. Never had been and never would be, especially now. He closed the door and locked it, then yanked down the blind across the front window, shutting out the light and the curious glances of anybody who might be walking past.

Of course, everybody knew that the Dispatch and print shop was closed on Saturdays. But the building was on the town square, right on Franklin Street, with Hancock’s Grocery and the Palace Theater to the west, Musgrove’s Hardware and the Darling Diner to the east, and the courthouse across the street. And Saturday was the biggest trading day of the week. It was the day the farmers and their wives and their half-dozen kids piled into the Tin Lizzie or hitched up the mule and put everybody and the dog in the wagon and drove to town to trade their butter and eggs for coffee and flour and sugar and maybe even a Tootsie Roll apiece for the kids, if they minded their manners and didn’t sass.