Читать книгу Oliver October - George Barr McCutcheon - Страница 6

Table of Contents

He opened the door and was confronted by a pair of total strangers—a man and a woman, bundled up to the ears and tracking snow all over the kitchen floor. A tall man with short black whiskers and a frail little woman with red, wind-smitten cheeks and a nose from which depended a globular bit of moisture.

Mr. Sikes stared at the couple and they stared at him.

“I’ve been knocking at the front door for ten minutes,” said the man, thickly.

“So we finally had to come to the kitchen door,” added the woman, eyeing Mr. Sikes accusingly.

“Isn’t there anybody here to answer the front door?” demanded her companion.

“I don’t seem to recollect locking it,” said Mr. Sikes, stiffening perceptibly. He did not like the tone or the manner of these strangers. “There wasn’t anything to stop you from turning the knob, was there, and walkin’ right in—same as you did out here?”

“We are not in the habit of walking into people’s houses like that,” said the black-whiskered man, somewhat tartly. “Come on, Ida; let’s go into the sitting-room.”

“Just a second,” interposed Mr. Sikes. “I’m sort of in charge here and I guess I’ll have to ask who you are.”

“I am Oliver Baxter’s sister,” said the red-nosed woman, “and this is my husband, Mr. Gooch. We drove all the way over here to take charge of things for my brother during his—”

“Seems to me I smell rubber burning,” broke in Mr. Gooch, sniffing vigorously. His eye fell upon the cigar that Mr. Sikes was holding between his thumb and forefinger.

Mr. Sikes took umbrage. He stepped forward and held the cigar close to Mr. Gooch’s nose.

“Smell it,” he said, as the other jerked his head back in surprise. “That’s as good a cigar as you can get anywhere on earth for ten cents—and it only costs five.”

“I—I am not a smoker,” Mr. Gooch made haste to explain, being a trifle overcome by Joseph’s far from ingratiating manner.

“Well, I’m just telling you,” announced Joseph, inserting the cigar between his back teeth with a somewhat challenging abruptness. “You say you’re Ollie’s relations?”

“Yes; I am his sister. I want to see him at once. Where is he?”

“Well, I guess if you are his sister you’d better come into the sitting-room and take your things off,” said Mr. Sikes grudgingly. “I’ve heard him speak of some folks of his living over in Hopkinsville.” He led the way into the sitting-room. “Make yourselves to home. I guess maybe Ollie will be down after while, unless he’s gone to bed. He’s all wore out. And I might as well tell you first as last,” he went on pointedly, “he’s occupying the only spare bedroom they’ve got in the house, so I don’t see how I can ask you to stay the night.”

Mrs. Gooch paused in the act of unwinding a thick scarf from her neck. She gave Mr. Sikes a “look.”

“Are you the undertaker?” she demanded.

“The—the what? Good gosh, no!”

“Well, how do you happen to be running things if you are not? You act as if—”

“When did Mary die?” asked Mr. Gooch, throwing his great ulster upon the dining-table.

“She ain’t dead,” was all the astonished Mr. Sikes could say. “Not by a long sight.”

“Well, of all the—” began Mr. Gooch, compressing his lips. “And we drove nearly eighteen miles through all this dodgasted weather to be a support and a comfort to Ollie Baxter in his trouble. You say she ain’t dead?”

“Certainly not. Whatever put that notion in your head?”

“We had a telegram along about noon signed by Oliver, saying his wife was not expected to live through the day. All hope had been given up,” said Mrs. Gooch, beginning to cry.

“That’s just like the derned fool,” said Mr. Sikes. “He can’t believe his own eyes, he’s so excited. Why, Mary and the baby are both as lively as crickets. I heard—”

“The baby?” fell simultaneously from the lips of Mr. and Mrs. Gooch. Both mouths remained open.

“What baby?” added Mrs. Gooch, spreading her tear-drenched eyes.

“Why, her’s and Ollie’s—Say, didn’t you know they had a baby this morning?”

“A baby?” gasped the lady, incredulously.

“But we didn’t know they were expecting one,” said her husband, scowling. “Mighty strange Oliver never even mentioned—”

“Are you telling the truth?” demanded Mrs. Gooch. “Or are you just trying to be funny?”

Mr. Sikes removed the cigar from his jaws. “It’s nothing to me, ma’am, whether you believe it or not,” said he.

Baxter’s brother-in-law allowed his gaze to roam around the room. “Maybe we’re in the wrong house, Ida,” he said. “We haven’t been in Rumley since Oliver set up housekeeping. Like as not, that feller down at the drug store gave us the wrong—”

“This is Oliver Baxter’s house,” said Sikes shortly. “He moved in here the day after the wedding, and he ain’t moved out of it since, far as I know.”

“And who are you?” inquired Mr. Gooch.

“Me? My name is Sikes, Joseph Sikes. I’m Ollie’s best friend, if you want to know. I stood up with him when he was married, and I’ve been standin’ up for him ever since. If you’ve got anything nasty to say about Oliver Baxter, I guess you’d better not say it in my hearin’, Mr. Gooch.”

“I have no intention of saying anything nasty about my wife’s brother,” retorted Mr. Gooch.

“I know all about you,” said Mr. Sikes, replacing his cigar and scowling darkly. “I’ve heard Ollie speak of you a hundred times. He ain’t got any use for you.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Mrs. Gooch.

“Well, I don’t mind telling you,” said Mr. Gooch, bridling, “I haven’t any use for him. I never did take any stock in brother-in-laws, anyhow, and that’s why I’ve never had anything to do with Baxter. You can tell him—”

“I guess you’re forgettin’ that you are a brother-in-law yourself, ain’t you?” interrupted Mr. Sikes, with a most offensive snigger.

“Are you trying to pick a quarrel with my husband?”

“As I said before,” explained Mr. Sikes, “I am Ollie Baxter’s best friend, and I certainly ain’t going to allow anybody like a brother-in-law to come in here at a time like this and get off any insinuations. This is the happiest day of Ollie Baxter’s life—that is, it will be when he gets his right senses back—and it ain’t going to be spoiled, not even behind his back, if I can help it. Especially by a brother-in-law.”

“The man has been drinking,” said Mrs. Gooch, sniffing the air.

“You’re right,” confessed Joseph promptly. “I’ve had a couple of good swigs out of this pint, and I’m proud of it. It helps me to say what I think about people that Ollie Baxter don’t like. I’ve been waitin’ for nearly ten years to tell you what I think of you, Mr. Gooch, for the way you acted toward Ollie when he tried to get his sister here to help pay for a tombstone for their father’s grave, and you—”

“I’ll thank you to mind your own business,” exclaimed Mr. Gooch loudly.

“I don’t want to be thanked for it,” shouted Mr. Sikes. “It’s my business to tell you a few things about yourself, so don’t thank me.”

“Oh, my goodness!” wailed Mrs. Gooch. “In my own brother’s house, too. I never was so insulted in all my life. Oliver! Oliver, where are you? Come down here and order this man out of your house.”

“No use yellin’ for Oliver,” said Mr. Sikes. “He won’t hear you.” Then he swallowed hard. “Come to think of it, I guess I ought to apologize, ma’am. Which I hereby do. I haven’t had much sleep lately, worrying over this joyous occasion, and I guess I’m a bit crusty. I hereby welcome you to Ollie’s house, speaking in his place, and ask you to have a chair over here by the stove. You can sit down too if you want to, Mr. Gooch. To show you there’s no hard feelings on this joyous occasion, I’ll even go so far as to ask you to have a drink out of this bottle. It’s—”

“My husband does not drink,” said Mrs. Gooch, stiffly.

“You might let him off just this once,” pleaded Mr. Sikes, tactlessly.

Horace Gooch frowned. “I’ve never touched a drop of intoxicating liquid in my life, sir.”

Sikes opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, choked the words off, and then offered the following substitute: “Terrible weather for this time of year, ain’t it?”

There was no response to this conciliating commonplace, nor to the invitation to sit down. Mrs. Gooch, having divested herself of coat, scarf, bonnet and overshoes, was straightening her hair before the looking-glass, while her husband surveyed the room and its contents with the disdainful air of one used to much better things.

You could tell by the expression on his face that the floor of his parlor was covered by a gorgeous Brussels instead of the many-hued rag carpet that served Oliver Baxter and his wife; and where they had old-fashioned horse-hair chairs and a sofa, he possessed articles so handsomely done in plush that it was almost a sin to occupy them. If he had not come directly from contact with a biting wind, one might have been justified in construing his frequent and audible sniffs as of scorn rather than of necessity. He was a tall, lank man with narrow shoulders, narrow face, and a pair of extremely narrow black eyes. He typified prosperity of the meaner kind. Over in Hopkinsville, Horace Gooch was considered the richest and the stingiest man in town. He was what is commonly called a “tax shark,” deriving a lucrative and obnoxious income through his practice of buying up real estate at tax-sales and holding it until it was redeemed by the hard-pressed owner, or, as it happened in many instances, acquiring the property under a provision of the state law then in operation, whereby after a prescribed lapse of time he was enabled to secure a tax deed in his own name. He also trafficked in chattel mortgages.

No one, not even his fellow church members, had ever been known to get the better of him. It must be said for him, however, he went to church twice every Sunday and invariably did his share toward spreading the gospel by dropping a noisy quarter into the collection plate at both services. And so astute a business man was he that he never was without the proper change. His brother-in-law called him a “blood-sucking skinflint,” and it is not in the power of the teller of this tale to improve upon that except by quoting from the unprintable opinions of his victims.

Mrs. Gooch was Oliver’s only sister, and had married Horace Gooch when in her teens. At thirty-eight she was still wondering if she was really good enough for him and if he had not made a mistake in marrying her when there were so many other girls he might have had for the asking. Sometimes Horace made her feel that he could have done better. At any rate, she was never allowed to be in doubt as to what he thought of all the other Baxters, living or dead. They were as “common as dirt.” At first it was difficult for her to be ashamed of Oliver without being equally disgusted with herself, but as time went on and she became more and more of a Gooch this irritating sensitiveness eased off into a state of contemptuous pity for her insignificant brother. His marriage to a toll-gate keeper’s daughter sent him down several pegs in her estimation, notwithstanding Mr. Gooch’s sarcastic contention that Oliver had wedded far above his station—indeed, he went on to say, he didn’t believe it possible for Oliver to find any one beneath his station, no matter how hard he tried or how far he looked.

And yet when word came by wire that there was to be a death in the family, Ida Gooch overlooked everything and hastened to her brother’s side, drawn not so much by sisterly affection as by the desire to take an active and public part in any family sorrow or bereavement. Having looked forward, over eighteen miles of wind-swept highways, to a house of grief, she was not only shocked but secretly annoyed to find that life instead of death had visited the humble home of her brother. She knew she would never hear the last of it from Horace, who hated babies. They had no children of their own.

But now that she was here, she was determined to make the most of the situation.

“I shall take charge here,” she announced to Mr. Sikes. “Is this the way upstairs?”

Mr. Sikes nodded. “But if I was you,” he said, “I’d hold my horses.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I guess you’d better ask Serepty Grimes before you begin to take charge here,” said he grimly.

“Serepty who?”

“Grimes. She’s running this house at present. Her husband used to run the Rumley sawmill before he died. Serepty’s running it now.”

“That doesn’t cut any figure with me,” announced Mrs. Gooch firmly. “I am going up to Mary’s room—her name is Mary, isn’t it?—to see what there is to do for—”

“Wait a minute, Ida,” interrupted her husband. “I wouldn’t go busting into that room until I found out whether I was wanted or not.”

“Let her go, man,” cried Mr. Sikes, eagerly. “But if she was my wife—and thank God, I’m a single man—I’d stand at the foot of the stairs to ketch her when she comes down.”

“Do you mean to say that my own brother would lay violent hands—”

“Ollie Baxter? I should say not. He ain’t got anything more to do with running this house than I have. Why, Serepty wouldn’t let Napoleon Bonaparte into Mrs. Baxter’s room if he was to come here in full uniform. But don’t take my word for it. Go ahead. You might as well get it over with. I wouldn’t any more think of going up them steps, big as I am, without receiving orders from her, than I’d think of sticking my head in this stove.”

“I will soon get rid of Mrs. Grimes,” said she, tossing her head.

As she started to leave the room, a loud knocking at the front door rose above the howl of the wind. Sikes resuming his office as master of ceremonies, pushed his way past Mrs. Gooch and opened the door to admit a woman and two men. The first to enter the sitting-room was a tall man wearing a thin black overcoat and a high silk hat. The former was buttoned close about his shivering frame, the latter jammed well down upon his ears to meet the vagaries of the tempestuous wind. This was the Reverend Herbert Sage, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Rumley. The lady was his wife.

The other member of the trio, a fat, red-faced, jolly looking man of indeterminate age, was Silas Link, the undertaker, upholsterer and livery-man of Rumley. We encounter him now in the last-mentioned capacity, hence his cheery grin, his loud-checked trousers and his brown derby set jauntily over his right ear. He wore a buffalo-skin overcoat. In his capacity as upholsterer and furniture-repairer he affected a dusty suit of overalls of a butternut hue and wore spectacles that gave him a solemn, owl-like expression. As an undertaker he was irreproachably lachrymose despite his rosy cheeks, and he never “officiated” except in a tight-fitting Prince Albert coat, a plug hat, a white cravat and a pair of black cotton gloves. In view of the fact that he so rarely is called upon to appear in the character of undertaker, owing to the infrequency of emergencies, and also that we are likely to come in contact with him a dozen times a day as a livery-man, it is only fair to introduce him here in the most cheerful of his three rôles, especially as we may never have occasion to call upon him for repairs.

The “Reverend” Sage—he was always spoken of as the “Reverend”—was a good-looking young man of thirty, threadbare and a trifle wan, with kindly brown eyes set deep under a broad, intelligent brow. He had a wide, generous mouth and a pleasant smile; a fine nose, a square chin, and a deep, gentle voice. For three years he had been shepherd of the Presbyterians in Rumley, and he was as poor if not actually poorer than the day he came to the town from the theological institute in Chicago. His salary was eight hundred dollars a year, exclusive of “pickings,” as Mr. Baxter called the pitiful extras derived from weddings, funerals and “pound parties.” Come November, there was always a “pound party” for the minister, and it was on such occasions that he received from his flock all sorts and manner of donations. His wife in one of her letters to a girl friend in Chicago mentioned twenty-six pairs of carpet slippers “standing in a row,” seventeen respectfully knitted mufflers, numberless mittens and wristlets, and she couldn’t tell what else until she had gone through all the drawers and closets in the parsonage.

Which brings us to the wife, and also to an absolutely unaccountable anomaly. It is not difficult to explain how he came to fall in love with her and why he married her. That might have happened to any man. Likewise it is fairly easy to understand how she came to fall in love with him, for he was dreamy-eyed and reluctant. But how she came to marry him, knowing what it meant to be the wife of an impoverished preacher, is past all understanding. She was a handsome, dashing young woman of twenty-three: the type one meets on the streets of New York or Chicago and is unable to decide whether she is rich or poor, good or bad, idle or industrious, smart or common. Certainly one would never find her counterpart in a town like Rumley except by the accident of importation, and then only as a bird of passage. When she came to Rumley as a bride in the June preceding the birth of Oliver October Baxter, Rumley was aghast. It could not believe its thousand eyes. Small wonder, then, that the precious Mrs. Gooch and her even more precious husband gazed upon her as if their own slightly distended eyes were untrustworthy.

She was tall, willowy, and startling. She wore a sealskin coat—at least it looked like seal—with sleeves that ballooned grandly at the shoulders; a picture hat that sat rakishly—(no doubt the wind had something to do with its angle)—upon a crown of black hair neatly banged in front and so extensively puffed behind that it looked for all the world like an intricate mass of sausages in peril of being dislodged at every step she took; rather stunning coral ear-rings made up of graduated globes; a slinky satin skirt of black with a long, sweeping train that, being released from her well-gloved hand, dragged swishily across the cheap rag carpet with a sort of contemptuous hiss. A roomy pair of rubber boots, undoubtedly the property of her husband, completed her costume.

“Good evening, Mr. Sikes,” she drawled, as she scuffled past him into the sitting-room. “Nice balmy weather to be born in, isn’t it?”

Mr. Sikes, taken unawares, forgot himself so far as to wink at the parson, and then, in some confusion, stammered: “St-step right in, Mrs. Sage, and have a chair. Evening, Mr. Sage. How are ye, Silas? Help yourself to a cigar. Take off your things, Mrs. Sage. Oliver will be mighty glad to see—”

“How is Mrs. Baxter, Joseph?” inquired the parson, removing his hat with an effort. It had been jammed down rather low on his head.

“The thing is,” put in Mr. Link, cheerily, as he began to shed his coat, “is old Ollie likely to pull through? I’ve been up here six or seven times to-day and dogged if I know whether to hitch up the hearse or the band wagon.”

Sikes scowled at the speaker and jerked his head significantly in the direction of the Gooches. “Come right up to the stove, Mrs. Sage,” said he, dragging a rocker forward. “You must be mighty chilly.”

“Only my legs,” announced the preacher’s wife.

Mrs. Gooch winced. In her circle, ladies never mentioned legs unless alluding to dining-room tables, or fried chickens, or animate objects such as dogs, horses, cows and sheep. And when she found out later on that this startling person was a minister’s wife, she wondered what the world was coming to. Somehow, it seemed to her, nothing could be so incongruous or so disillusioning as the wife of a preacher having legs.

“This is Oliver’s sister,” introduced Mr. Sikes, awkwardly. “From Hopkinsville. Reverend Sage, Mrs. Gooch. Mr. Link, Mrs. Gooch. And this is Oliver’s brother-in-law, her husband, also of Hopkinsville.”

Everybody bowed. “I didn’t catch the lady’s name,” said Mrs. Gooch.

“Permit me to introduce my wife,” said the Reverend Sage, advancing to the stove, rubbing his extended palms together. “A bitter night, is it not?”

“Very,” said Mrs. Gooch.

“Very,” said Mr. Gooch.

“Tough on horses,” said Mr. Link.

“Very,” said Mr. Sikes.

General conversation, after this laconic start, died suddenly. Everybody stood and looked at everybody else for a few moments, and then Mr. Sikes had a happy inspiration. He began shoveling coal from the scuttle into the already blushing stove, making a great deal of racket. The others watched him intently, as if they never had seen anything so interesting as a stove being stuffed with fuel.

“And all sorts of live stock,” added Mr. Link, apparently startled into speech by the closing of the stove door.

“From Hopkinsville, did you say?” inquired Mr. Sage politely, turning to Mr. Gooch.

“Yes,” said Mr. Gooch succinctly.

“Ah, a—er—very enterprising town—very enterprising. Ahem!”

“Where is it?” asked Mrs. Sage, who by this time had seated herself in a rocking-chair, with her rubber boots well advanced toward the stove.

“I guess you haven’t lived in this part of the country very long,” said Mr. Gooch condescendingly.

“Oh, haven’t I? I’ve been here nearly six months—one hundred and thirty-two days, to be exact.” She glanced at the clock on the bracket between the windows. “Lacking two hours and twelve minutes,” she went on. “We came down on the local that’s due here at 9:14, but it was twenty-eight minutes late.”

“Ahem!” coughed Mr. Sage, discreetly.

“Well, if you will excuse me,” began Mrs. Gooch, withdrawing her gaze from the lady’s boots, “I guess I’ll run upstairs and see my sister-in-law.”

“Ain’t Serepty up there?” asked Mr. Link quickly.

“Yep,” replied Mr. Sikes. “You needn’t worry, Silas,” he added significantly.

“You stay right here, Ida,” ordered Mr. Gooch. “I’m not going to have you insulted by this woman they’re talking so much about. You’d think she was Queen Victoria or somebody like that.”

“Ahem!” coughed Mr. Sage, this time in a suave, conciliatory manner—if it is possible to cough suavely. “It is my practice, no matter what the weather may be, to call at the earliest opportunity upon any stranger who may arrive in our little community. Your nephew is the latest stranger in town, I should say—eh, Mrs. Goops?”

“My—my what?”

“Gooch is my name,” broke in her husband tartly. “G, double o, c, h.”

“I do wish, Herbert dear,” said Mrs. Sage languidly, “you would try to remember Gooch.”

“I beg pardon. A slip of the tongue. I was about to inquire about your dear brother, Mrs. Gooch. How is he?”

“I didn’t know there was anything the matter with Oliver.”

“There isn’t anything the matter with him,” said Mrs. Sage, “that a good, stiff drink of whiskey won’t cure.” Then catching the look in the other woman’s eye, she explained: “Oh, I’m not a native, you know. I come from Chicago—God bless it!”

“Ahem!” coughed her husband. “I suppose Sister Grimes will be down in a few minutes, Joseph?”

“Just depends,” replied Mr. Sikes, somewhat grimly.

“Wonderful woman, indeed. Quite indispensable at a time like this,” continued the minister.

“She’s just as handy at a funeral,” supplemented Mr. Link, in the hushed voice of an undertaker.

“We must remember how indispensable Mrs. Grimes is at a time like this, Herbert,” said Mrs. Sage, with a yawn.

“You won’t have to remember,” blurted out Mr. Sikes. “Serepty’ll do the remembering.”

“I adore babies, don’t you, Mrs. Gooch?”

“Yes, indeed. Ah—I—how many children have you, Mrs. Sage?”

“On pleasant Sundays I should say as many as twenty-five. They shrink quite a bit if the weather’s bad.”

“Good gracious me!”

“She means her Sunday-school class,” explained Mr. Sage hurriedly. He had the worried manner of one who never knows what is coming next.

His wife looked up into his face and smiled—a lovely, good-humored smile that was slowly transformed into a mischievous grimace.

“I’m always making breaks, am I not, Herby dear? It’s a terrible strain, Mr. Gooch, being a parson’s wife. I sometimes wish that Herbert—I mean Mr. Sage—had been a policeman or a bartender or something like that.”

“Umph!” grunted Mr. Gooch.

“Well, I suppose it ain’t as hard to live up to a policeman or a bartender as it is to live up to a minister of the gospel,” said Mrs. Gooch, feeling of the tip of her nose as she turned away from the stove.

Mr. Sikes and Mr. Link, having something of a private nature to say to each other, had retired to a position near the door, which by design or accident was pretty thoroughly blocked by their heavy figures. Mrs. Gooch sniffed unnecessarily.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Sage over her shoulder; “you’re right, Mrs. Gooch. Live and learn is my motto.” She winked at her husband.

“My dear Josephine!” exclaimed Mr. Sage reproachfully.

“Say, Ida,” burst out Mr. Gooch, who had been fretting almost audibly, “I’m getting tired of hanging around here waiting for Oliver. Get your things on. We’re going home.”

“Oh, my dear friend,” cried the pastor, “you surely are not going away without saying good-by to Brother Baxter. He will—”

“I’m going away without even saying howdy-do to him,” rasped Mr. Gooch. “Where are your overshoes, Ida?”

At this juncture the sitting-room door was opened, somewhat to the confusion of the two citizens of Rumley, and a small, plump, middle-aged woman, bearing a couple of blankets in her arms, entered the room.

“Hello, Serepty!” cried Mr. Link. “Everything all right?”

Mrs. Grimes surveyed the group. Her pleasant, wholesome face was beaming. Her gaze rested upon the astonishing hat of Mrs. Sage.

“Why, how do you do, Sister Sage. How nice of you to come out on a night like this. Mary will be pleased to hear you’ve been here. Oh, yes, Silas, everything is all right. You can go home. Nobody is going to die. How do you do, Mr. Sage. What a terrible night for you to be out, with that wretched throat of yours. If you’ll wait till I take these blankets out to warm them in the kitchen I will wrap a piece of flannel and a strip of bacon around your throat. It’s the best—”

“Don’t think of it, Sister Grimes. I am quite all right. I thought perhaps I might—ah—cheer Sister Baxter up with a little—ah—spiritual encouragement—er—a prayer of rejoicing—er—a—”

“That’s all been attended to, thank you,” broke in Mrs. Grimes crisply.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Poor Oliver has done nothing but pray since daybreak. He’s worn himself out with prayer. I had to go out in the hall a while ago and tell him to shut up. Make yourselves at home, everybody. I’ll be back in—my land!”

Mr. Baxter, coatless, disheveled and in a state of extreme anguish, came plunging down the stairs and into the room.

“Whe-where’s the doctor?” he gasped. “My God, where’s Doc Robinson? He’s dying! Hurry up, Serepty! My infant is dying! Oh me, oh my—oh me—”

“Where is your coat, Oliver Baxter?” demanded little Mrs. Grimes, severely. “Do you want to catch your death of cold?”

“Coat? Say, can’t you hear him? He is calling for help. Listen! Sh! Listen, everybody.” Then after a long period of silence in which everybody frowned and listened intently, and no sound came from aloft, he groaned: “Oh, Lord! He’s dead! Dead as a door nail!”

“I guess it was the wind you heard, Ollie,” said Mr. Link, brightly.

For the first time, Mr. Baxter allowed his gaze to concentrate upon some definite object. He stared at the undertaker-livery man, and his jaw dropped lower than ever.

“The—the undertaker,” he gulped. “How—how did you get here so soon, Silas? He ain’t been dead more than thirty seconds. He didn’t die till—”

“Calm yourself, Oliver,” admonished Mrs. Grimes, but soothingly. “Sit down. It’s nothing but a pin. I’ll go up to him as soon as I’ve fixed you.” She thrust the blankets into Mr. Gooch’s arms. “Hold these,” she said. “Come over here by the stove, Oliver. Sit down. I’ll go fix a hot mustard bath for you to stick your feet in. Give me one of those blankets—oh, excuse me, I didn’t notice you were a stranger. Who—”

“This is Ollie’s brother-in-law, Serepty,” explained Mr. Sikes. “Say, Ollie, I’ve got a great surprise for you. Your sister and her husband have come over from Hopkinsville to wish you many happy returns of the day.”

Mr. Baxter got up from the chair into which Serepty had forced him and shook hands with his relatives.

“You’ve—you’ve been drinking, Oliver,” exclaimed Mrs. Gooch, horrified.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if I had,” admitted Oliver. “It isn’t every day a feller has a—Why, good evening, Mrs. Sage. I didn’t see you come in. Where’s Mr. Sage? Ain’t he—”

“Sit down in that chair, Oliver Baxter,” commanded Mrs. Grimes. “I’m going to wrap this blanket around you.” She relieved Mr. Gooch of one of the blankets and proceeded to tuck Mr. Baxter snugly into the rocking chair. “Then I’ll get the mustard bath. Now, you sit still, do you hear me? Mary and the baby are all right. Make yourselves at home, everybody. And you, Joe Sikes, answer the door if anybody knocks.”

She snatched the other blanket away from Gooch and hurried to the kitchen. After an awkward pause, rendered painful by the presence of the two Gooches, the company made a simultaneous effort to break the ice that suddenly had clogged the flow of conversation.

“Eighteen miles through all this—”

“From your telegram we thought a death had—”

“It’s an ill wind that blows no—”

“That’s a mighty fine pair of mares you—”

“Nobody likely to knock at the—”

Young Mrs. Sage came in at the end with the following question:

“What are you going to name it, Mr. Baxter?”

“Eh? It? It ain’t an it, Mrs. Sage. It’s a masculine gender. We’re going to call him Oliver October. Sh! Isn’t that somebody on the porch, Joe? Doc Robinson, like as not. Go to the door, will you?”

“It’s the wind,” said Mr. Sikes. Nevertheless he went over and looked out of the window.

Another silence, broken at last by Mr. Baxter.

“He’s got the finest head you ever saw,” said he, with a beatific expression on his face. “Got a head like a statesman.”

“Oh, that is good news,” said the Reverend Sage, jovially. “We’re sadly in need of statesmen these days, Brother Baxter.”

“Statesmen, your granny,” exploded Mr. Gooch, now thoroughly out of patience. “That’s the trouble with this country. It’s being run entirely by statesmen. That’s what I’ve been saying since March ’89. What we need is a good, sound business man in the White House. President Harrison is a fine lawyer, but if ever we needed a good Democrat back in the presidential chair it’s now. Get rid of the statesmen. That’s my motto. They’ve been—”

Mrs. Gooch touched his arm and whispered in his ear: “You mean politicians, Horace—politicians, not statesmen.”

Mr. Gooch was flabbergasted. “Consarn it, I’m always getting those two words mixed,” he snarled. “But anyhow, this country made the blamedest fool mistake on earth when it turned Grover Cleveland out and put these blood-sucking Republicans back in power.”

“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Mr. Link, witheringly.

A heated political argument ensued, Mr. Gooch holding out against the Messrs. Link and Sikes, both of whom were what he finally succeeded in characterizing as “black Republicans.” He also charged them with waving the “bloody shirt,” and in return heard his party classified as “out and out copperheads.”

Through it all, the anxious parent of Oliver October sat staring at the bright red isinglass in the stove door, oblivious to the storm of words that raged about him. Mrs. Sage, seated close beside him, finally reached out and took one of his hands in hers and squeezed it sympathetically.

“Don’t you worry,” she said gently.

He looked up, and a slow smile settled upon his homely features.

“You ought to see his feet,” he murmured. “Little bits of things about that long. Cutest feet you ever saw.”

“I’ll bet they are,” said she warmly, and he was happier than he had been in hours.