GLIDING OVER A FEW YEARS
It is not the purpose of the narrator of this story to deal at length
with the deeds, exploits, mishaps and sensations of Oliver October as a
child. Pages, even reams, could be written—and certainly not wasted—in
recording the innumerable adventures that befell him between his tenth
and seventeenth years.
If time and space permitted, it would be a pleasure to tell how he
learned to swim and dance, to drive an automobile, and to play the
mandolin and the allied instruments of torture comprising a trap
drummer’s outfit; how he felt when he put on his first pair of long
pants; how he earned his first dollar; how he headed an expedition to
dig for gold in the ravine reaching out from the upper end of Death
Swamp; how he organized the far-famed band of robbers that twice came to
grief before reforming—once in Mr. Higgins’s watermelon patch and later
on in the vicinity of Mr. Whistler’s bee hives; how he fell in love with
pretty Miss Somers, the high-school teacher, and couldn’t keep his mind
on his studies; how he performed the common miracle of changing himself
from an untidy, dirty-faced boy into a painfully immaculate personage
with plastered hair, well-brushed garments, soap-scoured hands, and an
astonishing tendency to turn scarlet when he most desired to be
complacently pallid; how he screwed up the courage to ask his best
girl—at that time a very tall and angular maiden named Jennie
Torbeck—to go with him to the theater up at the county seat, and how he
lost all affection for her and was miserably disillusioned when she
coughed all through the performance and caused people to crane their
necks and scowl at them.
In short, how he grew up to be five feet eleven inches tall and stripped
at one hundred and seventy pounds of absolutely healthy bone and tissue.
And then it would be an even greater satisfaction to tell of the time he
sucked the blood and poison out of the foot of a small boy who had been
bitten by a rattlesnake; of the memorable day when he grabbed and hung
on to the bit of a horse that was running away with Jane Sage, then
twelve years old, alone in the careening phaëton; of the midsummer
afternoon when he came near to losing his own life in saving that of a
drowning companion. These and many other things could be told of him,
but it would only be a case of history repeating itself inasmuch as the
untold stories of countless red-blooded American boys would contain, in
one form or another, all that befell Oliver October Baxter.
On the other hand, it would be the disagreeable duty of the chronicler
to set down in black and white all the unpleasant and trying experiences
resulting from the ceaseless espionage that clouded his daily life and
doings. All that need be said about this unhappy phase of his
development may be confined to a single sentence: he was never free from
the advice, direction and criticism of four devoted old men. He had
advice from Mr. Sage, direction from the Messrs. Sikes and Link, and a
plaintive sort of criticism from his father. Serepta Grimes, who loved
him as she would have loved a son of her own, gave him the right kind of
advice, good soul that she was. She advised him to be patient; he would
be twenty-one before he knew it, and then he could tell ’em to mind
their own business. It would be necessary, she ruefully acknowledged, to
tell practically the entire population of Rumley to mind its own
business, but the ones that really mattered were Silas Link and Joe
Sikes.
“But they are such corking old boys, Aunt Serepta,” he was wont to
lament; “and they are trying to be good to me. I wouldn’t hurt their
feelings for the world.”
“They’re a couple of buzzards, Oliver.”
“I get pretty sore at them sometimes,” he would confess, crinkling his
brows. “But I guess I’d better wait till I’m past thirty before I jump
on ’em, hadn’t I?”
“I guess maybe you had,” Serepta would agree, for down in her heart she
too was afraid.
He was seventeen when he left the Rumley high-school and became a
freshman at the State University. There had been some talk of sending
him to one of the big Eastern colleges, but when Mr. Sikes pointed out
to Mr. Link that he didn’t see how either one of them could give up his
business and go East to spend the winters, the latter flopped over and
took sides with him against Oliver senior, who was for sending him to
Princeton because Mary had taken a strong fancy to that distant seat of
learning after hearing Mr. Sage dilate upon its standards.
He made the football and baseball teams in his sophomore year, and was
“spiked” by the most impenetrable Greek fraternity before he had been on
the campus twenty-four hours. His fame had preceded him. He also was
able to show his newly-made freshman friends so many of the fine points
about boxing that they proclaimed him a marvel and wanted to know where
he had picked it all up. He refused to divulge the long-kept secret.
Moreover, he astonished them with his unparalleled skill at turning
cartwheels. And besides all this, he astonished the faculty by being up
in his studies from the week he entered college to the day he left it
with a diploma in his hand. He took the full course in engineering, and
not without reason was the prediction of the Dean of the School that one
day Oliver Baxter would make his mark in the world.
The last of the three decades allotted to him by the gypsy was shorn of
its first twelve months when he received his degree. As Mr. Sikes
announced to the Reverend Sage at the conclusion of the commencement
exercises, he had less than nine more years to live at the very
outside—a gloomy statement that drew from the proud and happy minister
ah unusually harsh rejoinder.
“You ought to be kicked all the way home for saying such a thing as
that, Joe Sikes. To-day of all days! You ought to be ashamed of
yourself. Why can’t you be happy like all the rest of us?”
“Happy?” exploded Mr. Sikes. “Why, I’m the happiest man alive. This is
the greatest day of my life.”
“Well, then, for goodness’ sake, don’t spoil it for me,” complained the
tall, gray pastor. Turning to the slim, pretty girl who walked beside
him across the June-warmed campus, he spoke these words of comfort:
“Don’t mind this old croaker, Jane dear. He is still living back in the
dark ages, when they believed in witchcraft, ghosts and hobgoblins.”
Mr. Sikes was not offended. His broad, seamed face, leathery with the
curing of many suns, was alight with his rare but whole-hearted grin.
“You left out fairies, parson,” he said, and winked at Jane over his
shoulder. “The older she gets, the more I believe in ’em.”
“Sometimes you can be silly enough to satisfy anybody, Uncle Joe,” said
she, gayly.
“Second childhood,” declared Serepta Grimes, trudging several feet
behind Old Joe, who had a habit of keeping at least two paces ahead of
any one with whom he walked.
Mr. Sikes accepted this with serenity. “Well,” he said, “if it’s second
childhood, Serepty, I hope I never get over it. But I’m all-fired glad
of one thing. He’s through playing football and I won’t have to act like
an idiot any more. I’m too blamed old to jump up and down and yell like
an Indian every time he makes a long run. People thought I was a lunatic
at that game last fall. The idea of a man sixty-nine years old—Hello,
here comes his pa. Say, what’s the matter, Ollie? What are you cryin’
about?”
“I’ve just been talking to the president of the University,” said Mr.
Baxter, the tears streaming down his wrinkled cheeks.
“Well, what of it?”
“He said Oliver was about the finest boy they ever had in the college.”
“Is that anything to blubber about?”
“You bet it is,” gulped old Oliver, smiling through his tears. “You just
bet your sweet life it is.”
A word in passing about Jane Sage. She was a slender, graceful girl
slightly above medium height, just turning into young womanhood—that
alluring, mysterious stage that baffles the imagination and confounds
the emotions. Her gray eyes, set widely apart under a broad brow, were
clear and soft and wistful, and yet in their untrammeled depths stirred
the glow of an intelligence far beyond her slender years. She was an
extremely pretty girl. Her mouth was rather large and, like her
mother’s, humorous. Her hair, brown, wavy and abundant, grew low upon
her forehead. Her teeth were small, even and as white as snow; she
showed them when she smiled. There were faint dimples in her cheeks.
She kept house for her father, and, at seventeen, made no secret of her
determination never to get married! That was settled. Never! She was
going to take care of her daddy as long as he lived, and, as she was
serenely confident that he would live to be a very old man—indeed, she
could not conjure up the thought of him dying at all as other mortals
are bound to do sooner or later—there wasn’t any way in the world for
her to avoid being an old maid.
If she possessed any of her mother’s powers of mimicry, they were never
revealed by word or deed. She was singularly lacking in histrionic
ability and for that her father was thankful though secretly surprised.
Friends of the family, remembering Josephine’s propensities watched
closely for signs of an undesirable heritage, and were somewhat
disappointed when they failed to develop. If she had not borne such a
striking resemblance to her mother, everybody in town would have said
that she “took after her father”—and that would have explained
everything. That far-distant, almost mythical mother, was no more than a
dream to Jane. It was hard for her to believe that the famous actress,
Josephine Judge, was her mother; she was secretly proud of the
distinguished isolation in which it placed her among her less favored
companions.
She adored Oliver October. There had been a time when she was his
sweetheart, but that was ages ago—when both of them were young! Now he
was supposed to be engaged to a girl in the graduating class—and Jane
was going to be an old maid—so the childish romance was over. She
wished she knew the girl, however, so that she could be sure that Oliver
was getting some one who was good enough for him.
Late in the fall of 1911, young Oliver, having passed the age of
twenty-one and being a free and independent agent, packed his bag and
trunk and shook the dust of Rumley from his feet. Through the influence
of an older member of his “frat,” supported by the customary
recommendation from the college authorities, he was offered and accepted
a position in the construction department of a Chicago engineering and
investment concern interested in the financing and developing of water
power plants in the northwest. His work took him, in the course of time,
to the Rocky Mountain region, where concessions had been obtained and
plants were either being installed or projected.
There was grave uneasiness in Rumley when he fared forth in quest of
fame and fortune. Many were the predictions that Chicago would be the
ruination of him; he was bound to fall in with evil companions in that
wicked city, and into evil ways. College had been bad enough—but
Chicago!
Yes, he was working inevitably toward the end prophesied by the gypsy.
Next thing they would hear of his drinking and carousing and leading the
gay, riotous life of the ungodly, and then, sure as anything, he would
get mixed up in some disgraceful brawl—well, he might be innocent of
the actual murder but that wouldn’t save him if the circumstantial
evidence was strong enough—as it would be.
And then, when old Oliver resignedly announced that his son was going up
into the wild and lawless northwest, where everybody carried guns and
lynchings were common, there was real consternation among the older
families in Rumley. One very ancient lady went so far in her senile
sympathy as to put into words the question that had been in her thoughts
for days. Chancing to meet old Oliver on the way home from church one
Sunday, she sadly inquired whether he would bring Oliver October’s body
all the way back to Rumley for burial or leave it out there in the
wilderness.
Early in 1913 he was sent to China by his company on a mission that kept
him in the Orient for nearly a year and a half. A week before Christmas,
1914, the Rumley _Despatch_ came out with the announcement—under a
double head—that Oliver October Baxter was returning from the Far East,
where he had been engaged in the most stupendous enterprise ever
undertaken by American capital, and would arrive on the 22nd to spend
the Christmas holidays with his father and to renew acquaintances with
old friends—who were legion.
“Samuel Parr, the well-known insurance agent,” said the _Despatch_, “who
is to be married on the 29th to Miss Laura Nickels, received a telegram
this morning from Mr. Baxter in which he states that he will be happy to
officiate as best man at the ceremony which, instead of being solemnized
at the home of the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Nickels, on
Grant Street, as originally planned, will take place in the Presbyterian
Church at eight o’clock in the evening. Miss Jane Sage will be the
maid-of-honor. Mr. Baxter’s many friends will be glad to welcome him to
the hustling city of his nativity. He has succeeded well in his
profession and has gone forward with remarkable rapidity for one of his
years. Few young men have achieved, etc., etc.”
The word that he was back in the United States and on his way to Rumley
created quite a little excitement in town. It was the opinion of a good
many people that he now stood a pretty fair chance of escaping the fate
prescribed for him by the gypsy fortune-teller—provided, of course, he
could be persuaded to remain in Rumley for the next five years, ten
months, one week and five days.
He arrived on the eleven-twenty from Chicago and was met at the depot by
a delegation. Samuel Parr was master of ceremonies.
“Stand back just a minute, will you?” Sammy commanded, addressing those
in the front rank of the crowd. “Give his poor old father a chance to
shake hands with him, can’t you? Just a minute, Mr. Sikes. That means
you, too. Slow, now—_slow_, Mr. Link. This isn’t a funeral. Hello,
Oliver! How’s the boy? Here’s your father—over this way. Never mind
your suitcases. I’ll tend to ’em.”
Young Oliver rushed up to his father, both hands extended.
“Hello, dad! My old dad!”
“I can’t believe my eyes—no, sir, I can’t,” cried the old man,
quaveringly. He was wringing his son’s hand. “You’re back again, alive
and sound. For nearly three years I’ve been sitting around waiting for a
telegram or something telling me—”
“You bet I’m alive,” broke in Oliver October, laying his arm over the
old man’s shoulder and patting his back. “And you don’t look a day older
than when I left, ’pon my soul, you don’t. It’s mighty good to see you,
and it’s wonderful to be back in the old town again. Hello, Uncle Joe!
Well, you see they haven’t hung me yet.”
“And they ain’t going to if I can help it,” roared Mr. Sikes, pumping
Oliver’s arm vigorously. “Not on your life! We got a few more years to
go, and, by glory, we’re going to keep you right here in this town from
now on. It’s all fixed, Oliver. We’ve got you the appointment of city
civil engineer for Rumley, population five thousand and over, salary
eighteen hundred a year. How’s that? The Common Council took action on
it last Monday night, unanimous vote, politics be damned. All of the
democrats voted for you. No opposition to—”
“Give somebody else a chance, will you?” interrupted Sammy Parr, and
coolly shouldered the older man aside. “Come over here, Oliver, I want
to introduce you to the bride-elect. She came here to live after you
went away, and she’s crazy to meet you. Just a minute, Mr. Link. Plenty
of time—plenty of time. Don’t crowd! Ladies first—ladies first.”
“Where is Jane, Mr. Sage?” inquired Oliver October, when he had a
breathing spell. He was searching the outer edge of the throng with
eager, happy eyes.
“She is up at your father’s house, Oliver, helping Mrs. Grimes and Annie
with your home-coming dinner,” replied the minister, still gripping the
young man’s hand. “It is good to see you, my boy—God bless you.”
“I’ve never forgotten the things you said to me the day I went away,
Uncle Herbert. I’ve led a pretty clean life, sir, and I’ve never done
anything I’m ashamed of. I’ve done a lot of things I’ve been sorry
for—but nothing to be ashamed of.” He leaned close to the other’s ear
and said in a low, whimsical tone: “Don’t let it get to the ears of my
other uncles, but I’d hate to tell you how many times I’ve thanked the
Lord and you for those sparring lessons you gave me.”
“‘The Lord loveth a cheerful giver,’” quoth the Reverend Mr. Sage dryly.
On the way up to the old home, Oliver’s father, waiting until he saw a
clear stretch of road ahead, turned from the steering wheel of his brand
new Ford, and, eyeing his son narrowly, said:
“Yes, sir, you’ve surely got my nose, and you’ve almost got my hair. If
you was to let your mustache grow I guess it would be a good deal like
mine used to be. You’ve made a success of everything so far, from all
reports, and now, darn it all, they’ve got you started in politics with
this appointment. I fought it tooth and nail, but they argued me down,
claiming it can’t be a political job so long as both parties want you to
take—”
“You needn’t worry about that, father. I’ll not accept the position.”
Mr. Baxter brightened. “You won’t? Good for you! That’ll show Joe Sikes
and Silas Link they can’t run everything.”
“I have other plans. I will tell you about them later on, father.”
“Of course, you’re a good deal taller and heavier than I am,” went on
Mr. Baxter, staring ahead. “You don’t take after me when it comes to
size and build. Been out in the open a good bit, I see. It’s done you a
lot of good.” He shot a glance at his son’s rugged, tanned face. “Yes,
and your eyes are clear and bright. I guess you haven’t done much
drinking or staying up late o’ nights.”
“I don’t drink very much—very little, in fact. Never have. In my
business a fellow has to have his wits about him. As for being up late
nights, I have seen many a night when I didn’t go to bed at all.”
“That sounds bad,” said Mr. Baxter sourly. “I don’t see how it could
help interfering with your work.”
“It didn’t interfere with it. You see, I was working all night.”
“Extra pay?”
“No, sir. Just extra work.”
Mr. Baxter cackled, cutting it short to toot his horn viciously for the
benefit of a dog crossing the street two or three hundred feet away.
“I’m just learning,” he explained.
“So I see,” said his son, crimping his toes suddenly and then relaxing
them as his father swung safely around a corner.
“Only had her about six weeks.”
“What can you get out of her?”
“She’s a racer.”
“She is?”
“You bet she is. Seventy-five miles an hour.”
“Gee, it’s good to hear you lie so cheerfully, dad.”
“If I’d had any idea you were going to believe me, I’d have claimed a
hundred,” said old Oliver, grinning. “See many changes in the town,
sonny?”
“I thought Mr. Sage was looking a little older.”
“Well, he is a little older. We all are, for that matter. I guess you’ll
find Jane has changed somewhat too. She’s twenty-one. They say she’s an
uncommonly pretty girl.”
“They say? Don’t you see anything of her yourself?”
“See her nearly every day. I don’t take much notice of girls these days,
blast the luck. She comes in every once in a while to read the letters
she gets from you. Seems as though I get a good deal more news out of
the letters you write to her than the ones I get from you. You never
wrote anything to me about the girl you was thinking of marrying out
there in Montana, or the one in China either.”
“I was always careful not to write anything unpleasant to you,” said
Oliver October glibly.
“Umph! Well, here we are. Don’t be uneasy now. I know how to stop her.”
And stop “her” he did, a dozen feet or so beyond the front porch steps.
“Set still. I’ll back her up. Sort of slipped on the ice, I guess. We’ve
had some mighty cold weather the last week or so.”
The “uncommonly pretty girl” opened the front door.
“Hello, Oliver!” she cried.
“Hello, Jane!” he shouted back, as he ran up the steps. “Gee! it’s great
to see you. And, my goodness, what a big girl you are. You were just an
overgrown kid when I went away. Funny how a fellow never thinks of a
girl growing up just the same as he does.”
He was holding her warm, strong hands in his own; they were looking
straight into each other’s eyes. In his there was wonder and
incredulity; in hers the expression of one startled by a sudden
indefinable sensation, something that came like a flash and left her
strangely puzzled.
“You haven’t grown much,” she said slowly. “Except that you are a man
and not a boy.”
“That’s it,” he cried. “The difference in you is that you’re a woman and
not a girl. And I was counting on seeing you just as you were four years
ago.”
“Come in,” she said, with a queer dignity that she herself did not
understand. “Get out of that fur coat and—and give Aunt Serepta a big
hug and a dozen kisses. She’s waiting for you in the sitting-room.”
He still held her hands. “Oh, I say, Jane, I—I used to kiss you when we
were little kids. I—”
“But we are not little kids any longer, Oliver,” she cried, drawing
back.
He stared hard at her. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone and got engaged to
somebody, old girl.”
“I am not engaged to any one. I am not even in love with any one.”
“Well, all I’ve got to say is that this burg must have more than its
share of blind men,” said he with conviction.
“Hey!” shouted his father. “Do you expect me to carry in these valises
for you, you big lummix?”
“Put ’em down, dad. I’ll be out for them in a minute.”
“Well, see that you do.”
“He is getting to be terribly cranky, Oliver,” said Jane, lowering her
voice.
“Do you mean—he’s actually sore?”
“Well, he’s—he’s very impatient sometimes,” she explained. “You’d
better hurry.”
“Poor dad, he’s aged terribly in the last few years, hasn’t he? I was
quite shocked.”
The welcome he received from Serepta Grimes was all that could be
desired. After she had hugged and kissed—and wept over him a
little—she ordered him to take his bags up stairs to his old room and
not to be all day about it, because dinner would soon be ready and they
were having company in his honor.
“See here, Aunt Serepta,” he began gayly, “I’m getting too old to be
ordered around—and, what’s more, what right have you to come into a
house of gladness and cast a spell of gloom over it? You sha’n’t boss
the heir-apparent around as if he were a—”
“You do as I tell you, or I’ll speak to Santa Claus about you,” she
broke in, with mock severity. “Don’t forget Christmas is coming.”
When he came down stairs, after having unpacked his bags and scattered
the contents all over the room, he found the “company” already
assembled. As might have been expected, the guests included the Reverend
Mr. Sage, Mr. Sikes, and Mr. Link, and one outsider: the Mayor of
Rumley, Mr. Samuel Belding.
“What’s this I hear?” demanded the latter sternly, as he shook hands
with the young man. “Your father’s just been telling us you won’t accept
the distinguished honor the city of Rumley has conferred upon you
through the unanimous vote of the Common Council. What’s the matter with
it? Ain’t the pay big enough for you? It’s the chance of a life time, my
boy. Rumley is going ahead like a house afire. We’re going to open up
and pave two or three new streets, put in a new sewerage system and a
crematory, build a bridge over the railroad tracks at Clay Street
crossing, and—”
“I don’t believe a darned word of it,” broke in Mr. Sikes, almost
plaintively.
“What’s that?” demanded the Mayor, going purple in the face. “You don’t
believe what I’m—”
“I wasn’t thinking about you,” said Mr. Sikes. “I don’t believe Oliver
means what he says.”
“Like as not he never said it,” put in Mr. Link, eyeing old Oliver
darkly.
“Oh, yes, he did,” said the latter cheerfully, and not in the least
offended by the implication. “Didn’t you, Oliver?”
Oliver’s and Jane’s eyes met. She was standing beside her father a
little apart from the garrulous group. He saw something in her dark,
unsmiling eyes that puzzled him—something he was a long, long time in
fathoming.
“The truth of the matter is,” he said seriously, “I have other plans. I
appreciate the honor. The pay has nothing to do with my decision. I love
the old burg and I am proud to have been born here. I have just given up
a job that has been paying me nearly four times as much as what I would
be getting here, Mr. Belding. And it will be open to me whenever I
choose to go back with the company. That is understood. I—”
“You say you’ve quit your job?” broke in his father, aghast.
“Yes, sir,” quietly. “I gave it up last week.”
“A job paying more than seven thousand a year?”
“Just seven thousand, to be exact.”
“Well, of all the idiotic—”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted Mr. Link. “The thing is, he may be
resigning on account of ill health. Now that I’ve had a good look at
you, Oliver, I must say your eyes seem a little liverish. Not exactly
liverish, either, but sort of bright and feverish. If you—”
“I am perfectly well, Uncle Silas,” said Oliver, smiling. Again his eyes
sought Jane’s. They seemed darker and deeper than before. “No, it isn’t
my health that’s caused me to give up my job. Needn’t worry about my
health, dad.” While he addressed his father he was subtly conscious of
speaking solely for Jane’s benefit. “But, come along; let’s have dinner.
I’m as hungry as a bear. We can talk about my affairs afterwards. With
the cigars. I brought you a box of the finest cigars I could find in
Chicago, father. You’ll hear the flapping of angels’ wings every time
you light one of ’em and take a few puffs.”
“You’ve got no business buying expensive cigars when you’re out of a
job,” grumbled his father. “Giving up a place with seven—”
“Maybe he’s going to get married,” burst out the Mayor, nudging the
young man in the ribs. “That accounts for his eyes being feverish
and—and sometimes when a feller is in love he does get to be a little
bit liverish.”
“That accounts for it,” said Mr. Sikes, very much relieved. “He’s going
to marry a woman with plenty of money. He don’t have to work any more,
Ollie. I hope to goodness she ain’t got any brothers to make trouble for
him after the nuptials have worn off a little. One brother-in-law can do
more to make a feller—”
“I am not going to be married,” said Oliver, blushing for no reason at
all, and thereby convincing the attentive Jane that if he wasn’t going
to be married it was through no fault of his own. “Nobody will have me,”
he added lamely.
“Of course, if you’ve been going around telling everybody what’s ahead
of you,” said Mr. Sikes, “I don’t blame ’em for not wanting to risk
being tied up to a feller—”
“Shut up!” cried Serepta Grimes, from the dining-room door. “You make me
sick, Joe Sikes, the way you go on. Dinner’s ready. You sit over here
next to Jane, Oliver. This is your place, Sam.”
“There’s another thing,” said the Mayor, very profoundly. “If you take
this job we’re offering you, Oliver, it’s bound to lead to something
better. I don’t mind telling you that I’m not going to be a candidate
for re-election. I’ve got two years more to serve and then I’m through.
This here town needs a young, active, progressive man for mayor. Some of
us have been talking things over and we’ve about decided that we know
the feller that ought to step into my shoes. He is a young man of vast
experience, education, integrity, ability, and he’s a good
Republican—at least, his father is. My shoes are pretty good-sized, but
that’s a blessing. No matter who steps into ’em, they’re not likely to
pinch. What size shoes do you wear, Oliver?”
“Sh!” hissed Mr. Baxter. “The parson’s waiting to bless the food.”
The host did not speak again until near the end of the meal. He was
deeply pre-occupied.
“What is this plan of yours?” he suddenly asked, breaking in on Mr.
Belding’s windy eulogy of the feast prepared by three of the “best cooks
in the universe.”
Young Oliver started. “Hadn’t we better leave that till we’re alone—”
“No; let’s have it now,” said old Oliver testily. “Unless it’s something
you’re ashamed of,” he amended, bending his gaze upon his son.
“I certainly am not ashamed of it.” A trace of irony, unintentional to
be sure, crept into his voice. “I suppose you know there is a war going
on?” His eyes swept the circle of listeners.
“Well, it’s kind of leaked out down our way,” spoke Mr. Link dryly.
“Damn the Kaiser,” said Mr. Belding, with feeling.
“Thank God, they turned him back at the Marne,” said Mr. Sage, speaking
for the first time in many minutes.
“I know what you are planning to do, Oliver,” cried Jane, paling.
“Yes,” he said, nodding his head. “You would know. You’re young enough
to know, Jane.”
“You are going over there to fight,” she cried, a thrill in her voice.
“Right you are. I’m going over in February with the Canadians. It’s all
settled. I’m to have my old job back when the war is over.”
Deep silence followed the announcement. Mr. Baxter sat with his lips
working, his Adam’s apple rising and falling in quick spasmodic jerks.
Jane put her hand to her throat as if to release something that had got
caught there and was stifling her.
“But it’s not our war,” said Mr. Sikes at last.
“It’s everybody’s war,” spoke young Oliver out of the very depths of his
soul. “We will be in it some day. We can’t keep out of it. But I can’t
wait. I’m going over now. Oh, I’ll come back, never fear. No chance of
me being killed by a German bullet.” Here he grinned boyishly. “You see,
Uncle Joe, I’ve just got to pull through alive and well, so that I can
be hung when my time comes.”