OLD OLIVER DISAPPEARS
Shortly before three o’clock on the afternoon of June 23rd; old Oliver
Baxter stepped into the bank at the corner of Clay and Pershing streets
and drew out thirty-five hundred dollars in currency. He gave no reason
to the teller or to the cashier for the withdrawal of so large an amount
in cash. He asked for a thousand in twenty dollar bills, the balance in
fifties and hundreds. Receiving and pocketing the money, he strode out
of the bank and turned his steps homeward.
His balance at the bank was a fairly large one. Moreover, he owned
considerable stock in the institution. The Baxter Hardware Company was
no longer an insignificant concern dealing in tools, tinware, nails; it
was an “establishment.” You could buy plows there; reapers, binders and
mowers; furnaces and boilers, ice boxes and washing-machines; pots,
kettles and cauldrons; stoves, ranges and brass-headed tacks; cutlery,
crockery and stout hemp rope; step-ladders, wheel-barrows and glass
door-knobs; log-chains, dog-chains and fly-wheel belts; coffee-mills,
pepper-pots and bathroom scales; currycombs, skillets and housemaid’s
mops.
The staff consisted of three clerks and a book-keeper, and, now that
farm machinery was included in the stock, an “annex” in the shape of a
long corrugated-iron shed reached out from the rear of the store and
took up all the available space between the Baxter Block and
Stufflebean’s Laundry on the north. People were right when they said
that young Oliver would fall into a very snug little fortune—and a
thriving, well-established business besides—when his father died.
Oliver October, ten or fifteen minutes late for supper that evening,
found his father in a surprisingly amiable frame of mind. He was quite
jovial, more like himself than he had been at any time since his son’s
arrival. He joked about old Silas and Joseph, teased Oliver about the
extremely pretty Indianapolis girl who had come the week before to visit
the Lansings, and exchanged pleasant jibes with Mrs. Grimes at the
supper table, but said nothing about the money he had withdrawn from the
bank.
It was a hot, still night, and there was a moon. On the front porch
after supper he brought up the subject of draining the swamp. He said
that he had given the matter a great deal of thought and was more or
less convinced that Oliver’s plan was a good one. Mrs. Grimes
triumphantly reminded Oliver that she had said, three weeks ago, that
all he had to do was to give the family mule plenty of rope and he would
quit balking in time—and hadn’t it turned out just as she said it
would? She left father and son seated on the porch and went off to spend
the night with an old friend whose husband was not expected to live till
morning.
Mr. Baxter’s good humor did not endure. He revived a dispute they had
had in the store earlier in the day—a one-sided quarrel, by the way,
which his son had terminated by rushing out of the place with the words
“Oh, hell!” flung back over his shoulder. The old man had that day
offered him an interest in the business if he would remain in Rumley and
take full charge of the store. Oliver was grateful, he was touched, but
he declined the offer, saying he had a profession in which he wanted to
make good; staying in Rumley would mean the end of all his hopes and
ambitions. Mr. Baxter flew into a rage and his son, white with
mortification, left the store, with that single, unguarded exclamation
his only outward sign of revolt.
Mr. Baxter’s reversion to the subject came when Oliver, looking at his
watch, announced that he must be running along, as he was due over at
the Sages to say good-by to Jane and her father.
“Well, I’ll walk part of the way with you,” said his father crossly. “I
want to talk to you about the drainage scheme and—and, Oliver, I’d like
to see if I can’t coax you to change your mind about coming into the
store. If you don’t mind, we’ll take the lower road along the swamp.
It’s a short-cut for you—saves you a quarter of a mile or more. I’ve
been over the road several times lately, looking the land over, and I
want to get your idea fixed in my mind. It’s as bright as day almost.
This may be the last night we’ll ever spend together, so I—”
“Don’t say anything like that, dad!”
“Never can tell. You may be sent off to some out-of-the-way place in the
West—in case you get a job, which I doubt very much—and God knows
whether I’ll be here when you come back. Got to look these things in the
face, you know. I’m seventy-five. If I do say it myself, a pretty good
little man for my age—wiry as a piece of steel—but, as I say, you
never can tell.”
A few minutes before nine o’clock, Oliver October appeared at the home
of the Reverend Mr. Sage, somewhat out of breath and visibly agitated.
“I’m awfully sorry to be so late,” he apologized. “Father and I had a
long and trying confab and I—I couldn’t get away. He gave it to me hot
and heavy to-night, Uncle Herbert. The worst yet. God knows I hate to
say it, but I’m glad I’m going to-morrow, and the way I feel now, I hope
I’ll never see the place again.”
“No, you shouldn’t say it, Oliver,” said Mr. Sage. “Poor man, he is
really not responsible these days. I wish you could see your way clear
to remain here.”
“You don’t believe he is—unbalanced, do you? I mean out of his mind?”
“By no means. He is as sound as a dollar, mentally. But his nerves, my
boy—his nerves are shattered. He thinks of nothing but the fate he
believes to be in store for you. Every day is an age to him. You will
not be thirty until a year from next October. Do you know how long that
seems to him? Endless! You see, Oliver, for nearly thirty years he has
lived in dread of—well, of the absurd thing that gypsy woman said. He
tries to laugh it off, but I know it has never been out of his thoughts.
Once you have passed your thirtieth birthday, he will be another man. He
sleeps on thorns now. It is no wonder that he is cross and irritable and
unreasonable. He is not deceived by the recent change of front on the
part of Joe Sikes and Silas Link, both of whom now loudly profess not to
believe a word of the fortune. He knows they are trying to cheer him
up.”
“He really is afraid that I am going to be hanged before I’m thirty?”
“I fear that is the case, Oliver.”
“And that is why he wants me to stay here, so that he can watch over and
protect me?”
“Exactly. Only he can not force himself to come out flatly and say so.
He is ashamed to say it to you, Oliver.”
“If I really believed that to be the case, Uncle Herbert, I—I would
stay.”
“It is the case, my lad,” said the minister earnestly.
“I’ll—I’ll think it over to-night,” said Oliver. “To-morrow I will put
it up to him squarely. If he says he wants me to stay _for that reason_,
I will chuck everything and—and go into the store.”
“A year or so out of your life, Oliver, is a very small matter. But a
year out of his is a great one, especially as it will seem like a
hundred to him. Yes, my boy, think it over. And think of him more than
of yourself while you are about it.”
“I guess maybe I deserve that slap, Mr. Sage. It touched the quick,
but—I guess I deserve it.”
He ran his fingers through his moist, disheveled hair—and then looked
at them curiously. With his other hand he fanned himself with his straw
hat.
Jane, who had been silent during the brief colloquy between her father
and Oliver, was studying the young man’s face intently. She was puzzled
by his manner and by his expression. He spoke jerkily, as if under a
strain, and his lips twitched. She noticed that his shoes were very
muddy.
“I came over by the back road, along the swamp,” he explained, catching
her in the act of staring at his feet. “Father walked part of the way
with me. He was pleasant enough to start off with, and I thought
everything was all right between us, but when I told him I couldn’t
reconsider—he went up in the air—and—Gee, what a panning he gave me!
It was terrible, Mr. Sage. I saw red. I felt like taking him by the
throat and choking him, just to make him stop abusing me. I—I had to
run—I couldn’t stand it. God, how miserable I am!”
He put his hands over his eyes and his shoulders shook convulsively.
Jane and her father looked on, speechless. After a few moments, Mr. Sage
arose and, with a sign to his daughter, entered the house, leaving her
alone with Oliver.
“Poor, poor Oliver,” she whispered, moving over close beside him on the
step. “It is all so strange and unreal. He loves you. You are everything
in the world to him. I can’t understand why he treats you like this.
I—I wonder if he isn’t just a little bit unbalanced. He must be. He—”
“I don’t think he is,” groaned Oliver, lifting his head. “If I thought
it was that, I’d put up with anything—I’d overlook everything. But your
father is right. He’s as clear-minded as he ever was. He’s got it in for
me for some reason and he—”
“If I were you, Oliver, I should tell him to-morrow that you intend to
stay here and go into the store.”
“I don’t know that even that would help matters.”
“Try it, Oliver,” she said gently.
The clock on the town-hall struck twelve before Oliver reluctantly bade
Jane good night and started homeward. Looking over his shoulder from the
bottom of the lawn, he saw her standing on the steps in the glow of the
porch light. He waved his hand and blew a kiss to her. There were lights
in Mr. Sage’s study windows upstairs.
On his way home, through the heart of the town, he passed the rather
pretentious house in which the Lansings lived. There were people on the
broad veranda. He recognized Sammy Parr’s boisterous laugh. He longed
for the companionship of friends—merry friends. His heart was heavy. He
was lonely. He turned in at the stone gate and walked swiftly up to the
house.
“Hello, Ollie,” called out Sammy. “Just in time to say good night.”
Young Lansing came to the top of the steps to greet him.
“I’ve been up saying good-by to Mr. Sage and Jane. And the funny part of
it is that I may not go away to-morrow after all,” said Oliver.
Lansing started and gave him a keen, startled look.
“Has Jane persuaded you to stay?” he asked, after a slight hesitation.
“Not for the reason you may have in mind, old chap,” replied Baxter,
laying his hand on the young doctor’s shoulder. “The Sages think I ought
not to leave my father.” He spoke in lowered tones, for Lansing’s ear
alone.
“I quite agree with them,” said the other stiffly. “Jane has been
talking to me about it. She said she intended asking you to change your
plans.”
“Mr. Sage opened my eyes to one or two things I haven’t been able to see
till now,” said Oliver simply. “My place is here in Rumley, Lansing. For
a year or two, at any rate.”
They joined the group at the darkened end of the veranda. Sammy and his
bride—a fluffy little giggler—were there; Miss Johnson, the girl from
Indianapolis, and two other young men.
“No, thanks, Doctor; I won’t sit down,” said Baxter. “Just ran in to see
if Sammy was behaving himself. And to tell you all that you will
probably have me on your hands for a while longer.”
“Good boy,” cried Sammy.
“Lovely—perfectly lovely,” shrieked the bride.
“If you had told me this morning, Mr. Baxter,” said Miss Johnson coyly,
“I shouldn’t have telegraphed mother I’d be home day after to-morrow.”
“Have a highball, Baxter?” asked Lansing suddenly.
“Not to-night, thanks. I’ve got to be running along. Father may be
waiting up for me. Night, everybody.”
And he was off. The group watched him stride swiftly down the cement
walk. Sammy was the first to speak.
“Well, I call that sociability, don’t you? What the dickens is the
matter with him? First time I’ve ever seen Ollie Baxter with a grouch. A
grouch, that’s what it was.”
“I don’t think it was very nice of him to come up here with a grouch,”
complained the bride.
“I guess the crowd was too thick for him,” said one of the young men
solemnly, and then winked at the girl from Indianapolis.
“He’s got something on his mind,” announced young Lansing,
professionally.
“The old man, I guess,” said Sammy. “If my father behaved like old man
Baxter does, I’d take him across my knee and spank him.”
* * * * *
Early the next morning, Serepta Grimes called Joseph Sikes on the
telephone.
“Did Oliver Baxter stay all night with you?” she inquired. “I mean old
Oliver.”
“No.”
“Have you seen anything of him this morning?”
“No. What’s the matter, Serepty?”
“Well, he didn’t sleep here last night, and there ain’t a sign of him
around the place. I—I guess maybe you’d better come up, Joe.”
* * * * *
Old Oliver was gone.
“Off his base,” groaned Mr. Sikes, fifteen minutes after Serepta’s
agitated call. He and Silas Link had hurried up to the Baxter home,
where they found Mrs. Grimes waiting for them on the front porch. “I
knew it would come. Off his base completely.”
“Wandered off somewheres,” groaned Mr. Link, very pale and shaky. “Maybe
down into the swamp. My God!”
“Oliver October’s down there now,” said Serepta. “I got him out of bed a
little after seven. He didn’t wait to put on anything except his pants
and shoes. All I could get out of him was that the last he saw of his
father was down on the swamp road about nine o’clock last night. Old
Ollie walked a piece with him. Last Oliver saw of him, he was standing
down there in the middle of the road.”
“Sure as shootin’!” gulped Mr. Sikes, sitting down heavily on the arm of
a chair. “Out of his head. Wandering around. In circles. Dead, maybe. My
God, Silas!”
“My God!” echoed Mr. Link, wiping the moisture from his forehead with a
palsied hand.
Both of them looked helplessly at Mrs. Grimes. She too was pale but she
was not helpless.
“Well, for goodness’ sake, don’t sit there like a couple of corpses,”
she cried. “Do something. Get busy. Go look for him. Start—”
“Sure he’s not around the house or barn anywhere?” broke in Mr. Link,
struggling to his feet.
“Maybe he fell down the cellar,” exclaimed Mr. Sikes, hopefully. “Or the
cistern, or—”
“I’ve looked everywhere. He ain’t in the cellar or the cistern or the
barn. I got here just about seven. Lizzie Meggs was getting breakfast.
She was singing, happy as a lark. Did I tell you that Abel Conroy is
still alive? Well, he is. I sat up with Kate Conroy all night, looking
for him to die any minute. He—”
“Think he’ll pull through the day?” inquired Mr. Link, suddenly becoming
an undertaker.
“Wouldn’t surprise me if he got well.”
“Good deal depends on how his heart holds out. Doc’ Williams was
saying—”
“Oh, for the Lord’s sake!” boomed Mr. Sikes.
“As I was saying,” resumed Mrs. Grimes, “Lizzie was getting breakfast. I
said I thought I’d go upstairs and lie down for an hour or two, and she
says I’d better knock on Mr. Baxter’s door, ’cause she hadn’t heard him
moving ’round, and his breakfast would be cold if he didn’t get a move
on him. So I rapped on his door as I went by. Not a sound. I rapped
again, and then I tried the door. Then I went in. He wasn’t there. His
bed hadn’t been slept in. So I called Oliver October. It’s half-past
eight now, and the boy’s been down at the swamp for nearly an hour. Do
something! Go out and help him look—”
“I’ll take a look in the barn first. He may have gone up to the haymow
to sleep,” said Sikes, and shuffled off, followed a moment later by
Silas Link, who had stayed behind long enough to instruct Mrs. Grimes to
telephone to the police and to the railway station.
The long and the short of it was, Oliver Baxter had vanished as
completely as if swallowed by the earth—and it was the general opinion
that that was exactly what happened to him. There was not the slightest
doubt in the minds of his horrified friends that he had wandered out
upon the swamp and had met a ghastly fate in one of the countless pits
of mire whose depths no man knew or cared to fathom even in speculation.
These soft, oozy, slimy holes were located at the lower end of the
swamp, nearly a mile from the Baxter home. The upper end had long been
looked upon as reclaimable through drainage, but that portion
surrounding the pond was a hopeless morass. Scientific men advanced the
opinion that ages ago a vast lake had existed in this region, covering
miles of territory. Death Swamp was all that was left of it; the rest
had dried up through the processes of nature. Tradition had it that the
pond was without bottom, but science in the shape of an adventurous
surveyor demonstrated that the water was not more than a few feet deep
at any point. However, this same surveyor was authority for the
statement that the mud at the bottom of the pond was so soft and
unresisting that he could not reach solid ground with the twenty-foot
fishing pole with which he was equipped.
There were the usual stories, some verified, of horses and other animals
straying into the swamp and sinking out of sight before the eyes of
their owners—disappearing swiftly in what appeared to be a patch of
firm, reed-covered earth.