HOME FROM THE WAR
The war was over. Oliver October Baxter came through without a scratch. He saw two years of hard fighting with the glorious Canadians; when the United States went in, he gave up his hard-earned commission as first lieutenant and was transferred to the American Army. He learned a great deal about red tape before his transfer was effected, and he discovered to his disgust that he knew a great deal less about war than he might reasonably have been supposed to know after two years of slogging along at it under shot and shell from the German Armies. He had to go back to America and enter a training camp, and even then, to employ his own expression, he had the “devil of a time” getting a commission as second lieutenant.
There were so many able young business men and college graduates out for commissions that he just barely managed to scrape through “by the skin of his teeth” in the struggle for honors. The fact that he had had two years of actual experience at the front, part of that time as an officer, did not seem to help him very much with his studies at the “Camp,” nor with the intensive drilling that was supposed to make a soldier of him in three months. Two medals for distinguished service on the field of battle were of absolutely no service to him in the contest that was being waged in the training camp—in fact, he was advised by the major in command that he would better not even speak of them, much less expose them to view.
Then, to his intense chagrin, he was sent from one camp to another—a sort of floating officer—finally winding up in a mid-western division that did not go over seas until the spring of 1918, only a few months before the war ended. Once with the Army in France, however, things took a belated change for the better. Far-sighted and fair-minded officers in high places were not slow in transferring him from the camp far behind the lines to a veteran division up in the battle zone. He went through the Argonne and was close on the bloody heels of the German Army when the last guns in the great conflict were fired. He came out a captain.
In April, 1919, he sailed from Brest and on the tenth of May arrived in Rumley, discharged from the Army and jobless. On the way home he stopped over in Chicago to notify his employers that he would be ready to resume work after a month’s much-needed rest and quiet down in the old town. He was blandly informed that as soon as anything turned up they would be pleased and happy to take him back into the concern, but at present there wasn’t a vacancy in sight—in fact, they were cutting down the operating force wherever it was possible, and so on and so forth. Yes, they remembered perfectly that they had promised him his old place when he returned, but how in God’s name were they to know that the war was going to last as long as it did? He couldn’t expect them to hold a job open for him for nearly four years, could he? Only too glad to take you on again, Baxter, when things begin to pick up—and all that.
Being a captain in the Army and used to plain speaking, he told the astonished general manager what he thought of him and the whole works besides, and airily went his way.
The horrors of war had not affected his spirits. He went over in the first place full of cheer and enthusiasm; he came back without the latter, but indomitably possessed of the former. He had seen grim sights and sickened under the spectacle; he had stood by the side of dying comrades and wept as he would have wept over his own brother; he had known times when life was far harder to bear than the thought of death; and he had said what he believed to be his last prayer a hundred times or more. But when the guns ceased their everlasting roar and the smoke lifted to reveal a blue sky that smiled, he too smiled and was glad to be alive. He had lived on hope through the carnage of what seemed a thousand years; the hope which men, in their bewildered after-joy, were prone to call their luck. It was hope that went over the top with them, but it was luck that saw them through.
And so when he was turned away, empty-handed, from the place where he had proved his worth as a soldier of industry, he was not dismayed. He experienced a lively sense of indignation, he felt outraged, but he did not sit himself down over against the walls of Nineveh to devote a single hour to lamentation.
The injustice rankled. He had heard of other men coming back to find their places occupied by indispensables, but it had never occurred to him that his bosses would “welch” on their promise. He had never for an instant doubted, and yet when he was turned away he was not surprised. It seemed odd to him that he was not surprised. Perhaps it was because he had reached the point where nothing could surprise him. In any case, he strode out of the old familiar offices with his chin high, enjoying a very good opinion of himself and an extremely poor one of his late employers. It did not occur to him to feel the slightest uneasiness about the future. He would be no time at all in landing a good job with any one of the half dozen big concerns that had tried in vain to get him away from the V—— Company. He would take his month or two of idleness down in the old town, where he could realize on the dreams and the longings that had never ceased to attend him, awake or asleep, through all the black ages spent in France.
This time there was no delegation at the station to meet him. Too many of Rumley’s young men had preceded him home from the war. He was no better than the rest of them and deserved no more. His father and Sammy Parr were waiting for him when the train pulled in.
“By thunder, Oliver, it beats the dickens how you work into my plans so neatly,” cried the latter. “You always seem to be coming home at the right minute. You couldn’t have timed it better if you’d—oh, excuse me, Mr. Baxter, I forgot you hadn’t—er, here’s your father, Oliver.”
Old Oliver came shuffling up from the background. He eyed his son narrowly.
“What’s this, I hear about them not taking you back on your old job?” he demanded. He extended his hand, which young Oliver gripped in both of his.
“Aren’t you glad to see me back, alive and well, dad?” he cried. “Not even scratched, or gassed or shell-shocked or anything. You act as though you—”
“Of course, I’m glad you’re back, sonny—of course, I am. I’ve been praying for this ever since you went away. I don’t see how on earth you ever escaped being killed. I—I guess it wasn’t meant for you to die that way. Seems so, at any rate. But what did I tell you about them holding your job for you? What did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you just what would happen? Didn’t I say you’d never get it back? Didn’t I say you were a fool for giving up a seven thousand dollar job to go over and mix up in a war that wasn’t any of our business? Well, you see what’s happened. Just what I said would happen. Here you are, a grown man, out of a job and probably won’t be able to get one in God knows how long. I—”
“Oh, I’m not down and out, you know, dad,” broke in young Oliver, slapping his father on the shoulder. “I’ve got quite a bunch of money in the bank and I’ve got my health and a few million dollars’ worth of brains left. So, cheer up! I’m not worrying. I learned a long time ago how to land on my feet—and that’s the way I’ll land this crack.”
“Course you’re not worrying,” was his father’s sour retort. “You’ve got me to fall back on, with a good home and grub and a darned fine business to drop into when I’m dead and gone. Four-fifths of the fellers who served in the army from this town alone are back here now, loafing and living off of their folks, and kicking like a bay steer because the government won’t do something for them. I hope you ain’t going to be one of that kind, Oliver. I hope to God you ain’t.”
His son could hardly believe his ears. He was bewildered, hurt.
“If you mean, dad, that I am counting on living off of you—of sponging on you—why, put it out of your mind. Nothing like that is going to happen. I did plan to stay a month or two, just for a rest and to be with you for a while—but if you’d rather have me beat it back to Chicago to look for a job, I’ll only hang around a few days.”
“I want you to stay here as long as you like, sonny,” cried old Oliver, melting. “I don’t want you ever to go away again. Maybe I sounded as if I did—but—but, I don’t. I’m getting purty old—seventy-four last month—and I guess I’m not good for much longer. Don’t you get it into your head that I don’t want you to stay here in Rumley. Nothing would suit me better than to turn the business over to you right now and let me retire, but I guess it’s not your idea to go into the retail hardware business.”
“If you need me, dad, I—I will stay,” said Oliver, swallowing hard.
“Oh, I don’t need you yet,” said his father, crusty once more. “I can get along, I guess. I’ve done it for a good many years, and I’m not all in yet, as the feller says. There was a time when I thought of selling out and moving into another state to live, but I’ve given that idea up.”
“Still living in dread of what that darned old fraud said the day I was born, eh? Well, the agony will soon be over. A year and a half more, isn’t it? That will end the tale, and I will live happily forever afterward.”
Sammy Parr was consulting his vest-pocket note book.
“Just one year, six months and twenty-one days,” said he.
“Good Lord, Sam! Have you gone off your nut, too?”
“Vital statistics, old boy. It’s my business, you know. Come on; I’ve got my car out here. Your father’s Ford died last fall and he’s been an orphan ever since. Grab up some of this junk and I’ll bring the rest. Never mind, Mr. Baxter. We can manage it.”
“Drop me at the store,” said old Oliver crossly.
Sammy gave young Oliver a significant look. “All right, Mr. Baxter. We’ll wait outside for you. I’ve got nothing but time on my hands to-day, and besides I want to talk to Oliver about a—er—something private.”
As the two young men hurried across the platform with the bags and bundles, Sammy found opportunity to say to Oliver:
“He’ll be in a good humor in a minute or two. It’s just a habit he’s fallen into since you’ve been away. I guess it’s that infernal gypsy business. He’s as peevish as blazes a good part of the time.”
They stopped in front of the Baxter store and the old man reluctantly got out of the car. It was plain to be seen that he had not intended to stop there at all but was now obliged to do so to save his face.
“I won’t be a minute,” he said, affecting a briskness that was calculated to deceive his son. Then he darted into the store, where, from a shadowy corner in the stove section, he shifted his uneasy gaze from the clock on the wall to the car at the curb.
“How’s your wife, Sam?” inquired Oliver.
Sammy grinned. “Little premature, ain’t you?”
“Premature?”
“Sure. I’m not going to be married till next week.”
“Oh, I say, old chap, I’m sorry. I hadn’t heard of Laura’s death. Her name was Laura, wasn’t it?”
“Yep. And it still is. But her last name isn’t Parr any longer. It’s Collins. We’ve been divorced for five or six months, Oliver. Don’t look so darned serious. I’m not sensitive. It’s the way things are done these days. Nobody gets married for keeps nowadays. It’s not supposed to be proper. The idea is to try it out for a year or so and if it doesn’t work, zing! You up and get divorced. Pretty much the same thing as an armistice. The war has changed everything. Quite a few old married people I know of are taking advantage of the new order of things. I’ve had to change the beneficiaries in four or five policies already. They’ve suddenly awoke to the fact that it’s easy. God knows where it will end. But I haven’t time now to tell you how Laura and I came to split up. Some other time, if you’ll just remind me of it. The question of the hour is, will you be best man again for me next week, old boy? I’m marrying the sweetest little woman that ever came down the pike, and this time it’s for keeps. No monkey business. Her first husband was a Lieutenant Higby—we were in the same camp for months and months. That’s where I met her. Well, he didn’t appreciate her. That’s the long and short of it. Got to running around after other women. She up and canned him. Long and short of it. Laura, God bless her, fell in love with a chap named Collins. I don’t blame her, mind you—not a bit of it. She’s as square as anything. Of course, it hurt my pride a little when she ran away with him—but it simplified matters. I’m sure you will like Muriel. She’s as fine as they make ’em. We’re to be married next Thursday afternoon. Up in the city. Her people live there. How about it? Will you repeat for me? I promise you it will be the last time, Oliver. Never again. We both know what we’re about this time. We’ve cut all our wisdom teeth—and, by Gosh, if you ask me, I’ve had a couple pulled.”
“We had a very jolly time at your first wedding, Sammy,” sighed Oliver. “Jane was maid-of-honor and—well, I would have sworn that you two were the kind who would stick.”
“So would I,” agreed Sammy cheerfully. “We can’t very well ask Jane to be maid-of-honor this time,” he went on. “Religious scruples, you see. Minister’s daughter. Wouldn’t look right. I mean, wouldn’t look right for her. But it’s different with you. You haven’t any religious scruples. What say? Will you do it?”
“Certainly. Rumley seems to be keeping up with the times, Sammy. When I was a kid, nobody ever dreamed of getting a divorce. It was looked upon as a—er—a sort of a crime.”
“Still is by some of the old-timers,” confessed Sammy. “Here comes your father. Don’t say anything about me being married next week. I’m closing up a deal to renew his fire insurance to-morrow or next day, and if he knew I was thinking of committing bigamy next week, he’d turn me down cold. He calls it bigamy, you see.”
“I see. By the way, where is Jane, Sammy?”
He remembered having asked that very question when he returned after a former protracted absence—and how many times had he asked it even before that? Every time he came home from college for a brief visit, every time he met Mr. Sage on the street—why, all his life he had been asking: “Where is Jane?”
“Jane Sage? Oh, she’s around, same as ever. Things are a lot easier for Mr. Sage now. I guess maybe you haven’t heard about his brother dying out in California and leaving him quite a bit of money. Yep. About a hundred thousand dollars, they say—safely invested, mostly at six per cent. The old boy still sticks to his job as preacher, though. He’s getting eighteen hundred a year now from the church. I’m glad of it. He gets a new suit of clothes every once in a while, and Jane doesn’t have to make her own dresses as she used to. It looks like a pretty serious affair between her and Doc Lansing. Been going on now for nearly a year.”
“What’s that?” demanded Oliver, startled.
“I guess it’s all happened since you went away. Why, sure it has. Doc’s only been practicing here since last summer. Got hurt over in France in 1917 and had to take his discharge. Went over early in ’Seventeen in the Medical Corps. Leg smashed. Limps. Fine feller, though.”
“I don’t seem to remember him,” said Oliver, dully.
“His father is president of the new bank here—that brick building down there at the corner of Clay and Pershing Streets.”
“Pershing Street?”
“Yep. Used to be Ridley’s Lane.”
“Oh.” Oliver was feeling a little like Rip Van Winkle. “You say she’s—er—in love with him?”
“Looks that way,” said Sammy, indifferently. “He’s dead gone on her, that’s sure. I had him in not long ago for the baby. He’s all right. I forgot to tell you that the court gave the kid to me for eight months every year—four months to Laura. All right, Mr. Baxter. Hop in. I’ll snake you home in no time. Hang on to your hat.”
The volatile, insouciant Mr. Parr employed the correct word when he said “snake,” for he wriggled a swift and serpentinous way through the traffic of Clay Street in his noisy red roadster, keeping up a running fire of conversation all the time, much of it being drowned by the louder fire of the muffler cut-out—which he used unsparingly in place of his horn in tight pinches.
“There’s Jane on ahead,” he sang out to Oliver as they whizzed across Pershing Street.
“Where?” cried Oliver, starting up.
“Back there,” replied Sammy, with a jerk of his head.
Oliver twisted in the seat and looked over his shoulder. Jane was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring after the red roadster. He half-rose and waved his hand to her. She did not respond at once. The car was swinging into a cross street before she recovered from her astonishment. Then she waved her hand—and the last he saw of her she was standing stock-still in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Say, what the—what’s the rush?” he roared. “I want to speak to Jane. Stop the damn thing, will you? Let me out. I’ll run back and—”
“Keep your shirt on,” chirped Sammy. “I’ll run you clear around the block and we’ll head her off. Quicker than backing and turning in this—”
“Go ahead!” commanded Mr. Baxter sharply. “Let’s get home. You can see Jane to-morrow or next day,” he shouted to his son.
“Oh, I say, dad!”
“If you’d sooner see her than me—all right. All right! Turn around, Sammy, and take him back. Let me out. I’ll walk the rest of the way home.”
“Drive on, Sam,” said Oliver, sinking back in the seat.
Presently Mr. Baxter cackled. He was in high good humor again. “Say,” he said, “I fooled the whole crowd of ’em. I told Joe and the rest of ’em you wouldn’t be coming down till to-morrow. Pretty smart trick, eh? Joe’ll be so mad he’ll pay me the twenty dollars he owes me, claiming he don’t want to have anything more to do with me. He-he-he!”
Oliver was silent. Sammy snorted and then got very red in the face.
“I had to tell Serepty Grimes,” went on Mr. Baxter, as if apologizing to himself. “She’s keeping house for me now, and so I had to tell her. I didn’t tell her till just about an hour ago, though. She was as mad as a wet hen.”
“Aunt Serepta keeping house for you?”
“Yes. Have you got any objections?”
“None whatever, dad. I think it’s great.”
“Well,” began the old man, slightly mollified, “I’m glad it suits you.”
“I wouldn’t have thought she’d give up her own nice little house to—Don’t tell she’s in financial difficulties, dad.”
“She’s better off than she ever was. She sold her house and lot and the Grimes sawmill two years ago, and now she’s living off the fat of the land. She was the one who proposed the housekeeper scheme, not me. I tried to argue her out of it. Wasn’t any use. I said that people would be sure to talk if she came over and lived at my house. Make a regular scandal out of it. But she just laughed and said nothing in the world would tickle her so much as to have people say complimentary things about her at her age. I was a long time figuring out what she meant. She’s sixty-nine. She says I ought to feel the same way about it, me being seventy-four. ‘Let ’em talk,’ says she, and after a while she got me to saying ‘let ’em talk.’ But the cussed part of it is, nobody thinks there’s anything scandalous about it. There hasn’t been a derned bit of talk. The only thing people say, far as I can make out, is that it’s a mighty nice arrangement. What the dickens are you laughing at, Sam?”
“I just ran over a hen,” lied Samuel promptly.