THE GOOD SAMARITAN PAYS
The winter wore away, spring came and quickly melted into summer; the first anniversary of the unexplained disappearance of Oliver Baxter passed. Three months remained of the last year allotted to Oliver October by the gypsy “queen” on that wild, shrieking night in ’ninety. He was still alive and thriving, and the shadow of the scaffold was as invisible as on the day the prophecy was uttered.
But by this time practically everybody in Rumley was counting the days and jokingly reminding Oliver that his chances got better every day!
He grinned and suggested that the town ought to put up a stupendous calendar in front of the city hall and check off each succeeding day, so that the public could keep count with the least possible tax on the mind.
“I feel like a freak in a dime museum,” he said to Jane one evening. “What you ought to do at the lawn fête next week, Jane, is to put me in a little tent and charge ten cents admission to see the man that the hangman is after. You’d raise enough money to wipe out the entire church debt. Think it over.”
He had just returned from a hurried trip to Nashville, Tennessee, where an old man was being held—a queer old tramp with a prodigious Adam’s apple, who refused to give any account of himself. This was but one of the fruitless journeys he had taken during the twelve-month.
“I see by the paper this evening that your Uncle Horace has announced himself as a candidate for State senator,” said Mr. Sage, who was enjoying his customary half-hour on the porch with them.
“Well, I know one vote he will not get,” said Oliver, “even if he is my uncle.”
“I know of another,” said the minister dryly.
“The nomination is equivalent to an election,” said Oliver. “There hasn’t been a Republican elected in this county since the Civil War, they say. If the old boy can buy the nomination he won’t have to spend a dollar getting elected.”
“It is not my habit to speak unkindly of my fellow man,” said Mr. Sage, “but I find it quite a pleasure to say that I look upon Horace Gooch as the meanest white man in all—er—I was on the point of saying Christendom, but I will say Hopkinsville instead.”
“Why, Daddy, I am really beginning to take quite a fancy to you,” cried Jane delightedly. “Only last week you said he ought to be tarred and feathered for turning those two old women out of their house over at Pleasant Ridge.”
“But he didn’t turn them out,” said Oliver quickly. “Somebody came along at the last minute and lent them the money to redeem their little house and farm. They’re as safe as bugs in a rug and as happy as clams.”
“You don’t really mean it, Oliver?” cried Mr. Sage. “That is good news—splendid news. It seemed such a heartless perversion of the law that those poor, frail, old women—both over seventy, by the way—should lose their all simply because they had to let their property go at tax sale. Horace Gooch has become rich off of just such delinquent tax-payers as these unfortunate old women. I am not saying it is illegitimate business—but he has acquired quite a lot of good real estate in this way. I rejoice to hear that some one has come to the rescue of Mrs. Bannester and her sister. I suppose they had to give their benefactor a mortgage on the property, however,—and that may ultimately afford some one else a chance to squeeze them out of their own.”
“I understand it was a loan for something like twenty years, without interest,” said Oliver.
“Bless my soul! Practically a gift, in that case. It is unlikely that they will live to be ninety.”
“I wonder how Uncle Horace felt when they popped up the other day, just as he thought he had the tax deed in his hand, and redeemed the property,” mused Oliver, chuckling. “I’ll bet it hurt like sin. Even a shark can suffer pain if you stick him in the right place. He had his heart set on that property, Uncle Herbert. The Interurban line is figuring on putting up an amusement park out that way, and I happen to know they’ve had an eye on the Bannester place, with its big oak trees and a wonderful place for an artificial lake. He could have cleaned up a lot of money on it.”
“I hate that old man,” cried Jane.
“My dear child, you must not—”
“When I think of how he behaved after Mr. Baxter went away, and the things he said to Oliver when Oliver refused to help pay for the monument his uncle had erected on his own cemetery lot up at Hopkinsville, because Mr. Baxter’s sister was buried there—his own wife, if you please, Daddy—well, when I think of it I nearly choke. I won’t allow you to say I sha’n’t hate him. I just adore hating him and I—”
“My dear, I had no intention of saying you shouldn’t hate Mr. Gooch,” broke in her father. “I was merely trying to say that you must not speak so loud. Some one outside the family circle is likely to hear you.”
“I’ve always said you were a corking preacher, Uncle Herbert,” announced Oliver.
“Thank you,” with the lift of an eyebrow. “No doubt I have improved somewhat with age.”
“I’d give a lot to know just what you said to old Gooch, Oliver, when he came to see you about the monument last fall,” said Jane, invitingly.
“I was mighty careful, I remember, to see that there were no ladies present at the time,” chuckled Oliver. “And besides, I’ve been trying ever since to forget what I said to him. But it’s absolutely impossible, with Uncle Joe dropping in every day or so to remind me of it.”
“I hope Mr. Gooch hasn’t been allowed to forget it.”
“Jane, my dear, you really are becoming quite a vixen,” remonstrated her father.
An automobile came to a sudden stop in front of the house, and an agile young man leaped out, leaving his engine running. He came up the walk with long strides.
“Say, Oliver, you old skate, I’ve been looking all over town for you,” shouted Sammy Parr. “This isn’t your night to call on Jane—don’t you know that? You’re supposed to be either at the Scotts’, billing with Amy Scott, or at the Ridges’, cooing with that new girl from Boston, and listening to her talk about Harvard all the time. Say, I’ve been over to Pleasant Ridge this afternoon—good evening, Jane—to see Mrs. Bannester and her sister about some fire insurance—Evening, Mr. Sage. Nice evening—And, say, they told me all about you, you blamed old skate—I mean Ollie, not you, Mr. Sage. Gee whiz, Ollie, you certainly did throw the hooks into Uncle Horace this time, didn’t you? You certainly—”
“Shut up!” growled Oliver, scowling fiercely at the excited Sammy.
“Shut up? Why should I shut up? Why the hell should I—beg pardon, Mr. Sage—excuse my slippery tongue. My Lord, boy, the boom has already been started. You can’t head it off. I didn’t lose a minute getting over to the County Chairman’s office and telling him the whole story. The boom’s on! He nearly hit the ceiling for joy. My God, if we can only keep all this quiet till after the Democratic convention—and old Gooch is nominated—we’ll spring something—Gee whiz! Listen to me barking loud enough to be heard in Hopkinsville. Fine guy, I am, to talk about keeping it quiet. Say, we’ve got to talk in whispers from now on—whispers, see?”
As he planted himself down on the step, he delivered a mighty, resounding slap upon Oliver’s knee.
“Aw, cut it out—cut it out,” grated Oliver. “Keep your trap closed, can’t you?”
“What on earth are you talking about, Sammy?” cried Jane.
“He’s talking through his hat—”
“Out with it, Sammy, out with it,” counseled Mr. Sage, coming down the steps.
Oliver groaned: “Oh, good Lord, deliver me!”
“Say, what do you think, Mr. Sage—what do you think? Why, this chump here is the guy that lent Mrs. Bannester the money to—”
“See here, Sam—this is my affair,” broke in Oliver gruffly. “It’s nobody’s business but my own. I made ’em swear on a stack of Bibles they’d never tell—”
“Don’t blame them—don’t blame those nice old women,” broke in Sammy sternly. “It was not their fault. I put one over on ’em. I told ’em there was some talk of that check being phony and they’d better—”
“It wasn’t a check,” said Oliver triumphantly. “It was cash—currency.”
“That’s what they came back at me with, but I said I meant counterfeit and not forgery—slip of the tongue and so forth. That got ’em. They up and said they had known Oliver October Baxter since he was knee high to a duck, and—”
“Oh, Oliver!” cried Jane. “Did you really do it? I could squeeze you to death for it. And you never told me—you never breathed a word—”
“It was only about a thousand dollars,” mumbled Oliver. “And a little over,” he added quickly, noting Sammy’s expression. “It was my own money. I could do what I liked with it, couldn’t I? They used to bring eggs and butter and chickens and everything to my mother, and when she was sick they had me out to their farm and made me awfully happy and—But that’s neither here nor there. It was a low-down trick of yours, Sam, to—”
“Sure it was,” agreed Sammy cheerfully. “But right there and then the destiny of the great American nation was shaped along new lines. Right then and there, Mr. Samuel Elias Parr saw a great light. The words were no sooner out of the mouth of old Mrs. Bannester—or maybe it was her sister—it doesn’t matter—when the boom was born! Yes, sir, the boom was hatched and—but, my God, we mustn’t—oh, excuse me, Mr. Sage, I keep forgetting that you—”
“Pardon me, Sammy, but I am really quite curious to know why you apologize to me for your profanity and not to Jane, who, I assure you, is a young lady of considerable refinement and—”
“That’s all right, sir,” Sammy assured him glibly. “I’ve got Jane covered with a sort of blanket apology—something like a blanket policy. Good for any time and any place. But as I was saying, we mustn’t let Joe Sikes and Silas Link get wise to all this. They’d raise Cain—spoil everything gabbing about that gypsy’s warning or whatever it was. Now, if we are foxy, we’ll catch the Democrats napping and, gee whiz! what a jolt we’ll give ’em next November! We’ll run four thousand votes ahead of Harding himself and—”
“Oh, for the Lord’s sake, Sammy, slow down! Put on your brakes! What the dickens are you driving at, anyhow? Boom? What boom?”
“Your boom, you idiot! The boom’s been started for you as Republican candidate for State senator against old man Gooch. It’s under way—nothing can head it off, absolutely nothing but death or an earthquake. The County Chairman hit the ceiling. He told me he’d call a meeting of—”
“Why, you darned chump,” roared Oliver. “I’m not going to run for State senator or anything else. You must be crazy. You’ve got a lot of nerve, you have. What right have you to start a thing like this without consulting me? You’ll just make a monkey of me, that’s all you’ll do—and of yourself, too. I’ll head it off to-morrow. I’ll telephone—”
“Won’t do you a darned bit of good,” cried Sammy exultingly. “They’ll nominate you, anyhow. Why, my Lord, they’ve got to nominate somebody, haven’t they? They do it every election year, don’t they? Just as a matter of form? But, great Scott, here’s the chance for them to elect somebody in this county. You don’t suppose they’re going to miss a chance like this, do you? Popular young soldier, medal man, celebrated football player, renowned engineer, youthful philanthropist, successful business man, unsmirched character—why, you’re the only Republican in this county that would stand a ghost of a show, Ollie. And best of all—popular nephew running against Shylock uncle! Gee whiz! Normal Democratic majority of three thousand wiped out—in spite of prohibition—and—Senator Baxter, of Rumley, ladies and gentlemen!”
Even Oliver October laughed.
“By jingo, Sammy, you’re doing your level best to have me put my neck in the noose, aren’t you?” he exclaimed.
“Noose nothing!” exploded Sammy. “I thought about all that. You can’t possibly be elevated to a position in the halls of State or Nation until next November, you chump—and you’ll be thirty in October, won’t you? Well, that settles that. Puts the kibosh on that gypsy dope. Well, so long! I’ve got to be on the jump. I just thought I’d run up and tell you, so’s you’d know what’s what. I’m going down to see Al Wilson at the Despatch office. Put him wise and warn him not to let a word of it leak out in the paper till he gets the word. Night, Mr. Sage—so long, Jane.”
“Wait a minute!” called out Oliver, springing to his feet as Sammy darted down the walk.
“Nix!” shouted Sammy over his shoulder.
The three of them watched him in silence as he leaped into his car and began his swift, reckless turn in the narrow street.
“Sorry!” he yelled out to them. “Had to take off a little of the turf, but this street needs widening, anyhow.”
“What are you going to do about it?” inquired the minister, the first to speak.
Jane did not give Oliver a chance to reply. Her eyes were blazing with excitement and there was a thrill in her voice that caused Oliver to laugh outright.
“Do about it?” she cried. “Why, he’s going to run against old Gooch and beat the life out of him!”
“Daughter!”
“Oh, my goodness! I’m so excited! Oliver, you’re a darling for helping those old women out—and you never intended to say a word about it! It was heavenly! And you will go to the State Legislature, and then to Congress, and—Goodness knows how high up you may go!”
Oliver’s smile broadened. “And the Gypsy Queen be hanged,” quoth he.
Jane caught her breath. A startled look flashed into her eyes and was gone.
“The Gypsy Queen be hanged!” she echoed stoutly. “Long live the King!”
Oliver was still looking up at her. She stood at the top of the steps, the light from the open door falling athwart her radiant face, half in shadow, half in the warm, soft glow. Suddenly his heart began to pound—heavy, smothering blows against his ribs that had the effect of making him dizzy; as with vertigo. He continued to stare, possessed of a strange wonder, as she turned to her tall, gray-haired parent and laid both hands on his shoulders.
“I wish I could say ‘gee whiz’ as Sammy says it,” she cried. “I feel all over just like one great big ‘gee whiz.’ Don’t you, Daddy?”
The man of God took his daughter’s firm, round chin between his thumb and forefinger and shook it lovingly. “One ‘gee whiz’ in the family is enough,” said he. “I am glad you feel like one, however. You take me back twenty-five years, my dear. Your mother used to say ‘gee whiz’ when she felt like it. It is, after all, a rather harmless way of exploding.”
“I know—but don’t you think it is wonderful?” she cried. “I mean, Oliver going to the Legislature and—”
“Whoa, Jane!” interrupted Oliver, a trifle thickly. He wondered what was the matter with his voice. “Steady! Sammy’s crazy. I wouldn’t any more think of letting ’em put me up for—why, gee whiz! It’s too ridiculous for words.”
Her face fell. “I must say I like ‘gee whiz’ only when it expresses enthusiasm,” she said. “It’s an awful joy-killer, the way you used it just then, Oliver.”
“I don’t want any politics in mine,” he stated, almost sullenly. Then brightly: “If I had to choose between the two, I’d sooner go in for religion.”
Mr. Sage smiled. “If more clean-minded, honest fellows like you, Oliver, were to go into politics, there wouldn’t have to be so many preachers in the land.”
“What chance has an honest man got in politics, I’d like to know?”
“The same chance that he has in the church. The people want honest men in politics, just as they demand honest men in their pulpits.”
“That’s all right, sir, but it’s easier to be good in a church than it is in a barroom—and that’s just about the distinction.”
“You forget we’ve got prohibition now,” said Jane, ironically. “There isn’t a barroom in the whole United States and there isn’t a single drop of intoxicating liquor.” She laughed derisively.
“Not a drop,” he agreed, rolling his eyes heavenward. Then he quoted incorrectly. “ ‘Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.’ That’s what the good and honest men did to politics. They fixed it so that there isn’t anything in the country to drink except booze.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Mr. Sage.
“Tell me how you came to go to the assistance of Mrs. Bannester and her sister—tell me everything,” said Jane, resuming her seat on the step.
“There isn’t anything to tell,” said Oliver. “I just went out to see them and—that’s all there is to it.”
“Oh, indeed!” she scoffed. “You just went out there and said ‘howdy-do, ladies; here’s a couple of thousand dollars—and good-by, I must be getting home.’ ”
“I stayed for dinner,” he admitted. “They always have fried chicken and white gravy when I go to see them. And waffles and honey. I’m very fond of honey.”
“Don’t you want to tell me, Oliver?” There was a hurt note in her voice that shamed him.
“Well,” he began awkwardly, “I’d been thinking about it for some time—their troubles, I mean. I couldn’t stand seeing them kicked off their place. I had the money, and I didn’t need it. So I—I made ’em take it. Yep—I just made ’em take it. They were awfully nice about it. If Uncle Horace ever finds out that I lent them the money, he’ll—” He broke off in a chuckle of sheer delight. His eyes were full of mischief. “I’ll never forget the time I let him have it with my marbles. Gee, it was great!”
“Wouldn’t it be glorious if we could always stay young and throw marbles at the people we don’t like?” cried Jane.
“The only drawback is that sometimes you can’t find the marbles again. I lost two of my finest agates that day.”
“You young savages!” exclaimed Mr. Sage, with mock severity. He said good night to Oliver and, murmuring something about next Sunday’s sermon, entered the house. They heard him go slowly up the stairs.