THE MINISTER’S WIFE
Rumley had not stood still during the decade. It was the proud boast of its most enterprising citizen, Silas Link, that it had done a great deal better than Chicago: it had tripled its population. And, he proclaimed, all “she” had to do was to keep on tripling her population every ten years and “she” would be a city of nearly half a million souls in 1950. It was all very simple, he explained. All you had to do was to multiply fifteen hundred (the approximate population in 1900), by three and you would have forty-five hundred in 1910.
“Work it out yourself,” he was wont to say, “if you don’t believe me. If we keep on multiplying we’ll have 364,500 population fifty years from now.”
The prize pupil in the South Rumley school, Freddy Chuck, aged thirteen, went even further than Mr. Link in his calculations. He carried the matter up to the year 2000 and proved conclusively that if the ratio could be maintained for a hundred years, Rumley would have something like 88,303,500 inhabitants at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Freddy was looked upon as a mathematical “shark.” The North Rumley school, presided over by Mr. Elwell, contained no such prodigy, but it did have an exceedingly promising half-back in the person of Oliver October Baxter.
But this is beside the point. Rumley’s phenomenal growth over a period of ten years was due to several causes. In the first place, it had become a divisional railroad point, with shops, a roundhouse and superintendent’s headquarters. It was now a “junction” as well, a new branch line connecting there with the main line for points east and south. This had brought nearly three hundred new citizens to the town. Then had come the “strawboard works,” employing about thirty men, and after that the “cellulose factory,” with some fifteen or eighteen people on the pay-roll. Later on, in 1896, a “cannery” was added to the list of industries. These extraordinary symptoms of prosperity drew capital of another character to the town. Two saloons, with pool and billiard rooms attached, were opened on Clay Street and did a thriving business from the start, notwithstanding the opposition of the Presbyterian and Methodist churches. New grocery stores, butcher shops, drygoods stores and so forth were established by outside interests, each of them bringing fresh enterprise and competition to the once drowsy hamlet. The older stores were forced to expand in order to keep up with the times and conditions. House building in all parts of town had boomed. Three substantial new brick business “blocks” were erected—all three-story affairs—and an addition of twelve rooms and a bath had been tacked onto the old Bon Ton Restaurant, transforming it, quite properly, into the Hubbard House, the leading hostelry of the town.
Oliver Baxter owned one of the new business “blocks” on Clay Street. It was known as the Baxter Block, erected in 1896. His own enlarged place of business occupied one half of the ground floor, the other half being leased to Silas Link, who conducted a furniture, cabinetmaking and undertaking establishment there, with palms in the front windows.
Link’s Livery Stable and the feed yard of Joseph Sikes had been consolidated, the sign over the sidewalk on Webster Street reading “Link & Sikes, Livery & Feed.” The second floor of the Baxter Block was occupied by Dr. Slade, the dentist, and Simons & Sons, Tailors. The third floor was known as Knights of Pythias Hall, and it was here that all the “swellest” dances and receptions were held. Collapsible chairs from Link’s Undertaking Parlors were rentable for all such festive occasions, a very satisfactory arrangement in that cartage was never an item of expense. Link’s three or four piece orchestra could also be engaged by calling at or telephoning to the aforesaid parlors, where Charlie Link, the embalmer, would be pleased to guarantee satisfaction. Charlie was Silas’s nephew, and a trap-drummer of great dexterity. Catering by Mrs. Hubbard, of the Hubbard House, terms on application. Flowers for all occasions supplied from Link’s new greenhouse and garden, Cemetery Lane.
It is worthy of mention that there was no Main Street in Rumley. In rechristening the principal thoroughfare, the board of trustees deliberately violated all traditions by giving it the name of Clay Street, not in honor of the celebrated Henry Clay but because for at least two generations it had been known as the clay road on account of the natural color and character of its soil. This reduced confusion among the older and more settled inhabitants to a minimum; they very cheerfully consented to spell clay with a capital C and declared it wasn’t half as much trouble as they thought it would be to remember to say Street instead of Road. But even so, it was still a clay road—and in rainy weather a very bad clay road.
Mary Baxter died of typhoid fever when young Oliver was nearing seven. Her untimely demise revived the half-forgotten prophecy of the gypsy fortune-teller. People looked severely at each other and, in hushed tones, discussed the inexorable ways of fate. Those acquainted with the story of that October night told it to newcomers in Rumley; even the doubters and scoffers were impressed. It was the first “sign” that young Oliver’s fortune was coming true. Somehow people were kinder and gentler to him after his mother died.
As for Oliver the elder, there was a strange—one might almost believe, triumphant—expression in his stricken, anxious eyes, as if back of them in his mind he was crying: “Now will you laugh at me for believing what that woman said?”
Of an entirely different nature was the agitation created by the unrighteous behavior of the preacher’s wife. It all came like a bolt out of the blue. No one ever suspected that she had gone away to stay. Why, half the women in town, on learning that she was going to Chicago for a brief visit with her folks, went around to the parsonage to kiss her good-by and to wish her a very pleasant time. Some of them accompanied her to the railway depot and kissed her again, while two or three young men almost came to blows over who should carry her suitcase into the day coach and see that she was comfortably seated. They were all members of Mr. Sage’s church.
Josephine had a remarkable faculty for drawing young men into the fold. Several who had been more or less criticized for their loose ways suddenly got religion and went to church twice every Sabbath and to prayer meeting on Wednesday nights with unbelievable perseverance until they found out that it wasn’t doing them the least bit of good.
Excoriation and a stream of “I told you so’s” were bestowed upon the pretty young wife and mother when it became known that she was not coming back.
The Presbyterians made a great show of pitying their pastor, and the Methodists made an even greater show of pitying the Presbyterians—which, when all is said and done, was the thing that made Josephine’s act an absolutely unpardonable one.
She did not belong in Rumley. That was the long and the short of it. The greatest compliment ever paid to the holy state of matrimony was her ability to stick it out for six long years. In her own peculiar way she loved and respected her husband. But the bonds of love were not strong enough to hold her. She was gay and blithe and impious; she loved life even more than she loved love. The shackles hurt. So she slipped out of them one day and left their symbols lying by the wayside in the shape of a broken, bewildered man and a child of her own flesh, while she went back to the world that was calling her to its arms.
Herbert Sage was stunned, bewildered.... She wrote him from Chicago at the end of the first week of what was to have been a fortnight’s visit to her mother. It was a long, fond letter in which she said she was not coming back—at least, not for the present. She was leaving at once for New York, where she had been promised a trial by one of the greatest of American producers. A month later came a telegram from her saying she was rehearsing a part in a new piece that was sure to be the “hit of the season”—everybody said so, even the stage director who had the name of being the biggest “gloom” in New York. It was a musical comedy, with a popular comedian as the star, and she had a small part that was going to be a big one before she got through with it—or so she said in her joyous conceit.
“With my good looks, my voice, my figure and my ambition, Herby, I cannot fail to get over. Everybody says I’ve got talent, and that dance I used to do for you on week days when it wasn’t necessary to be sanctimonious—well, they are all crazy about it. Before you know it, my dear, you’ll be the husband of one of the most celebrated young women in the United States and I’ll be cashing checks every week that will make your whole year’s salary in that burg look like the change out of a silver half dollar after you’ve bought two ten cent sodas at Fry’s drug store. You will be proud of me, Herby, because I will take mighty good care that you never have any reason to be ashamed of me or for me to be ashamed of myself. You know what I mean. I don’t suppose I will say my prayers as often as I did when you were around to remind me of them but I will be a good girl just the same. Also a wise one.”
That was four years ago. Her confidence in herself had been justified, and, for all we know, the same may be said of Herbert Sage’s confidence in her. She had the talent, the voice, the beauty, and above all, the magnetism, and so there was no holding her back. She was being “featured” now, and there was talk of making a star of her. Her letters to Herbert were not very frequent but they invariably were tender. Every once in a while the press agent sent him a large batch of “notices,” chiefly eulogistic; and regularly on little Jane’s birthday a good sized check arrived for the youngster’s “nest egg.”
At first she had undertaken to share her salary with Sage. He kindly but firmly refused to accept the money. After three checks had been returned to her she accepted the situation, although she wrote to him that he was a “silly old thing” and “hoped to goodness he would see the error of his ways before long.”
For two successive seasons she appeared in a Chicago theater, following long New York runs of the pieces in which she was playing, but not once did Herbert Sage go up to see her. Some of the best people in Rumley saw her, however—one of them, in fact, went three nights in succession to the theater in which she was playing and tried to catch her eye from the balcony—so it was pretty generally known throughout the town that she really had the making of a pretty fair actress in her!
Finally, in one of her letters announcing a prospective engagement in London, she put the question to him: “Do you want to get a divorce from me, Herby?” His reply was terse and brought from her the following undignified but manifestly sincere telegram: “Neither do I, so we’ll stick till the cows come home. I feel like a girl who has just been kissed. Sailing Friday. Will cable. Much love.”
She made a “hit” in London in the big musical success of that season. They liked her so well over there that they wouldn’t let her go back to the States.
At the time of which I write she was playing her first engagement in London, and half the town was in love with her. She wrote to Herbert:
“My dear, you wouldn’t believe the number of matrimonial offers I’ve had, and your hair would turn white in a single night if I was to tell you how many homes I could wreck if I hadn’t brought my conscience along with me. I am the toast of the town, as they say over here. Better than a roast, isn’t it?”
While Herbert Sage forbore speaking of the vagrant Josephine to his friends in Rumley, nevertheless he preserved and re-read from time to time the mass of press cuttings that he kept safely locked away in a drawer of the bureau that once had held her cheap and meager belongings. He looked long and hungrily at the countless photographs with which she never failed to beleaguer him in his loneliness; and then there were the magazines, the pictorial sections of the newspapers and the reproductions of as many as a score of original drawings done by celebrated artists and illustrators on both sides of the Atlantic. Some of these caused him to frown and bite his lip—one in particular: the rather startling picture of a very shapely young gentleman in a mild but attractive state of inebriation caroling (by mistake, no doubt), to an irate old man in a casement window above.
Morning and night she was in his prayers; and little Jane, as soon as she was able to prattle, was taught to say “and God bless and keep my mamma forever and ever, Amen!”
She was greatly missed by little Oliver October. For some reason—perhaps she did not explain it herself—at any rate, she did not go to the trouble of speculating—she had taken a tremendous fancy to the child. He was a lively, amusing little chap who laughed gleefully at her antics and was ever ready for more—a complimentary spirit that constantly supplied kindling for her own unquenchable fires. She romped with him, told marvelous stories to him, sang for him and danced for him—and just about the time she was making ready to leave Rumley guiltily showed him how to turn a “cartwheel”! He was very much impressed by this astonishing bit of acrobatics, and as she faced him, her face crimson and her eyes sparkling, he paid her a doubtful but fulsome compliment by saying he’d bet his mother couldn’t do it, nor any other lady in town, either. She made him promise not to tell anybody—and he was never, never to ask her to do it again, because she was getting very old and the next time she might fall and break her neck, and he wouldn’t like that, would he?
This small boy of five or six was the only being in town with whom she could play to her heart’s content, and she made the most of him. Her own tiny baby interested but did not amuse her. In the first place, she had not wanted a baby at all, and in the second place since she had to have one she could not understand why she had not had a boy. It wasn’t quite fair. She liked boy babies. It was something to be the mother of a man-child—something to be proud of. She even went so far as to say to herself that she never could have run way and left her baby if it had been a boy. She would have been ashamed to have a son of hers know that his mother had not quite played the game. She was fond of Jane but it was not as hard to leave her as it would have been had she been a boy. Of that she was absolutely certain.
Oliver October could not understand why he was not allowed to mention “Aunt” Josephine’s name in the presence of “Uncle” Herbert. His mother and Mrs. Serepta Grimes—who, by the way, was still an ever-present help in time of trouble—gave him very strict orders and repeated them so often that he never had a chance to forget them. But when he found out in a roundabout way that Mrs. Sage had gone off to join a show, he at once assumed—and quite naturally, too—that she was with Barnum’s Biggest Show on Earth, and lived in joyous anticipation of seeing her when the great three-ring circus came to the nearby county seat for its biennial visit. Moreover, he was very firm in his determination to run away from home and join the show, a secret decision that called for unusual industry on his part in the matter of mastering the “cartwheel” and other startling feats of skill, such as standing on his head, walking on his hands, turning somersaults off of a sill in the haymow, and standing upright on the capacious hindquarters of patient old Rosy down at Uncle Silas Link’s livery stable.
He also undertook to increase his suppleness by anointing himself with fish worm oil, an absolutely infallible lubricant recommended by Bud Lane, who solemnly averred that he had worked one whole season with the Forepaugh circus as fish worm catcher for the Human Eel, the limberest man alive. Oliver October’s mother gave him a sound spanking within fifteen minutes after the initial application of this diligently acquired lubricant, while Mrs. Grimes made a point of hurrying down to the livery stable to tell the sheepish Bud Lane what she thought of him.
Youth is ever fickle. Oliver October’s heart was soon mended. He was always to have a warm corner in it for the gay Aunt Josephine but such diverting games as “one old cat,” “blackman,” “I spy,” and “duck on the rock” rather too promptly reduced his passionate longing for her to a mild but pleasant memory. They also interfered with his acrobatic aspirations, and it was not until little Jane Sage arrived at an age when she was intelligent enough to be impressed and thrilled by manly achievements that he again took up the “cartwheel,” the “hand spring,” and other sensational feats of endurance—endurance being a better word than agility in view of the fact that he practised them by the hour for her especial benefit.
For, be it here recorded, Janie Sage, at the age of six, was by far the prettiest and the most sought after young lady in Rumley, and only the most surpassing skill with the hands and feet was supposed to have any effect upon her susceptibilities.
What with having had past instructions in the art of cartwheel flipping from a minister’s wife and the present promise of lessons in boxing from the minister himself, Oliver October was indeed a favored lad! He was very glad that he had gone to Sunday-school regularly, for therein lay the secret of his good fortune. If he had not been a very good little boy, Mr. and Mrs. Sage would not have been so kind to him. There wasn’t the slightest doubt in his mind about that. And more than all this, Mr. Sage acted like he was awfully pleased every time he walked home from school with Jane, carrying her books and everything. He showed this by invariably giving him a piece of bread and butter and sugar. No wonder, then, that Oliver fought like a tiger for his lady love. Many a bigger and stronger man than he has fought the whole wide world for his bread and butter alone.
Three or four days after the warning administered to Oliver by his self-appointed guardians, one of the latter, Mr. Sikes, found himself in an extremely awkward position. He was a man of dark and lasting hatreds. His particular aversion was brothers-in-law. He had two of his own and he hated both of them as men are seldom hated by their fellow man. His opinion of them somewhat unjustly extended itself to the brothers-in-law of practically every friend he possessed. It had got to be an obsession with him. The husbands of his two sisters, it appears, had instituted some sort of proceedings against him in court back in the dark and stormy age that he called his youth, and while history does not reveal the nature of the suit, it goes without saying that they won their case, thereby providing him with an everlasting grudge against all brothers-in-law.
Horace Gooch had come over from Hopkinsville to see his wife’s brother on a matter of business. Ten years had not improved Mr. Gooch. If you had asked Mr. Sikes, however, whether they had improved him he would have blasphemously answered in the affirmative. He would have stated—if he had thought of it—that anything that shortened the life of Mr. Gooch could not be otherwise than a most gratifying improvement.
Now this is what happened—and any fair-minded person will sympathize with Mr. Sikes in his dilemma. As Gooch was leaving the Baxter Hardware Store, after a furious wrangle with his brother-in-law—Mr. Sikes had heard most of it through an open window—he had the option of either stepping over or around a half-grown puppy lying immediately in front of the door. He did neither. Notwithstanding the friendly thumping of the puppy’s tail on the board sidewalk and the hospitable smile in his big brown eyes, Mr. Gooch proceeded to remove the obstruction with the toe of his boot. He did not do it gently. A sharp yelp of pain was succeeded by a series of ear-splitting howls as the gangling pup went tearing down the street on three legs.
Mr. Sikes turned the corner of the building just in time to witness this incident. He was also a witness to what followed almost immediately. Oliver October and Sammy Parr were playing “keeps” against the brick wall a dozen paces or so away. Now, it so happened that the former, and not Mr. Baxter, senior, was the sole owner of that sacred pup. Before you could say Jack Robinson, Oliver October was blazing away at the retreating figure of his uncle with marbles he had just won from Sammy. He did not take the time to look for stones in the gutter. His face was white with fury. Mr. Gooch uttered a sharp ejaculation and suddenly clutched his left elbow with his right hand. An instant later the most universally coveted “agate” in Rumley grazed his ear and went hurtling down Clay Street. Mr. Sikes, forgetting himself for the moment, cried out:
“Good shot! Give it to him!”
Another hastily fired “plaster” got Mr. Gooch on the leg, and then young Oliver took to his heels—not because he was afraid of his uncle but because he had caught sight of the far more terrifying figure of Mr. Sikes.
“Whose boy is that?” demanded the outraged Mr. Gooch, addressing Mr. Sikes.
“None of your damned business,” snarled Mr. Sikes, lowering his chin in a menacing way.
“I will make it my business,” roared the other. “I’ll have the little scoundrel locked up for—”
“You just go ahead and try it,” broke in Mr. Sikes, advancing slowly. “Just you go ahead and try it. That’s all I got to say. Go ahead and try it.”
By this time Mr. Gooch had recognized the angry citizen.
“Oho! Mr. Sikes, eh? Well, what cause have you got for losing your temper like this, Mr. Sikes? What right have you to get mad because I ask you the name of a dodgasted little—”
“Mad? I’m not mad,” interrupted Mr. Sikes violently. “And I’ll tell you who that boy is if you really want to know.”
“I do,” said Mr. Gooch, feeling of his elbow.
“Well, he is the owner of that pup you just kicked in the ribs. Good day!”
With that, Mr. Sikes stalked around the corner, a prey to conflicting emotions. He stole down the alley, with many a furtive glance over his shoulder. He felt very guilty. He had openly, vociferously encouraged Oliver October in the commission of a deed of violence. Suppose, for instance, one of those rocks—(he did not know they were marbles)—had struck Horace Gooch at the base of the brain! He wiped his moist forehead. Just suppose! And how was he to take Oliver to task for flying into a rage and throwing stones, with murderous intent, when he himself had been so overjoyed that he yelled to him to keep it up? Yes, he was in a very awkward position. So he decided that unless somebody took him to task for not taking Oliver October to task, he would consider the incident closed. But every time he thought of the way Horace Gooch grabbed his elbow and subsequently clapped his hand to his “off” leg, he gave way to inordinate mirth.
At supper that evening Mr. Baxter asked his son if he knew who it was that hit his Uncle Horace with a rock. Oliver had spent most of the afternoon in hiding. Hunger and the approach of night were responsible for his decision to give himself up, so to speak. Just before the supper hour he ventured out of his place of hiding—a cornfield down the road—prepared to face the town marshal and arrest. His dog had basely deserted him an hour or so earlier. His spirits rose a little as he took his seat at the table, for old Oliver appeared to be in an unusually cheerful frame of mind. Just as he began to feel that, after all, there was nothing to face, his father frowned severely and asked:
“Oliver, do you know who hit your Uncle Horace with a stone this afternoon?”
There was a loophole. “I didn’t know anybody hit him with a stone, Pa.”
Mr. Baxter reflected. “Well, what was he hit with if it wasn’t a stone?”
“A marble.”
“Do you know who threw it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who?”
“Me,” replied Oliver October, and was suddenly thrilled by the thought of George Washington and the cherry tree.
“Well, you must never do it again,” said his father mildly. Then, in his most jovial manner: “Pass up your plate, sonny, and let me give you some more of this steak. It will make you strong.”