And so the days ran into weeks and the weeks into months, with the mystery no nearer solution than in the beginning—no word, no sign from the old man who had vanished, no clue that led to anything save disappointment. There was something grim, uncanny about the silence of old man Baxter—it was indeed the silence of the dead. “He might as well be dead,” was a remark that became common in Rumley whenever his case was discussed. Strangely enough, no one now believed him to be dead. Everybody agreed with the detective that the cantankerous old man had “skipped out” with the sole idea of frustrating his son’s plan to return to Chicago.
“What gets me,” said Joseph Sikes, “is the underhanded way he went about it. Leaving Oliver and all the rest of us to worry ourselves sick and him just calmly settling down somewheres in peace and comfort and maybe snickerin’ to himself over the way he put it over on us. It wasn’t like him, either. I never knew a more upright man, or anybody as square and above-board as Ollie Baxter.”
Not once but a dozen times a day Mr. Sikes held forth in some such manner as this, ignoring Mr. Link’s contention that poor old Ollie may not have been responsible for his act, “owing,” said he, “to a sudden mental aberration.” Young Dr. Lansing spoke of it as “aphasia,” which was doubted with scornful determination until the word was reduced to “loss of memory” by several family doctors who stood well in the community.
Oliver October took charge of the store and, as self-appointed manager, conducted the business to the best of his ability. He deferred to the older clerks and the book-keeper in matters of policy, an attitude which not only surprised but pleased them. Charlie Keep, the senior clerk—a man who had been in the store for twenty years—was so inspired and relieved by this self-effacement that he speedily proclaimed Oliver October to be a better business man than his father.
There was nothing in the young man’s manner to indicate that he rebelled against the turn in his affairs. On the contrary, he took hold with an enthusiasm that left nothing to be desired by those who at first shook their heads dubiously over the situation.
“I am to blame for all this,” he protested firmly. “If my father is dead, I am accountable for his death. Whatever his present condition may be, I am responsible for it. Don’t put all the blame on that gypsy fortune-teller. I should have realized the state of mind he was in and I should have given up everything else in the world to help him weather the next year or so of doubt and distress. I laughed at his fears. I did not understand how real they were to him. He wanted me here where he could watch over me. Mr. Sage believes he has buried himself in some out-of-the-way place where he can’t even hear what happens to me between now and my thirtieth birthday. Uncle Joe Sikes says he got cold feet—couldn’t stand the gaff. That’s another way of looking at it. In either case, I honestly believe he will come back in his own good time. And when he does come home he must find me here, carrying on the business as well as I know how. I will do more than that. I’ll drain part of our bally old swamp and make it worth fifty dollars an acre to him instead of the dreary waste he bought for a song. And I sha’n’t stop looking for him—not for a single minute. It’s all right to be optimistic, it’s all right to assume that he is safe and well somewhere, that he knows what he is about, and all that. The reverse may be the case—so I mean to find him if it is humanly possible to do so.”
Joseph Sikes and Silas Link lamented and at the same time excoriated old Oliver Baxter. For a while the latter spoke of his old friend as “the deceased,” being in no doubt at all as to his fate, but, as time went on and the “remains” continued to elude the most diligent of searchers, he was forced to admit that perhaps everybody else was right and he was wrong.
Accepting the increased burden of responsibility resulting from old Oliver’s defection, the two “guardians” devoted themselves, without a murmur of complaint, to the supervision of Oliver October’s private and personal affairs. It was a duty that could not be shirked—a charge bequeathed to them, so to speak, by the figuratively demised Mr. Baxter. They had little or no support from Mr. Sage; and when they complained to Serepta Grimes about the minister’s lack of interest in the young man, that excellent manager shocked them by declaring that if they bothered her with any more of that nonsense she would give them a piece of her mind and a kettle full of boiling water besides.
They turned to Jane Sage for comfort, and while that young lady smilingly called them a couple of “dear old geese” it was so much more poetic than Mrs. Grimes’s “idiotic old jackasses” that they forthwith accepted her as an ally and from that time on went to her with all their troubles—dubiously and shamefacedly at first, to be sure, but with a confidence that soon developed into arrogant assurance. She confided to Oliver October that they nearly bothered the life out of her, and begged him, for her sake, to smile more frequently than he did—(Mr. Sikes dwelt mournfully upon what he called Oliver’s “hang-dog” expression)—and to stop haranguing the members of the common council about the defects in the city drainage system—(Mr. Link said that it wasn’t right, the way he lost his temper when discussing the conditions, and besides nobody else had ever found any fault with the sewers in Rumley); and never to so far forget himself as to again threaten to sue George Henley if he didn’t settle his account of four years’ standing; and by all means to refrain from arguing politics with Justice of the Peace Winterbottom, because neither Mr. Sikes nor Mr. Link slept very well after listening to these heated debates.
“Poor old Janie,” Oliver would say, with his always engaging grin. “I’ll bet you wish I was safely past thirty.”