“No use yellin’ for Oliver,” said Mr. Sikes. “He won’t hear you.” Then he swallowed hard. “Come to think of it, I guess I ought to apologize, ma’am. Which I hereby do. I haven’t had much sleep lately, worrying over this joyous occasion, and I guess I’m a bit crusty. I hereby welcome you to Ollie’s house, speaking in his place, and ask you to have a chair over here by the stove. You can sit down too if you want to, Mr. Gooch. To show you there’s no hard feelings on this joyous occasion, I’ll even go so far as to ask you to have a drink out of this bottle. It’s—”
“My husband does not drink,” said Mrs. Gooch, stiffly.
“You might let him off just this once,” pleaded Mr. Sikes, tactlessly.
Horace Gooch frowned. “I’ve never touched a drop of intoxicating liquid in my life, sir.”
Sikes opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, choked the words off, and then offered the following substitute: “Terrible weather for this time of year, ain’t it?”
There was no response to this conciliating commonplace, nor to the invitation to sit down. Mrs. Gooch, having divested herself of coat, scarf, bonnet and overshoes, was straightening her hair before the looking-glass, while her husband surveyed the room and its contents with the disdainful air of one used to much better things.
You could tell by the expression on his face that the floor of his parlor was covered by a gorgeous Brussels instead of the many-hued rag carpet that served Oliver Baxter and his wife; and where they had old-fashioned horse-hair chairs and a sofa, he possessed articles so handsomely done in plush that it was almost a sin to occupy them. If he had not come directly from contact with a biting wind, one might have been justified in construing his frequent and audible sniffs as of scorn rather than of necessity. He was a tall, lank man with narrow shoulders, narrow face, and a pair of extremely narrow black eyes. He typified prosperity of the meaner kind. Over in Hopkinsville, Horace Gooch was considered the richest and the stingiest man in town. He was what is commonly called a “tax shark,” deriving a lucrative and obnoxious income through his practice of buying up real estate at tax-sales and holding it until it was redeemed by the hard-pressed owner, or, as it happened in many instances, acquiring the property under a provision of the state law then in operation, whereby after a prescribed lapse of time he was enabled to secure a tax deed in his own name. He also trafficked in chattel mortgages.
No one, not even his fellow church members, had ever been known to get the better of him. It must be said for him, however, he went to church twice every Sunday and invariably did his share toward spreading the gospel by dropping a noisy quarter into the collection plate at both services. And so astute a business man was he that he never was without the proper change. His brother-in-law called him a “blood-sucking skinflint,” and it is not in the power of the teller of this tale to improve upon that except by quoting from the unprintable opinions of his victims.
Mrs. Gooch was Oliver’s only sister, and had married Horace Gooch when in her teens. At thirty-eight she was still wondering if she was really good enough for him and if he had not made a mistake in marrying her when there were so many other girls he might have had for the asking. Sometimes Horace made her feel that he could have done better. At any rate, she was never allowed to be in doubt as to what he thought of all the other Baxters, living or dead. They were as “common as dirt.” At first it was difficult for her to be ashamed of Oliver without being equally disgusted with herself, but as time went on and she became more and more of a Gooch this irritating sensitiveness eased off into a state of contemptuous pity for her insignificant brother. His marriage to a toll-gate keeper’s daughter sent him down several pegs in her estimation, notwithstanding Mr. Gooch’s sarcastic contention that Oliver had wedded far above his station—indeed, he went on to say, he didn’t believe it possible for Oliver to find any one beneath his station, no matter how hard he tried or how far he looked.
And yet when word came by wire that there was to be a death in the family, Ida Gooch overlooked everything and hastened to her brother’s side, drawn not so much by sisterly affection as by the desire to take an active and public part in any family sorrow or bereavement. Having looked forward, over eighteen miles of wind-swept highways, to a house of grief, she was not only shocked but secretly annoyed to find that life instead of death had visited the humble home of her brother. She knew she would never hear the last of it from Horace, who hated babies. They had no children of their own.