Oliver October

by George Barr McCutcheon

In view of the fact that no one else could possibly be born in 1890, now that October was at hand, it would seem that Oliver was entitled to a great deal more consideration than he received on his natal day. But when one considers the simultaneous arrival of a blizzard and a band of wandering gypsies at a time of the year when neither was expected, and offers in opposition the arrival of an infant that had been expected ever since the preceding February, it is only fair to say that there were extenuating circumstances and that Rumley was not entirely to blame for its default in civic pride.

Oliver’s parents were prominent in the commercial, social and spiritual life of the town. His father was the proprietor of the hardware store, a prominent member of the Presbyterian church, and a leader in the local lodge of Odd Fellows. He was well on to forty-five when his namesake, was born, and as this son and heir was the first and only child born to the Baxters it is easy to understand the interest and concern that accompanied his approach and arrival into the world—that is to say, up to the distracting intervention of the October cold snap which came apparently out of nowhere and confounded everybody.

Baxter was a hard-cased bachelor of forty when he succumbed to the charms of Mary Floyd, the daughter of the toll-gate keeper at the edge of the village, and asked her to marry him. A full three years elapsed, however, before they could be married. This was due to Mary’s stubborn and somewhat questionable fidelity; her ancient father, it appears, was irascibly certain that he could not manage the affairs of the toll-gate without her assistance: how was he to keep house for himself, or get his own meals, or do his own washing and ironing, or take care of the cow and the pigs? In fact, he was the sort of man who did not believe in trying to do anything for himself as long as there were able-bodied women about the place to do it for him. For twenty years Mary had been his right-hand woman, beginning at the tender age of ten, within fifteen or twenty minutes after the death of her mother, who, by the way, had taken care of Martin for a matter of twenty-five years without rest or recompense. Two older brothers had exercised the masculine prerogative and, having families of their own, left Mary to wither, so to speak, “on the parent stem.”

Old Martin died when Mary was thirty-two. Instead of observing the customary year of mourning, she married Oliver inside of three months after the joyous bereavement, much to the surprise and passing grief of her neighbors, who were unable, for the life of them, to understand how she could do such a thing when her father was hardly cold in the grave. Joseph Sikes, who ran a feed store in connection with and back of Baxter’s hardware establishment, and was a Godless man, set a good many people straight by sardonically observing that anybody as mean as Martin Floyd never would be cold in his grave, owing to the heat that was getting at him from below.

Now as for Oliver Baxter, the elder. He was a scrawny man with a drooping sandy mustache and a thatch of straw-colored hair that always appeared to be in need of trimming no matter how recently it had been cut by Ves Bridges, the barber. In the matter of stature he was a trifle above medium height on Sundays only, due to a studied regard for the dignity that accrued to him as deacon in the church and passer of the collection box at both services. Moreover, he wore a pair of Sabbath day shoes that were not run down at the heel. On week days, in his well-worn business suit and his comfortable old shoes, he was what you would call a trifle under medium height. He was a shy, exceedingly bashful sort of man, with a fiery complexion that cooled off only when he was asleep, and he was given to laughing nervously—and kindly—at any and all times, frequently with results that called for a confused apology on his part and sometimes led to painful misunderstandings—for example, the time he made tender and sympathetic inquiry concerning the health of young Mrs. Hoxie’s mother and cackled cheerfully when informed that the old lady was not expected to last the day out, she was that bad.

How he ever screwed up the courage to propose to Mary Floyd was always a mystery to the entire population of Rumley, including Mary herself, who in accepting him was obliged to overlook the two perfectly inane spasms of laughter with which his bewildered plea was punctuated. She took him, nevertheless, for she was a prudent spinster and had got to the age where people not only were beginning to pity her but were talking of putting her in charge of the public library as soon as old Miss Lowtower died.

Mary at thirty-two was a comely, capable young woman, fairly well educated in spite of Martin Floyd’s exactions, and was beloved by all. If it had not been for the fact that Oliver Baxter was prosperous, honest and a credit to the town, people no doubt would have said she was throwing herself away on him, for it must be said that the Floyds, despite their reduced circumstances, were of better stock than the Baxters. Martin Floyd, in his younger days, had been a schoolmaster and had studied for the law. Moreover, he had been thrice elected justice of the peace and during Grant’s last administration was postmaster at Rumley. Whereas, Oliver Baxter’s father had been a farmhand and Oliver himself an itinerant tin-peddler before really getting on his feet. But as the fortunes of the Floyds went down those of the frugal and enterprising Baxter came up, so, on the whole, Mary was not making a bad bargain when she got married—indeed, she was making a very good bargain if one pauses to consider the somewhat astonishing fact that she really loved the homely and unromantic little bachelor.

When, after two years, it became known that on or about the twentieth of October Mary Baxter was going to have a baby, the town of Rumley and the country for miles about experienced a thrill of interest that continued without abatement up to the very eve of the new Oliver’s natal day, when, as before mentioned, it was stifled by a sudden change in the weather and the belated descent of the gypsies.

It must not be assumed that the gypsies were welcome. Far from it, they were most unwelcome. Their appearance on the outskirts of Rumley was the occasion of dire apprehensions and considerable uneasiness. The word gypsy was synonymous with thievery, kidnaping, black magic and devilry. More than one instance of curses being put upon respectable people by these swarthy, black-eyed vagabonds could be mentioned, and no one felt secure after foolishly subjecting herself to the dire influence of the fortune-telling females of the tribe. Little children were kept indoors, stables and cellars were locked, and backyards zealously watched during the time the gypsies were in the neighborhood.

Small wonder then that the young and tender Oliver failed to hold his own against such overwhelming odds. Nearly twenty-four hours elapsed before the town as a whole took notice of him. By nightfall it was pretty generally known that he was a boy and that his name, provisionally selected, was to be Oliver and not Olivet, as it might have been had his sex been what everybody prophesied it was bound to be. Mr. and Mrs. Baxter, in the second year of their married life, had gone to a nearby city to see a performance of the comic opera “Olivet,” and were so delighted with it—especially the song “In the North Sea Lived a Whale”—that they decided then and there if a girl should ever be born to them they would call her Olivet, that being as near to Oliver as they could possibly come.