“Why—er—we don’t intend to be dead for a long, long time,” explained Mr. Sikes. “I’m figuring on living to be a hundred, and so’s your pa and Uncle Silas. Don’t you worry about us, sonny. We’ll be hanging—I mean, we’ll be moseying around this here town for forty or fifty years longer, sure as you’re alive. Yes, sirree.”
“What an awful thing it would be,” groaned Oliver’s father, “if all three of us was to up and die inside the next eight or ten—”
“If there’s an epidemic like that,” interrupted Mr. Link, scowling at the tactless Mr. Baxter, “it’ll probably take Oliver off too, so don’t be foolish.”
Mr. Sage spoke up, dryly. “It will be quite all right for you to die, gentlemen, whenever the good Lord thinks it most convenient. You seem to forget that I am one of Oliver October’s self-appointed guardians. Permit me to remind you that I will still be a mere youth of sixty when he reaches the age of thirty. So you need not feel the slightest compunction or hesitancy about dying.”
He was stared at very hard by two of his listeners.
“I wish my Ma was here,” said Oliver October, his lip trembling. Despite the sincere if voluble protestations of the three visitors, he still felt miserably in need of a friend and comforter. He could not conceive of his father taking him in his arms and holding him tight; there wasn’t anything soft and warm and cushiony about his father; only his mother could whisper and croon in his ear and snuggle him up close when he was sick or frightened, and she was gone.
“Amen to that,” said Mr. Sage, fervently.
“Amen!” repeated Mr. Link in his most professional voice.
Mr. Sikes coughed uncomfortably and then put on his hat.
“Well, good night,” said he. “Sleep tight, sonny.”