“If you was me, would you take boxing lessons from Uncle Joe?”
Mr. Sage considered, weighing his words. A little wave of color spread over his pale, ascetic face, and a queer light gleamed in his kindly eye.
“No, I wouldn’t,” he answered after a moment. Then he blew out the light. Instead of departing, he strode over and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I doubt very much if Joe Sikes is a scientific boxer. He strikes me as a rather rough and tumble sort of fellow. You wouldn’t learn much from him, I’m afraid. But I’ll tell you what I will do. I will give you a—er—a few instructions myself, if you will come over to the house, say once a week—secretly, you understand. You must never tell anybody that I am—er—giving you lessons in the manly art of self-defense. It will have to be a very dark secret between us, Oliver. For the present, at any rate.”
He was glad that he had blown out the light. Somehow he knew that the small boy’s eyes were upon him, and that they were filled with the sort of amazement that makes one most uncomfortable. This was proved by the very significant fact that Oliver did not speak. After a moment Mr. Sage went on, a little hurriedly:
“You see, Oliver, when I was in college—that was before I went to the Theological Institute, you know—I went in for the various sports and games. I was on the football team and the baseball team, and so forth. Quite a number of us took up boxing. It is very fine exercise for both the body and the mind. Yes, I will be happy to teach you a few of the tricks of the—er—sport. Of course, I have not boxed since I became a minister, but I—er—I dare say I haven’t forgotten how to feint and block and sidestep and—ahem! Yes, yes—come and see me to-morrow and we will talk it over.”
As he slowly descended the stairs, he consoled himself with the thought that he had given the poor lad something besides the gallows to think about.
The three old men were waiting for him on the porch, and none too amiably it would appear, judging by the glum silence that greeted him as he joined them. Mr. Link and Mr. Sikes spoke a gruff “good night” to Baxter and started off toward the gate at the foot of the slope. The minister paused at the top of the steps to shake hands with Oliver October’s harassed parent.
“Thank you for coming over and helping straighten things out,” said Mr. Baxter. Then he proceeded to commit himself and his two cronies by adding: “Have you heard anything from Josephine lately?”
Now that was the one question that the people of Rumley religiously and resolutely refrained from asking Mr. Sage. They persistently asked it of each other—in an obviously modified form—and they did not hesitate to bother the postmaster from time to time with inquiries; but they never asked it of Josephine’s husband. It was a very delicate matter.
Mrs. Sage, in the sixth year of her married life—her baby was then two years old—surrendered to her ambition. She went on the stage.