But this is beside the point. Rumley’s phenomenal growth over a period of ten years was due to several causes. In the first place, it had become a divisional railroad point, with shops, a roundhouse and superintendent’s headquarters. It was now a “junction” as well, a new branch line connecting there with the main line for points east and south. This had brought nearly three hundred new citizens to the town. Then had come the “strawboard works,” employing about thirty men, and after that the “cellulose factory,” with some fifteen or eighteen people on the pay-roll. Later on, in 1896, a “cannery” was added to the list of industries. These extraordinary symptoms of prosperity drew capital of another character to the town. Two saloons, with pool and billiard rooms attached, were opened on Clay Street and did a thriving business from the start, notwithstanding the opposition of the Presbyterian and Methodist churches. New grocery stores, butcher shops, drygoods stores and so forth were established by outside interests, each of them bringing fresh enterprise and competition to the once drowsy hamlet. The older stores were forced to expand in order to keep up with the times and conditions. House building in all parts of town had boomed. Three substantial new brick business “blocks” were erected—all three-story affairs—and an addition of twelve rooms and a bath had been tacked onto the old Bon Ton Restaurant, transforming it, quite properly, into the Hubbard House, the leading hostelry of the town.
Oliver Baxter owned one of the new business “blocks” on Clay Street. It was known as the Baxter Block, erected in 1896. His own enlarged place of business occupied one half of the ground floor, the other half being leased to Silas Link, who conducted a furniture, cabinetmaking and undertaking establishment there, with palms in the front windows.
Link’s Livery Stable and the feed yard of Joseph Sikes had been consolidated, the sign over the sidewalk on Webster Street reading “Link & Sikes, Livery & Feed.” The second floor of the Baxter Block was occupied by Dr. Slade, the dentist, and Simons & Sons, Tailors. The third floor was known as Knights of Pythias Hall, and it was here that all the “swellest” dances and receptions were held. Collapsible chairs from Link’s Undertaking Parlors were rentable for all such festive occasions, a very satisfactory arrangement in that cartage was never an item of expense. Link’s three or four piece orchestra could also be engaged by calling at or telephoning to the aforesaid parlors, where Charlie Link, the embalmer, would be pleased to guarantee satisfaction. Charlie was Silas’s nephew, and a trap-drummer of great dexterity. Catering by Mrs. Hubbard, of the Hubbard House, terms on application. Flowers for all occasions supplied from Link’s new greenhouse and garden, Cemetery Lane.
It is worthy of mention that there was no Main Street in Rumley. In rechristening the principal thoroughfare, the board of trustees deliberately violated all traditions by giving it the name of Clay Street, not in honor of the celebrated Henry Clay but because for at least two generations it had been known as the clay road on account of the natural color and character of its soil. This reduced confusion among the older and more settled inhabitants to a minimum; they very cheerfully consented to spell clay with a capital C and declared it wasn’t half as much trouble as they thought it would be to remember to say Street instead of Road. But even so, it was still a clay road—and in rainy weather a very bad clay road.
Mary Baxter died of typhoid fever when young Oliver was nearing seven. Her untimely demise revived the half-forgotten prophecy of the gypsy fortune-teller. People looked severely at each other and, in hushed tones, discussed the inexorable ways of fate. Those acquainted with the story of that October night told it to newcomers in Rumley; even the doubters and scoffers were impressed. It was the first “sign” that young Oliver’s fortune was coming true. Somehow people were kinder and gentler to him after his mother died.
As for Oliver the elder, there was a strange—one might almost believe, triumphant—expression in his stricken, anxious eyes, as if back of them in his mind he was crying: “Now will you laugh at me for believing what that woman said?”
Of an entirely different nature was the agitation created by the unrighteous behavior of the preacher’s wife. It all came like a bolt out of the blue. No one ever suspected that she had gone away to stay. Why, half the women in town, on learning that she was going to Chicago for a brief visit with her folks, went around to the parsonage to kiss her good-by and to wish her a very pleasant time. Some of them accompanied her to the railway depot and kissed her again, while two or three young men almost came to blows over who should carry her suitcase into the day coach and see that she was comfortably seated. They were all members of Mr. Sage’s church.
Josephine had a remarkable faculty for drawing young men into the fold. Several who had been more or less criticized for their loose ways suddenly got religion and went to church twice every Sabbath and to prayer meeting on Wednesday nights with unbelievable perseverance until they found out that it wasn’t doing them the least bit of good.
Excoriation and a stream of “I told you so’s” were bestowed upon the pretty young wife and mother when it became known that she was not coming back.
The Presbyterians made a great show of pitying their pastor, and the Methodists made an even greater show of pitying the Presbyterians—which, when all is said and done, was the thing that made Josephine’s act an absolutely unpardonable one.