Oliver October

Oliver Baxter, junior, was born on a vile October day in 1890—at seven o’clock in the morning, to be exact. People were more concerned over the plight of a band of gypsies, camp...

He opened the door and was confronted by a pair of total strangers—a man and a woman, bundled up to the ears and tracking snow all over the kitchen floor. A tall man with short...

The Reverend Sage, withdrawing his hallowed cloth from contact with even baser politics, had moved over to one of the windows, and was gazing out between the curtains across the...

Mr. Sikes, taking no chance on having Baxter’s order vetoed by Serepta, rushed from the room. A moment later he returned, followed by two shivering women who stopped just inside...

Ten years pass. The time has come when Oliver October Baxter is to be told what is in store for him if he does not mend his ways. For, be it here recorded, Oliver not only posse...

Four mature throats were simultaneously cleared, and Mr. Sage, being a very unusual sort of minister, abruptly put his hand over his mouth—not quite soon enough, however, to smo...

Rumley had not stood still during the decade. It was the proud boast of its most enterprising citizen, Silas Link, that it had done a great deal better than Chicago: it had trip...

It is not the purpose of the narrator of this story to deal at length with the deeds, exploits, mishaps and sensations of Oliver October as a child. Pages, even reams, could be...

The war was over. Oliver October Baxter came through without a scratch. He saw two years of hard fighting with the glorious Canadians; when the United States went in, he gave up...

June was well along before Oliver began seriously to contemplate bringing his self-styled “vacation” to an end. May had been glorious. Not since the year he left college had he...

Shortly before three o’clock on the afternoon of June 23rd; old Oliver Baxter stepped into the bank at the corner of Clay and Pershing streets and drew out thirty-five hundred d...

Notwithstanding the almost universal belief that poor old Oliver Baxter was buried in the black mire of the Swamp—there were some who said he was still _sinking_—a state-wide se...

The winter wore away, spring came and quickly melted into summer; the first anniversary of the unexplained disappearance of Oliver Baxter passed. Three months remained of the la...

“It was the first time he has spoken of her in years,” she went on, her brow puckering. “It seemed to slip out when he wasn’t thinking, when he wasn’t on guard.”

Two old men were crossing Maple Street as Lansing swung into it from the dirt road. They quickened their steps and from the safety of the sidewalk glanced at the occupants of th...

Now, while Mr. Joseph Sikes was one of the first citizens of Rumley, a good Republican, and a man whose opinions were considered if not always respected, he had no social positi...

The Republicans of the county in convention a week later went through the formality of nominating a ticket, a heretofore useless procedure attended by vainglorious claims, bomba...

The return of Mrs. Sage after an absence of twenty-three years was an “event” far surpassing in interest anything that had transpired in Rumley since the strange disappearance o...

Three days later, the Sheriff of the County served papers on Oliver October. The prosecuting attorney had refused to lay the matter before the grand jury, as requested by Horace...

The city editor of the _Despatch_ interviewed Detective Malone, the chief operative in charge of what the newspaper man and others, including Oliver October, were jocosely incli...

The young men entered the sitting-room. Mrs. Sage was standing almost directly under the chandelier, talking to dumpy little Mrs. Grimes; the light from above fell upon her aubu...

The ensuing three weeks were busy ones for Oliver. He was off “electioneering” by day and out speechmaking by night in district schoolhouses, in town-halls, and at mass meetings...

With darkness came the inevitable gathering of excited, bewildered people in the downtown streets. Groups of men, conversing in lowered, guttural voices, discussed the astoundin...

The mob, grim, silent and determined, advanced upon the house from the upper reaches of the swamp, a swaying, unwieldy mass that surged up the slope and thinned into a compact,...

Horace Gooch was going to bed. He had had a hard day, and it was nine o’clock. He had a notion he was not likely to sleep very well. The sheriff of the county had telephoned ear...