“They aren’t the same,” he said, “and you aren’t the same girl I met on the boat last March. I guess we’ve both grown a bit since then. You know I was rather keen on dying about that time,—‘in love with easeful death,’—well, now I am not keen about anything, but I am willing to play the game out.”They sat in silence for a while, then he said slowly, without raising his eyes: “I am not much good at telling what I feel, but before I go away I want you to know how much you’ve helped me. You have been the one light that was left to show me the way down into the darkness.”A soft touch on his shoulder made him lift his head. Guinevere was bending toward him, all restraint banished from her face by the compassion and love that suffused it.[p263]“‘Oh, my God, it has come’”Instinctively he swayed toward her, all the need of her crying out suddenly within him, then he pulled himself[p265]sharply together, and, resolutely thrusting his hands in his pockets, rose and took a turn up and down the porch.“Do you mind reading to me a little?” he asked at length. “There are forty devils in my head to-day, all hammering on the back of my eyeballs. I’ll get my Tennyson; you like him better than you do the others. Wait; I’m going.”But she was up the steps before him, eager to serve, and determined to spare him every effort.Through the long afternoon Guinevere read, stumbling over the strange words and faltering through the difficult passages, but vibrant to the beauty and the pathos of it all. On and on she read, and the sun went down, and the fragrance of dying locust bloom came faintly from the hill, and overhead in the tree-tops the evening breeze murmured its world-old plaint of loneliness and longing.Suddenly Guinevere’s voice faltered, then steadied, then faltered again, then without warning she flung her arms across the back of the bench, and, dropping[p266]her head upon them, burst into passionate sobs.Hinton, who had been sitting for a long time with his hands pressed over his eyes, sprang up to go to her.“Guinevere,” he said, “what’s the matter? Don’t cry, dear!” Then, as he stumbled, a look of terror crossed his face and he caught at the railing for support. “Where are you?” he asked sharply. “Speak to me! Give me your hand! I can’t see—I can’t—oh, my God, it has come!”[p267]XVThewarning note sounded by Mrs. Fallows at the beginning of the oil boom was echoed by many before the summer was over. The coldest thing in the world is an exhausted enthusiasm, and when weeks slipped into months, and notes fell due, and the bank became cautious about lending money, a spirit of distrust got abroad, and a financial frost settled upon the community.Notwithstanding these conditions, “The Opp Eagle” persistently screamed prosperity. It attributed the local depression to the financial disturbance that had agitated the country at large, and assured the readers that the Cove was on the eve of the greatest period in its history.[p268]“The ascending, soaring bubble of inflated prices cannot last much longer,” one editorial said; “the financial flurry in the Wall Streets of the North were pretty well over before we become aware of it, in a major sense. ‘The Opp Eagle’ has in the past, present, and future waged noble warfare against the calamity jays. Panic or no panic, Cove City refuses to remain in the backgrounds. There has been a large order for job-work in this office within the past ten days, also several new and important subscribers, all of which does not make much of a showing for hard times, at least not from our point of looking at it.”But in the same issue, in an inconspicuous corner, were a couple of lines to the effect that “the editor would be glad to take a load of wood on subscription.”The truth was that it required all of Mr. Opp’s diplomacy to rise to the occasion. The effort to meet his own obligations was becoming daily more[p269]embarrassing, and he was reduced to economies entirely beneath the dignity of the editor of “The Opp Eagle.” But while he cheerfully restricted his diet to two meals a day, and wore shirt-fronts in lieu of the genuine article, he was, according to Nick’s ideas, rashly extravagant in other ways.“What did you go and buy Widow Green’s oil-shares back for?” Nick demanded upon one of these occasions.“Well, you see,” explained Mr. Opp, “it was purely a business proposition. Any day, now, things may open up in a way that will surprise you. I have good reason to believe that those shares are bound to go up; and besides,” he added lamely in an undertone, “I happen to know that that there lady was in immediate need of a little ready money.”“So are we,” protested Nick; “we need every cent we can get for the paper. If we don’t get ahead some by the first of the year, we are going under, sure as you live.”Mr. Opp laid a hand upon his shoulder[p270]and smiled tolerantly. “Financiers get used to these fluctuations in money circles. Don’t you worry, Nick; you leave that to the larger brains in the concern.”But in spite of his superior attitude of confidence, Nick’s words rankled in his mind, and the first of the year became a time which he preferred not to consider.One day in September the mail-packet brought two letters of great importance to Mr. Opp. One was from Willard Hinton, the first since his operation, and the other was from Mr. Mathews, stating that he would arrive at the Cove that day to lay an important matter of business before the stock-holders of the Turtle Creek Land Company.Mr. Opp rushed across the road, a letter in each hand, to share the news with Guinevere.“It’s as good as settled,” he cried, bursting in upon her, where she sat at the side door wrestling with a bit of needlework. “Mr. Mathews will be here to-day. He is either going to open up work or sell out to a syndicate. I’m[p271]going to use all my influence for the latter; it’s the surest and safest plan. Miss Guin-never,”—his voice softened,— “this is all I been waiting for to make my last and final arrangement with your mother. It was just yesterday she was asking me what I’d decided to do, and I don’t mind telling you, now it’s all over, I never went to bed all last night—just sat up trying to figure it out. But this will settle it. I’ll be in a position to have a little home of my own and take care of Kippy, too. I don’t know as I ever was so happy in all my life put together before.” He laughed nervously, but his eyes anxiously studied her averted face.“Then there’s more news,” he plunged on, when she did not speak—“a letter from Mr. Hinton. I thought maybe you’d like to hear what he had to say.”Guinevere’s scissors dropped with a sharp ring on the stepping-stone below, and as they both stooped to get them, their fingers touched. Mr. Opp ardently[p272]seized her hand in both of his, but unfortunately he seized her needle as well.“Oh, I am so sorry!” she said. “Wait, let me do it,” and with a compassion which he considered nothing short of divine she extricated the needle, and comforted the wounded member. Mr. Opp would have gladly suffered the fate of a St. Sebastian to have elicited such sympathy.“Is—is Mr. Hinton better?” she asked, still bending over his hand.“Hinton?” asked Mr. Opp. “Oh, I forgot; yes. I’ll read you what he says. He got his nurse to write this for him.Dear Opp: The die is cast; I am a has-been. I did not expect anything, so I am not disappointed. The operation was what they called successful. The surgeon, I am told, did a very brilliant stunt; something like taking my eyes out, playing marbles with them, and getting them sewed back again all in three minutes and a half. The result to the patient is of course purely a minor consideration, but it may interest you to know that I can tell a biped from a quadruped, and may[p273]in time, by the aid of powerful glasses, be able to distinguish faces.With these useful and varied accomplishments I have decided to return to the Cove. My modest ambition now is to get out of the way, and the safest plan is to keep out of the current.You will probably be a Benedick by the time I return. My heartiest congratulations to you and Miss Guinevere. Words cannot thank either of you for what you have done for me. All I can say is that I have tried to be worthy of your friendship.What’s left of me isYours,WillardHinton.”Mr. Opp avoided looking at her as he folded the sheets and put them back in the envelop. The goal was bright before his eyes, but quicksands dragged at his feet.“And hewillfind us married, won’t he, Miss Guin-never? You’ll be ready just as soon as I and your mother come to a understanding, won’t you? Why, it seems more like eleven years than[p274]eleven months since you and me saw that sunset on the river! There hasn’t been a day since, you might say, that hasn’t been occupied with you. All I ask for in the world is just the chance for the rest of my life of trying to make you happy. You believe that, don’t you, Miss Guin-never?”“Yes,” she said miserably, gazing out at the little arbor Hinton had made for her beneath the trees.“Well, I’ll stop by this evening after the meeting, if it ain’t too late,” said Mr. Opp. “You’ll—you’ll be—glad if everything culminates satisfactory, won’t you?”“I’m glad of everything good that comes to you,” said Guinevere so earnestly that Mr. Opp, who had lived on a diet of crumbs all his life, looked at her gratefully, and went back to the office assuring himself that all would be well.The visit of Mr. Mathews, while eagerly anticipated, could not have fallen on a less auspicious day. Aunt Tish, the arbiter of the Opp household, had been[p275]planning for weeks to make a visit to Coreyville, and the occasion of an opportune funeral furnished an immediate excuse.“No,sir, Mr. D., I can’t put hit off till to-morrow,” she declared in answer to Mr. Opp’s request that she stay with Miss Kippy until after the stock-holders’ meeting. “I’s ’bleeged to go on dat night boat. De funeral teks place at ten o’clock in de mawnin’, an’ I’s gwine be dar ef I has to swim de ribber.”“Was he a particular friend, the one that died?” asked Mr. Opp.“Friend? Bunk Bivens? Dat onery, good-fer-nothin’ ole half-strainer? Naw, sir; he ain’t no friend ob mine.”“Well, what makes you so pressing and particular about attending his funeral?” asked Mr. Opp.“’Ca’se I ’spise him so. I been hating dat nigger fer pretty nigh forty year, an’ I ain’t gwine lose dis chanst ob seein’ him buried.”“But, Aunt Tish,” persisted Mr. Opp, impatiently, “I’ve got a very important[p276]and critical meeting this afternoon. The business under consideration may be wound up in the matter of a few minutes, and then, again, it may prolong itself into several consecutive hours. You’ll have to stay with Kippy till I get home.”The old woman looked at him strangely. “See dis heah hole in my haid, honey? ’Member how you and Ben uster ast Aunt Tish what mek hit? Dat nigger Bunk Bivens mek hit. He was a roustabout on de ribber, an’ him an’ yer paw fell out, an’ one night when you was a baby he follow yer paw up here, an’ me an’ him had hit out.”“But where was my father?” asked Mr. Opp.“Dey was ’sputin’ right heah in dis heah kitchen where we’s standin’ at, an’ dat mean, bow-laigged nigger didn’t have no better manners den to ’spute wif a gentleman dat was full. An’ pore Miss she run in so skeered an’ white an’ she say, ‘Aunt Tish, don’t let him hurt him; he don’t know what he’s sayin’,’ she[p277]baig, an’ I tell her to keep yer paw outen de way an’ I tek keer ob Bunk.”“And did he fight you?” asked Mr. Opp, indignantly.“Naw, sir; I fit him. We put nigh tore up de floor ob de kitchen. Den he bust my haid open wif de poker, an’ looks lak I been losing my knowledge ever sence. From dat day I ’low I’s gwine to git even if it took me till I died, an’ now dat spiteful old devil done died fust. But I’s gwine see him buried. I want to see ’em nail him up in a box and th’ow dirt on him.”Aunt Tish ended the recital in a sing-song chant, worked up to a state of hysteria by the recital of her ancient wrong.Mr. Opp sighed both for the past and the present. He saw the futility of arguing the case.“Well, you’ll stay until the boat whistles?” he asked. “Sometimes it is two hours late.”“Yas, sir; but when dat whistle toots I’s gwine. Ef you is heah, all right; ef you ain’t, all right: I’sgwine!”[p278]As Mr. Opp passed through the hall he saw Miss Kippy slip ahead of him and conceal herself behind the door. She carried something hidden in her apron.“Have you learned your reading lesson to say to brother D. to-night?” he asked, ignoring her behavior. “You are getting so smart, learning to read handwriting just as good as I can!”But Miss Kippy only peeped at him through the crack in the door and refused to be friendly. For several days she had been furtive and depressed, and had not spoken to either Aunt Tish or himself.On the way to his office Mr. Opp was surprised to see Mr. Gallop leaning out of the window of his little room beckoning frantically. It was evident that Mr. Gallop had a secret to divulge, and Mr. Gallop with a secret was as excited as a small bird with a large worm.“Just come in a minute and sit down,” he fluttered; “you’ll have to excuse the looks of things. Having just this one[p279]room for telegraph office and bedroom and everything crowds me up awful. I’ve been trying to fix my lunch for half an hour, but the telephone just keeps me busy. Then, besides, Mr. Mathews was here; he came down on the launch at twelve o’clock. Now, of course I know it ain’t right to repeat anything I hear over the long-distance wire, but being such a good friend of yours, and you being such a friend of mine—why, Mr. Opp there ain’t anybody in the world I owe more to than I do to you, not only the money you’ve lent me from time to time, but your standing up for me when everybody was down on me—and—”“Yes; but you was remarking about Mr. Mathews?” Mr. Opp interrupted.“Yes; and I was saying I never make a practice of repeating what I hear, but he was talking right here in the room, and I was mixing up a little salad dressing I promised Mrs. Fallows for the social,—it’s to be over at Your Hotel this evening—there’s the telephone!”[p280]Mr. Opp sat on the edge of the sofa, the rest of it being occupied with gaily embroidered sofa pillows, specimens, the town declared, of Mr. Gallop’s own handiwork. In fact, the only unoccupied space in the room was on the ceiling, for between his duties as operator and housekeeper Mr. Gallop still found time to cultivate the arts, and the result of his efforts was manifest in every nook and corner.“It was Mrs. Gusty getting after Mr. Toddlinger for sending vanilla extract instead of lemon,” explained Mr. Gallop, who had stopped to hear the discussion.“Well, as I was saying, Mr. Mathews called up somebody in the city almost as soon as he got here—Now you’ve got to promise me you won’t tell a living soul about this.”Mr. Opp promised.“He said to telegraph New York party that terms were agreed on, and to mail check at once to Clark, and tell him to keep his mouth shut. Then the other end said something, and Mr. Mathews[p281]said: ‘We can’t afford to wait. You telegraph at once; I’ll manipulate the crowd down here.’ They talked a lot more, then he said awful low, but I heard him: ‘Well, damn it! they’ve got to. There’s too much at stake.’”The editor sat with his hat in his hand, and blinked at the operator: “Manipulate,” he said in a puzzled tone, “did he use that particular word?”Mr. Gallop nodded.“He may have been referring to something else,” said Mr. Opp, waiving aside any disagreeable suspicion. “Mr. Mathews is a business gentleman. He’s involved in a great many ventures, something like myself. You wouldn’t think from what you heard that—er—that he was contemplating not acting exactly—fair with us, would you?”Mr. Gallop, having delivered himself of his information, did not feel called upon to express a personal opinion.“If you ever say I told you a word of this, I’ll swear I didn’t,” he said. “It was just because you were such a good[p282]friend, and—there’s that ’phone again!”During the early hours of the afternoon, Mr. Opp was oppressed with a vague uneasiness. He made several attempts to see Mr. Mathews, but that gentleman was closeted with his stenographer until five o’clock, the hour named for the meeting.All feeling of distrust was banished, however, when Mr. Mathews made his way through the crowd of stock-holders that filled the office of Your Hotel, and took his stand by the desk. He was so bland and confident, so satisfied with himself and the world and the situation, that, as Jimmy Fallows remarked, “You kinder looked for him to purr when he wasn’t talking.”He set forth at great length the undoubted oil wealth of the region, he complimented them on their sagacity and foresight in buying up the Turtle Creek ground, he praised the Cove in general and that distinguished citizen, the editor of “The Opp Eagle,” in particular. The[p283]enterprise upon which they had embarked, he said, had grown to such proportions that large capital was required to carry it on. Owing to the recent depression in the money market, the Kentucky company did not feel able properly to back the concern, so it had been agreed that if a good offer was made to buy it, it should be accepted. It was with such an offer, Mr. Mathews said, that he had come to them to-day.A stir of excitement met this announcement, and Miss Jim Fenton waved her lace scarf in her enthusiasm.“Some time ago,” went on Mr. Mathews, graciously acknowledging the applause, “the Union Syndicate of New York sent an expert, Mr. Clark, down here to report on the oil conditions in this region.” Mr. Opp’s eyes became fixed on Mr. Mathews’s face, and his lips parted. “The report was so entirely satisfactory,” continued Mr. Mathews, “that the following offer has been made.”Mr. Opp rose immediately. “Excuse[p284]me, sir, there is—er—rather, there must be some little mistake just at this juncture.”All eyes were turned upon him, and a murmur of dissent arose at an interruption at such a critical point.Mr. Mathews gave him permission to proceed.“You see—I—Mr. Clark, that is,”—Mr. Opp’s fingers were working nervously on the back of the chair before him,—“him and myself went over the ground together, and—I—well, I must say I don’t consider him a competent judge.”Mr. Mathews smiled. “I am afraid, Mr. Opp, that your opinion is overruled. Mr. Clark is a recognized authority, although,” he added significantly, “of course the most expert make mistakes at times.”“That ain’t the point,” persisted Mr. Opp; “it’s the conflicting difference in what he said to me, and what he’s reported to them. He told me that he didn’t consider our prospects was worth[p285]a picayune, and if the wells were drilled, they probably wouldn’t run a year. I didn’t believe him then; but you say now that he is a expert and that he knows.”Mr. Mathews’s tolerance seemed limitless. He waited patiently for Mr. Opp to finish, then he said smoothly:“Yes, yes; I understand your point perfectly, Mr. Opp. Mr. Clark’s remarks were injudicious, but he was looking at all sides of the question. He saw me after he saw you, you know, and I was able to direct his attention to the more favorable aspects of the case. His report was entirely favorable, and I guess that is all that concerns us, isn’t it?” He embraced the room with his smile.During the next quarter of an hour Mr. Opp sat with his arms folded and his eyes bent on the floor and bit his lips furiously. Something was wrong. Again and again he fought his way back to this conclusion through the enveloping mazes of Mr. Mathews’s plausibility. Why[p286]had they waited so long after drilling that first well? Why, after making elaborate plans and buying machinery, had they suddenly decided to sell? Why had Mr. Clark given such contradictory opinions? What did Mr. Mathews mean by that message from Mr. Gallop’s office? Mr. Opp’s private affairs, trembling in the balance, were entirely lost sight of in his determination for fair play.Covering his eyes with his hand, and trying not to hear the flood of argument which Mr. Mathews was bringing to bear upon his already convinced audience, Mr. Opp attempted to recall all that Mr. Gallop had told him.“He said ‘manipulate,’” repeated Mr. Opp to himself. “I remember that, and he said ‘telegraph New York party that terms were agreed on.’ Then he said ‘mail check to Clark; tell him to keep his mouth shut.’ What’shepaying Clark for? Why—”“The motion before the house,” Mr. Tucker’s piping voice broke in upon his agitated reasoning, “is whether the[p287]stock-holders of the Turtle Creek Land Company is willing to sell out at a rate of seven to one to the Union Syndicate.”In the buzz of delight that ensued, Mr. Opp found himself standing on a chair and demanding attention.“Listen here,” he cried, pounding on the wall with his hand, “I’ve got important information that’s got to be told: that man Clark is a rascal. He’s—he’s deceiving his company. He’s been paid to make a good report of our ground. I can’t prove it, but I know it. We’re taking part in a fraud; we’re—we’re being manipulated.”Mr. Opp almost shrieked the last word in his agony of earnestness; but before the crowd could fully apprehend his meaning, Mr. Mathews rose and said somewhat sharply:“What the representative of the Union Syndicate is, or is not, doesn’t concern us in the least. I come to you with a gilt-edged proposition; all I ask you is to sit tight, and take my advice, and I guarantee you an immediate[p288]return of seven dollars to every one you put into this concern. Mr. Chairman, will you put it to the vote?”But Mr. Opp again stopped proceedings. “As a director in this company I won’t stand for what’s going on. I’ll telegraph the syndicate. I’ll advertise the whole matter!”Mat Lucas pulled at his sleeve, and the preacher put a restraining arm about his shoulder. The amazing rumor had become current that the Cove’s stanchest advocate for temperance had been indulging in drink, and there was nothing in the editor’s flushed face and excited manner to contradict the impression.“If by any chance,” Mr. Mathews went on in a steady voice, “there should be a stock-holder who is unwilling to take advantage of this magnificent offer, we need hardly say that we are prepared to buy his stock back at the amount he gave for it.” He smiled, as if inviting ridicule at the absurdity of the proposition.“I am unwilling,” cried Mr. Opp,[p289]tugging at the restraining hands. “I have never yet in all the length and breadth of my experience been associated with a dishonest act.”“Don’t! Mr. Opp, don’t!” whispered Mat Lucas. “You’re acting like a crazy man. Don’t you see you are losing the chance to make three thousand dollars?”“That hasn’t nothing to do with it,” cried Mr. Opp, almost beside himself. “I’ll not be a party to the sale. I’ll—”Mr. Mathews turned to his secretary. “Just fix up those papers for Mr. Opp, and give him a check for what is coming to him. Now, Mr. Chairman, will you put the matter to the vote?”Amid the hilarious confusion that succeeded the unanimous vote, and the subsequent adjournment of the meeting, Mr. Opp pushed his way through the crowd that surrounded Mr. Mathews.“You know what I was alluding at,” he shouted through his chattering teeth. “You’ve carried this through, but I’ll blockade you. I am going to tell the truth to the whole community. I am[p290]going to telegraph to the syndicate and stop the sale.”Mr. Mathews lifted his brows and smiled deprecatingly.“I am sorry you have worked yourself up to such a pitch, my friend,” he said. “Telegraph, by all means if it will ease your mind; but the fact is, the deal was closed at noon to-day.”The long, low whistle of the packet sounded, but Mr. Opp heeded it not. He was flinging his way across to the telegraph office in a frenzy of Quixotic impatience to right the wrong of which he had refused to be a part.[p291]XVIHalfan hour later, Mr. Opp dragged himself up the hill to his home. All the unfairness and injustice of the universe seemed pressing upon his heart. Every muscle in his body quivered in remembrance of what he had been through, and an iron band seemed tightening about his throat. His town had refused to believe his story! It had laughed in his face!With a sudden mad desire for sympathy and for love, he began calling Kippy. He stumbled across the porch, and, opening the door with his latch-key, stood peering into the gloom of the room.The draft from an open window blew a curtain toward him, a white spectral,[p292]beckoning thing, but no sound broke the stillness.“Kippy!” he called again, his voice sharp with anxiety.From one room to another he ran, searching in nooks and corners, peering under the beds and behind the doors, calling in a voice that was sometimes a command, but oftener a plea: “Kippy! Kippy!”At last he came back to the dining-room and lighted the lamp with shaking hands. On the hearth were the remains of a small bonfire, with papers scattered about. He dropped on his knees and seized a bit of charred cardboard. It was a corner of the hand-painted frame that had incased the picture of Guinevere Gusty! Near it lay loose sheets of paper, parts of that treasured package of letters she had written him from Coreyville.As Mr. Opp gazed helplessly about the room, his eyes fell upon something white pinned to the red table-cloth. He held it to the light. It was a portion of one of[p293]Guinevere’s letters, written in the girl’s clear, round hand:Mother says I can never marry you until Miss Kippy goes to the asylum.Mr. Opp got to his feet. “She’s read the letter,” he cried wildly; “she’s learned out about herself! Maybe she’s in the woods now, or down on the bank!” He rushed to the porch. “Kippy!” he shouted. “Don’t be afraid! Brother D.’s coming to get you! Don’t run away, Kippy! Wait for me! Wait!” and leaving the old house open to the night, he plunged into the darkness, beating through the woods and up and down the road, calling in vain for Kippy, who lay cowering in the bottom of a leaking skiff that was drifting down the river at the mercy of the current.Two days later, Mr. Opp sat in the office of the Coreyville Asylum for the Insane and heard the story of his sister’s wanderings. Her boat had evidently been[p294]washed ashore at a point fifteen miles above the town, for people living along the river had reported a strange little woman, without hat or coat, who came to their doors crying and saying her name was “Oxety,” and that she was crazy, and begging them to show her the way to the asylum. On the second day she had been found unconscious on the steps of the institution, and since then, the doctor said, she had been wild and unmanageable.“Considering all things,” he concluded, “it is much wiser for you not to see her. She came of her own accord, evidently felt the attack coming on, and wanted to be taken care of.”He was a large, smooth-faced man, with the conciliatory manner of one who regards all his fellow-men as patients in varying degrees of insanity.“But I’m in the regular habit of taking care of her,” protested Mr. Opp. “This is just a temporary excitement for the time being that won’t ever, probably, occur again. Why, she’s been[p295]improving all winter; I’ve learnt her to read and write a little, and to pick out a number of cities on the geographical atlas.”“All wrong,” exclaimed the doctor; “mistaken kindness. She can never be any better, but she may be a great deal worse. Her mind should never be stimulated or excited in any way. Here, of course, we understand all these things and treat the patient accordingly.”“Then I must just go back to treating her like a child again?” asked Mr. Opp, “not endeavoring to improve her intellect, or help her grow up in any way?”The doctor laid a kindly hand on his shoulder.“You leave her to us,” he said. “The State provides this excellent institution for just such cases as hers. You do yourself and your family, if you have one, an injustice by keeping her at home. Let her stay here for six months or so, and you will see what a relief it will be.”Mr. Opp sat with his elbow on the desk and his head propped in his hand,[p296]and stared miserably at the floor. He had not had his clothes off for two nights, and he had scarcely taken time from his search to eat anything. His face looked old and wizened and haunted from the strain. Yet here and now he was called upon to make his great decision. On the one hand lay the old, helpless life with Kippy, and on the other a future of dazzling possibility with Guinevere. All of his submerged self suddenly rose and demanded happiness. He was ready to snatch it, at any cost, regardless of everything and everybody—of Kippy; of Guinevere, who, he knew, did not love him, but would keep her promise; of Hinton, whose secret he had long ago guessed. And, as a running accompaniment to his thoughts, was the quiet, professional voice of the doctor urging him to the course that his heart prompted. For a moment the personal forces involved trembled in equilibrium.After a long time he unknotted his fingers, and drew his handkerchief across his brow.[p297]“I guess I’ll go up and see her now,” he said, with the gasping breath of a man who has been under water.In vain the doctor protested. Mr. Opp was determined.As the door to the long ward was being unlocked, he leaned for a moment dizzily against the wall.“You’d better let me give you a swallow of whisky,” suggested the doctor, who had noted his exhaustion.Mr. Opp raised his hand deprecatingly, with a touch of his old professional pride. “I don’t know as I’ve had occasion to mention,” he said, “that I am the editor and sole proprietor of ‘The Opp Eagle’; and that bird,” he added, with a forced smile, “is, as everybody knows, a complete teetotaler.”At the end of the crowded ward, with her face to the wall, was a slight, familiar figure. Mr. Opp started forward; then he turned fiercely upon the attendant.“Her hands aretied! Who dared to tie her up like that?”“It’s just a soft handkerchief,”[p298]replied the matronly woman, reassuringly. “We were afraid she would pull her hair out. She wants its fixed a certain way; but she’s afraid for any of us to touch her. She has been crying about it ever since she came.”In an instant Mr. Opp was on his knees beside her. “Kippy, Kippy darling, here’s brother D.; he’ll fix it for you! You want it parted on the side, don’t you, tied with a bow, and all the rest hanging down? Don’t cry so, Kippy. I’m here now; brother D.’ll take care of you.”She flung her loosened arms around him and clung to him in a passion of relief. Her sobs shook them both, and his face and neck were wet with her tears.As soon as they could get her sufficiently quiet, they took her into her little bedroom.“You let the lady get you ready,” urged Mr. Opp, still holding her hand, “and I’ll take you back home, and Aunt Tish will have a nice, hot supper all waiting for us.”[p299]But she would let nobody else touch her, and even then she broke forth into piteous sobs and protests. Once she pushed him from her and looked about wildly. “No, no,” she cried, “I mustn’t go; I am crazy!” But he told her about the three little kittens that had been born under the kitchen steps, and in an instant she was all a-tremble with eagerness to go home to see them.An hour later, Mr. Opp and his charge sat on the river-bank and waited for the little launch that was to take them back to the Cove. A curious crowd had gathered at a short distance, for their story had gone the rounds.Mr. Opp sat under the fire of curious glances, gazing straight in front of him, and only his flushed face showed what he was suffering. Miss Kippy, in her strange clothes and with her pale hair flying about her shoulders, sat close by him, her hand in his.“D.,” she said once in a high, insistent voice, “when will I be grown up enough to marry Mr. Hinton?”[p300]Mr. Opp for a moment forgot the crowd. “Kippy,” he said with all the gentle earnestness that was in him, “you ain’t never going to grow up at all. You are just always going to be brother D.’s little girl. You see, Mr. Hinton’s too old for you, just like—” he paused, then finished it bravely—“just like I am too old for Miss Guin-never. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got married with each other some day. You and me will just have to take care of each other.”She looked at him with the quick suspicion of the insane, but he was ready for her with a smile.“Oh, D.,” she cried, in a sudden rapture, “we are glad, ain’t we?”[p301]XVIIForthe next four weeks there was no issue of “The Opp Eagle.” When it did make its appearance, it contained the following editorial:Ye editor has for several weeks been the victim of the La Grip which eventuated into a rising in our left ear. Although we are still in severe and continuous pain, we know that behind the clouds of suffering the blue sky of health is still shining, and that a brighter day is coming, as it were.The night of Mr. Opp’s return from Coreyville, he had written a long letter to Guinevere Gusty telling her of his final decision in regard to Kippy, and releasing her from her promise. This having been accomplished, he ceased to[p302]fight against the cold and exhaustion, and went to bed with a hard chill.Aunt Tish, all contrition for the disasters she thought she had brought upon the household, served him night and day, and even Miss Kippy, moved by the unusual sight of her brother in bed, made futile efforts to assist in the nursing.When at last he was able to crawl back to the office, he found startling changes had taken place in the Cove. The prompt payment of the oil stock-holders by the Union Syndicate had brought about such a condition of prosperity and general satisfaction as had never before been known. The civic spirit planted and carefully nourished by “The Opp Eagle” burst into bloom under this sudden and unexpected warmth. Committees, formed the year before, were called upon for reports, and gratifying results were obtained. The Cove awoke to the fact that it had lamp-posts, and side-walks and a post-office, with a possibility, looming large, of a court house.Nor did this ambition for improvement[p303]stop short with the town: it extended to individuals. Jimmy Fallows was going to build a new hotel; Mr. Tucker was going to convert his hotel into a handsome private residence, for which Mrs. Gusty had been asked to select the wall-paper; Mat Lucas was already planning to build a large store on Main Street, and had engaged Mr. Gallop to take charge of the dry-goods department. The one person upon whom prosperity had apparently had a blighting effect was Miss Jim Fenton. Soon after the receipt of her check, she had appeared in the Cove in a plain, black tailor suit, and a small, severe felt hat innocent of adornment. The French-heeled slippers had been replaced by heavy walking shoes, and the lace scarf was discarded for a stiff linen collar.But the state of Miss Jim’s mind was not to be judged by the somberness of her raiment. The novelty of selecting her own clothes, of consulting her own taste, of being rid of the entangling dangers of lace ruffles and flying furbelows,[p304]to say nothing of unwelcome suitors, gave her a sense of exhilaration and independence which she had not enjoyed for years.In the midst of all these tangible evidences of success, Mr. Opp found himself indulging in a hand-to-hand struggle with failure. As a hunter aims at a point well in advance of the flying bird, so he had aimed at possibilities ahead of the facts, and when events took an unexpected turn, he was left stranded, his ammunition gone, his judgment questioned, and his hands empty. He had been conducting his affairs not on the basis of his present income, but in reference to the large sums which he confidently believed would accrue from the oil-wells.The circulation of “The Opp Eagle” was increasing steadily, but the growing bird must be fed, and the editor, struggling to meet daily pressing obligations, was in no condition to furnish the steady demand for copy.All unnecessary diversions were[p305]ruthlessly foregone. He resigned with a pang the leadership of the Union Orchestra, he gave up his membership with the Odd Fellows. Even his more important duties, as president of the Town Improvement League, and director in the bank, were relinquished. For, in addition to his editorials, he had undertaken to augment his slender income by selling on subscription the “Encyclopedia of Wonder, Beauty, and Wisdom.”It was at this low ebb of Mr. Opp’s fortunes that Willard Hinton returned to the Cove. He was still pale from his long confinement, but there was an unusual touch of animation about him, the half-surprised interest of one who has struck bottom, and found it not so bad as he had expected.One dark afternoon in November he made his way over to the office of “The Opp Eagle,” and stood irresolute in the door.“That you, Mr. Opp? Or is it Nick?” He blinked uncertainly.“Why, it is me,” said Mr. Opp.[p306]“Come right in. I’ve been so occupied with engagements that I haven’t scarcely had occasion to see anything of you since you come back. You are getting improved all the time, ain’t you? I thought I saw you writing on a type-writer when I passed this morning.”“Yes,” said Hinton; “it’s a little machine I got before I came down, with raised letters on the keyboard. If I progress at the rapid pace I have started, I’ll be an expert before long. Mrs. Gusty was able to read five words out of ten this morning!”“Hope you’ll do us an article or two,” said Mr. Opp. “I don’t mind telling you that things has been what you might name as pressing ever since that trouble about the oil-wells. I’m not regretting any step that I taken, and I am endeavoring not to harbor any feelings against those that went on after I give my word it wasn’t a fair transaction. But if what that man Clark said is true, Mr. Hinton, the Union Syndicate will[p307]never open up another well in this community.”“Your conscience proved rather an expensive luxury that time, didn’t it, Mr. Opp?” asked Hinton, who had heard as many versions of the affair as there were citizens in the Cove.Mr. Opp shrugged his shoulders, and pursed his lips. “It’s a matter that I cannot yet bring myself to talk about. After a whole year and more of associating with me in business and social ways, to think they wouldn’t be willing to take my word for what I said.”“But it wasn’t to their advantage,” said Hinton, smiling. “You forget the amount of money involved.”“No,” declared Mr. Opp with some heat, “you do those gentlemen a injustice. There ain’t a individual of them that is capable of a dishonest act, any more than you or me. They just lacked the experience in dealing with a man like Mr. Mathews.”Hinton’s smile broadened; he reached over and grasped Mr. Opp’s hand.[p308]“Do you know you are a rattling good fellow? I am sorry things have gotten so balled up with you.”“I’ll pay out,” said the editor. “It’ll take some time, but I’ve got a remarkable ability for work in me. I don’t mind telling you, though I’ll have to ask you not to mention the fact to no one at present, that I am considering inventing a patent. It’s a sort of improved type-setter, one of the most remarkable things you ever witnessed. I never knew till about six months ago what a scientific turn my mind could take. I’ve worked this whole thing out in my brain without the aid of a model of any sort.”“In the meanwhile,” said Hinton, “I hear you will have to sell your paper.”Mr. Opp winced, and the lines in his face deepened. “Well, yes,” he said, “I have about decided to sell, provided I keep the editorship, of course. After my patent gets on the market I will soon be in a position to buy it back.”“Mr. Opp,” said Hinton, “I’ve got a[p309]proposition to make to you. I have a moderate sum of money in bank which I want to invest in business. How would you like to sell out the paper to me, lock, stock, and barrel?”Mr. Opp, whose eyes had been resting on the bills that strewed his table, looked up eagerly.“You to own it, and me to run it?” he asked hopefully.“No,” said Hinton; “you would help me to run it, I hope, but I would be the editor. I have thought the matter over seriously, and I believe, with competent help, I can make the paper an up-to-date, self-supporting newspaper, in spite of my handicap.”Mr. Opp sat as if stunned by a blow. He had known for some time that he must sell the paper in order to meet his obligations, but the thought of relinquishing his control of it never dawned upon him. It was the pride of his heart, the one tangible achievement in a wilderness of dreams. Life without Guinevere had seemed a desert; life without “The[p310]Opp Eagle” seemed chaos. He looked up bewildered.“We’d continue on doing business here in the regular way?” he asked.“No,” said Hinton; “I would build a larger office uptown, and put in new presses; we could experiment with your new patent type-setter as soon as you got it ready.”But Mr. Opp was beyond pleasantries. “You’d keep Nick?” he asked. “I wouldn’t consider anything that would cut Nick out.”“By all means,” said Hinton. “I’m counting on you and Nick to initiate me into the mysteries of the profession. You could be city editor, and Nick—well, we could make him foreman.”One last hope was left to Mr. Opp, and he clung to it desperately, not daring to voice it until the end.“The name,” he said faintly, “would of course remain ‘The Opp Eagle’?”Hinton dropped his eyes; he could not stand the wistful appeal in the drawn face opposite.[p311]“No,” he said shortly; “that’s a—little too personal. I think I should call my paper ‘The Weekly News.’”Mr. Opp could never distinctly remember what happened after that. He knew that he had at first declined the offer, that he had been argued with, had reconsidered, and finally accepted a larger sum than he had asked for; but the details of the transaction were like the setting of bones after an accident.He remembered that he had sat where Hinton left him, staring at the floor until Nick came to close the office; then he had a vague impression of crossing the fields and standing with his head against the old sycamore-tree where the birds had once whispered of love. After that he knew that he had met Hinton and Guinevere coming up the river road hand in hand, that he had gotten home after supper was over, and had built a bridge of blocks for Miss Kippy.Then suddenly he had wakened to full consciousness, staggered out of the house to the woodshed, and shivered down into[p312]a miserable heap. There in the darkness he seemed to see things, for the first time in his life, quite as they were. His gaze, accustomed to the glittering promise of the future, peered fearfully into the past, and reviewed the long line of groundless hopes, of empty projects, of self-deceptions. Shorn of its petty shams and deceits, and stripped of its counterfeit armor of conceit, his life lay naked before him, a pitiful, starved, futile thing.“I’ve just been similar to Kippy,” he sobbed, with his face in his hands, “continually pretending what wasn’t so. I acted like I was young, and good-looking, and—and highly educated; and look at me! Look at me!” he demanded fiercely of the kindling-wood.Mr. Opp had been fighting a long duel—a duel with Circumstance, and Mr. Opp was vanquished. The acknowledgment of defeat, even to himself, gave it the final stamp of verity. He had fought valiantly, with what poor weapons he had, but the thrusts had been too many[p313]and too sure. He lay clothed in his strange new garment of humility, and wondered why he did not want to die. He did not realize that in losing everything else, he had won the greater stake of character for which he had been unconsciously fighting all along.The kitchen door opened, and he saw Miss Kippy’s figure silhouetted against the light.“Brother D.,” she called impatiently, “ain’t you coming back to play with me?”He scrambled to his feet and made a hasty and somewhat guilty effort to compose himself.“Yes, I’m a-coming,” he answered briskly, as he smoothed his scant locks and straightened his tie. “You go on ahead and gather up the blocks; I only stopped playing for a little spell.”[p314]XVIIIThemarriage of Guinevere Gusty and Willard Hinton took place in mid-winter, and the account of it, published in the last issue of “The Opp Eagle,” proved that the eagle, like the swan, has its death-song.Like many of the masterpieces of literature, the article had been written in anguish of spirit; but art, like nature, ignores the process, and reckons only the result, and the result, in Mr. Opp’s opinion at least, more than justified the effort.“In these strenuous, history-making meanderings of the sands of life,” it ran, “we sometimes overlook or neglect particulars in events which prove of larger importance than appears on the surface. The case to which we have[p315]allusion to is the wedding which was solemnized at eventide at the residence of the bride’s mother. The Gustys may be justly considered one of the best-furnished families in the county, and the parlors were only less beautiful than the only daughter there presiding. The collation served therein was of such a liberal nature that every guest, we might venture to say, took dinner enough home for supper. It has seldom been our fate to meet a gentleman of such intelligent attainments as Mr. Hinton, and his entire future existence, be it long or short, cannot fail of being thrice blessed by the companionship of the one who has confided her trust to him,—her choice, world-wide. Although a bachelor ourself, we know what happiness must be theirs, and with all our heart we vouchsafe them a joyful voyage across the uncertain billows of Time until their nuptial or matrimonial bark shall have been safely moored in the haven of everlasting bliss, where the storms of this life spread not their violence.”[p316]Some men spend their lives in the valley, and some are born and die on the heights; but it was Mr. Opp’s fate to climb from the valley to his own little mountain-top of prosperity, only to have to climb down on the other side. It was evidence of his genius that in time he persuaded himself and his fellow-citizens that it was exactly what he wanted to do.“That there life of managing and promoting was all right in its way,” he said one day to a group of men at the post-office, “but a man owes something to himself, don’t he? Now that the town has got well started, and Mr. Hinton is going to take main charge of the paper, I’ll be freer than I been for years to put some of my ideas into practice.”“We are counting on getting you back in the orchestra,” said Mr. Gallop, whose admiration for Mr. Opp retained its pristine bloom.Mr. Opp shook his head regretfully. “No, I’m going to give all my evenings over to study. This present enterprise I[p317]am engaged on requires a lot of personal application. I sometimes think that I have in the past scattered my forces too much, in a way.”So persistently did Mr. Opp refer to the mysterious work that was engrossing him that he reduced Mr. Gallop’s curiosity to the saturation-point.When he was no longer able to stand it, the telegraph operator determined upon a tour of investigation. The projected presentation of a new cornet by the Unique Orchestra to its erstwhile leader proved a slender excuse for a call, and while he knew that, with the exception of Willard Hinton, no visitor had ever been known to cross the Opp threshold, yet he permitted desire to overrule delicacy.It was a blustery December night when he climbed the hill, and he had to pause several times during the ascent to gain sufficient breath to proceed. By the time he reached the house he was quite speechless, and he dropped on the steps to rest a moment before knocking. As he sat[p318]there trying to imagine the flying-machine or torpedo-boat upon which he felt certain Mr. Opp was engaged, he became aware of voices from within, and looking up, he saw the window above him was slightly raised. Overcome by his desire to see his friend at work upon his great invention, he cautiously tiptoed across the porch and peeped in.The low-ceilinged old room was bright with firelight, and in the center of it, with his knees drawn up, his toes turned in, and his tongue thrust out, sat Mr. Opp, absorbed in an object which he held between his knees. Miss Kippy knelt before him, eagerly watching proceedings.Mr. Gallop craned his neck to see what it was that held their interest, and at last discovered that they were fitting a dress on a large china doll.Miss Kippy’s voice broke the silence. “You can sew nice,” she was saying; “you can sew prettier than Aunt Tish.”[p319]“‘Can’t nobody beat me making skirts’”“Can’t nobody beat me making skirts,” said Mr. Opp, and Mr. Gallop saw him push his needle through a bit of[p321]cloth, with the handle of the shovel; “but sleeves is a more particular proposition. Why, I’d rather thread three needles than to fix in one sleeve! Why don’t you make like it’s summer-time and let her go without any?”Miss Kippy’s lips trembled. “I want sleeves, D.—two of them, and a lady’s hat, with roses on it. We can letherbe grown up, can’t we, D.?”Mr. Gallop beat a hasty and shame-faced retreat. Though his idol had fallen from its pedestal, he determined to stand guard over the fragments, and from that night on, he constituted himself Mr. Opp’s loyal defender.And Mr. Gallop was not the only one who came forth boldly in expressions of sympathy and respect for the ex-editor. It was especially easy for those who had prospered by the oil boom to express unbounded admiration for the conscientious stand he had taken in the late transaction. They had done him a grave injustice, they acknowledged. The wells had been reinvestigated and proved of[p322]small value. The fact that the truth was discovered too late to affect their luck deepened their appreciation of Mr. Opp.Willard Hinton, seeing what balm these evidences of approval brought to Mr. Opp’s wounded spirit, determined to arrange for a banquet to the retiring editor, at which he planned to bring forth as many testimonials of friendship and good-will as was possible.The affair was to take place New Year’s night, in the dining-room of Fallows’s new Your Hotel. The entire masculine contingent of the Cove was invited, and the feminine element prepared the supper. There had never been a social event of such an ambitious nature attempted in the Cove before, and each citizen took a personal pride in its success.For a week in advance the town was in violent throes of speech-writing, cake-baking, salad-mixing, and decorating. Even Mrs. Fallows warmed to the occasion, and crocheted a candlestick, candle, flame, and all, to grace the table.[p323]When the night arrived, Jimmy Fallows did the honors. He was resplendent in his dress-suit, which consisted of a black sateen shirt and a brown suit of clothes.When the guests were all seated, Willard Hinton rose, and in a few brief, pointed remarks, called the attention of the town to the changes that had been wrought by the indefatigable efforts of one citizen in particular. He spoke of the debt of gratitude they owed, collectively and individually, to the late editor of “The Opp Eagle,” and added that after Mr. Opp’s response, the guests desired, each in turn, to voice his sentiments upon the subject.Mr. Opp then rose amid a thunder of applause, and stood for a moment in pleased but overwhelming embarrassment. Then he put forward one foot inflated his chest, and began:“Valued brother fellow-beings, I come before you to-night to express that which there is no words in the English vocabulary to express. Whatever you may[p324]have to say concerning me, or my part in the awakening of this our native city, I shall listen at with a grateful heart. I believe in a great future for Cove City. We may not live to see it, but I believe that the day will arrive when our city shall be the gateway to the South, when the river front will be not dissimilar to Main Street, New York. I predict that it reaches a pivot of prominence of which we wot not of. As for Mr. Hinton, one and all we welcome him amid our mongst. ‘The Opp Eagle’ strikes palms with ‘The Weekly News,’ and wishes it a lasting and eternal success.”A burst of applause interrupted the flow of his eloquence, and as he glanced around the room, he saw there was some commotion at the door. A turbaned head caught his eye, then Aunt Tish’s beckoning hand.Hastily excusing himself, he made his way through the crowd, and bent to hear her message.“Hit’s Miss Kippy,” she whispered. “I hate to ’sturb you, but she done crack[p325]her doll’s head, an’ she’s takin’ on so, I can’t do nuffin ’t all wif her.”“Couldn’t you contrive to get her quiet no way at all?” asked Mr. Opp, anxiously.“Naw, sir. She mek like dat doll her shore ’nough baby, and she ’low she gwine die, too, furst chanct she gits. I got Val’s mother to stay wif her till I git back.”“All right,” said Mr. Opp, hastily. “You go right on and tell her I’m coming.”When he reëntered the dining-room, he held his hat in his hand.“I find a urgent matter of business calls me back home; for only a few moments, I trust,” he said apologetically, with bows and smiles. “If the banquet will kindly proceed, I will endeavor to return in ample time for the final speeches.”With the air of a monarch taking temporary leave of his subjects, he turned his back upon the gay, protesting crowd, upon the feast prepared in his honor,[p326]upon the speech-making, so dear to his heart. Tramping through the snow of the deserted street, through the lonely graveyard, and along the river road, he went to bind up the head of a china doll, and to wipe away the tears of a little half-crazed sister.He wears the same checked suit as when we saw him first, worn and frayed, to be sure, but carefully pressed for the occasion, the same brave scarf and pin, and watch fob, though the watch is missing.Passing out of sight with the sleet in his face, and the wind cutting through his finery, he whistles as he goes, such a plucky, sturdy, hopeful whistle as calls to arms the courage that lies slumbering in the hearts of men.THE END
“They aren’t the same,” he said, “and you aren’t the same girl I met on the boat last March. I guess we’ve both grown a bit since then. You know I was rather keen on dying about that time,—‘in love with easeful death,’—well, now I am not keen about anything, but I am willing to play the game out.”
They sat in silence for a while, then he said slowly, without raising his eyes: “I am not much good at telling what I feel, but before I go away I want you to know how much you’ve helped me. You have been the one light that was left to show me the way down into the darkness.”
A soft touch on his shoulder made him lift his head. Guinevere was bending toward him, all restraint banished from her face by the compassion and love that suffused it.
[p263]“‘Oh, my God, it has come’”
Instinctively he swayed toward her, all the need of her crying out suddenly within him, then he pulled himself[p265]sharply together, and, resolutely thrusting his hands in his pockets, rose and took a turn up and down the porch.
“Do you mind reading to me a little?” he asked at length. “There are forty devils in my head to-day, all hammering on the back of my eyeballs. I’ll get my Tennyson; you like him better than you do the others. Wait; I’m going.”
But she was up the steps before him, eager to serve, and determined to spare him every effort.
Through the long afternoon Guinevere read, stumbling over the strange words and faltering through the difficult passages, but vibrant to the beauty and the pathos of it all. On and on she read, and the sun went down, and the fragrance of dying locust bloom came faintly from the hill, and overhead in the tree-tops the evening breeze murmured its world-old plaint of loneliness and longing.
Suddenly Guinevere’s voice faltered, then steadied, then faltered again, then without warning she flung her arms across the back of the bench, and, dropping[p266]her head upon them, burst into passionate sobs.
Hinton, who had been sitting for a long time with his hands pressed over his eyes, sprang up to go to her.
“Guinevere,” he said, “what’s the matter? Don’t cry, dear!” Then, as he stumbled, a look of terror crossed his face and he caught at the railing for support. “Where are you?” he asked sharply. “Speak to me! Give me your hand! I can’t see—I can’t—oh, my God, it has come!”
Thewarning note sounded by Mrs. Fallows at the beginning of the oil boom was echoed by many before the summer was over. The coldest thing in the world is an exhausted enthusiasm, and when weeks slipped into months, and notes fell due, and the bank became cautious about lending money, a spirit of distrust got abroad, and a financial frost settled upon the community.
Notwithstanding these conditions, “The Opp Eagle” persistently screamed prosperity. It attributed the local depression to the financial disturbance that had agitated the country at large, and assured the readers that the Cove was on the eve of the greatest period in its history.
[p268]“The ascending, soaring bubble of inflated prices cannot last much longer,” one editorial said; “the financial flurry in the Wall Streets of the North were pretty well over before we become aware of it, in a major sense. ‘The Opp Eagle’ has in the past, present, and future waged noble warfare against the calamity jays. Panic or no panic, Cove City refuses to remain in the backgrounds. There has been a large order for job-work in this office within the past ten days, also several new and important subscribers, all of which does not make much of a showing for hard times, at least not from our point of looking at it.”
But in the same issue, in an inconspicuous corner, were a couple of lines to the effect that “the editor would be glad to take a load of wood on subscription.”
The truth was that it required all of Mr. Opp’s diplomacy to rise to the occasion. The effort to meet his own obligations was becoming daily more[p269]embarrassing, and he was reduced to economies entirely beneath the dignity of the editor of “The Opp Eagle.” But while he cheerfully restricted his diet to two meals a day, and wore shirt-fronts in lieu of the genuine article, he was, according to Nick’s ideas, rashly extravagant in other ways.
“What did you go and buy Widow Green’s oil-shares back for?” Nick demanded upon one of these occasions.
“Well, you see,” explained Mr. Opp, “it was purely a business proposition. Any day, now, things may open up in a way that will surprise you. I have good reason to believe that those shares are bound to go up; and besides,” he added lamely in an undertone, “I happen to know that that there lady was in immediate need of a little ready money.”
“So are we,” protested Nick; “we need every cent we can get for the paper. If we don’t get ahead some by the first of the year, we are going under, sure as you live.”
Mr. Opp laid a hand upon his shoulder[p270]and smiled tolerantly. “Financiers get used to these fluctuations in money circles. Don’t you worry, Nick; you leave that to the larger brains in the concern.”
But in spite of his superior attitude of confidence, Nick’s words rankled in his mind, and the first of the year became a time which he preferred not to consider.
One day in September the mail-packet brought two letters of great importance to Mr. Opp. One was from Willard Hinton, the first since his operation, and the other was from Mr. Mathews, stating that he would arrive at the Cove that day to lay an important matter of business before the stock-holders of the Turtle Creek Land Company.
Mr. Opp rushed across the road, a letter in each hand, to share the news with Guinevere.
“It’s as good as settled,” he cried, bursting in upon her, where she sat at the side door wrestling with a bit of needlework. “Mr. Mathews will be here to-day. He is either going to open up work or sell out to a syndicate. I’m[p271]going to use all my influence for the latter; it’s the surest and safest plan. Miss Guin-never,”—his voice softened,— “this is all I been waiting for to make my last and final arrangement with your mother. It was just yesterday she was asking me what I’d decided to do, and I don’t mind telling you, now it’s all over, I never went to bed all last night—just sat up trying to figure it out. But this will settle it. I’ll be in a position to have a little home of my own and take care of Kippy, too. I don’t know as I ever was so happy in all my life put together before.” He laughed nervously, but his eyes anxiously studied her averted face.
“Then there’s more news,” he plunged on, when she did not speak—“a letter from Mr. Hinton. I thought maybe you’d like to hear what he had to say.”
Guinevere’s scissors dropped with a sharp ring on the stepping-stone below, and as they both stooped to get them, their fingers touched. Mr. Opp ardently[p272]seized her hand in both of his, but unfortunately he seized her needle as well.
“Oh, I am so sorry!” she said. “Wait, let me do it,” and with a compassion which he considered nothing short of divine she extricated the needle, and comforted the wounded member. Mr. Opp would have gladly suffered the fate of a St. Sebastian to have elicited such sympathy.
“Is—is Mr. Hinton better?” she asked, still bending over his hand.
“Hinton?” asked Mr. Opp. “Oh, I forgot; yes. I’ll read you what he says. He got his nurse to write this for him.
Dear Opp: The die is cast; I am a has-been. I did not expect anything, so I am not disappointed. The operation was what they called successful. The surgeon, I am told, did a very brilliant stunt; something like taking my eyes out, playing marbles with them, and getting them sewed back again all in three minutes and a half. The result to the patient is of course purely a minor consideration, but it may interest you to know that I can tell a biped from a quadruped, and may[p273]in time, by the aid of powerful glasses, be able to distinguish faces.With these useful and varied accomplishments I have decided to return to the Cove. My modest ambition now is to get out of the way, and the safest plan is to keep out of the current.You will probably be a Benedick by the time I return. My heartiest congratulations to you and Miss Guinevere. Words cannot thank either of you for what you have done for me. All I can say is that I have tried to be worthy of your friendship.What’s left of me isYours,WillardHinton.”
Dear Opp: The die is cast; I am a has-been. I did not expect anything, so I am not disappointed. The operation was what they called successful. The surgeon, I am told, did a very brilliant stunt; something like taking my eyes out, playing marbles with them, and getting them sewed back again all in three minutes and a half. The result to the patient is of course purely a minor consideration, but it may interest you to know that I can tell a biped from a quadruped, and may[p273]in time, by the aid of powerful glasses, be able to distinguish faces.
With these useful and varied accomplishments I have decided to return to the Cove. My modest ambition now is to get out of the way, and the safest plan is to keep out of the current.
You will probably be a Benedick by the time I return. My heartiest congratulations to you and Miss Guinevere. Words cannot thank either of you for what you have done for me. All I can say is that I have tried to be worthy of your friendship.
What’s left of me is
Yours,
WillardHinton.”
Mr. Opp avoided looking at her as he folded the sheets and put them back in the envelop. The goal was bright before his eyes, but quicksands dragged at his feet.
“And hewillfind us married, won’t he, Miss Guin-never? You’ll be ready just as soon as I and your mother come to a understanding, won’t you? Why, it seems more like eleven years than[p274]eleven months since you and me saw that sunset on the river! There hasn’t been a day since, you might say, that hasn’t been occupied with you. All I ask for in the world is just the chance for the rest of my life of trying to make you happy. You believe that, don’t you, Miss Guin-never?”
“Yes,” she said miserably, gazing out at the little arbor Hinton had made for her beneath the trees.
“Well, I’ll stop by this evening after the meeting, if it ain’t too late,” said Mr. Opp. “You’ll—you’ll be—glad if everything culminates satisfactory, won’t you?”
“I’m glad of everything good that comes to you,” said Guinevere so earnestly that Mr. Opp, who had lived on a diet of crumbs all his life, looked at her gratefully, and went back to the office assuring himself that all would be well.
The visit of Mr. Mathews, while eagerly anticipated, could not have fallen on a less auspicious day. Aunt Tish, the arbiter of the Opp household, had been[p275]planning for weeks to make a visit to Coreyville, and the occasion of an opportune funeral furnished an immediate excuse.
“No,sir, Mr. D., I can’t put hit off till to-morrow,” she declared in answer to Mr. Opp’s request that she stay with Miss Kippy until after the stock-holders’ meeting. “I’s ’bleeged to go on dat night boat. De funeral teks place at ten o’clock in de mawnin’, an’ I’s gwine be dar ef I has to swim de ribber.”
“Was he a particular friend, the one that died?” asked Mr. Opp.
“Friend? Bunk Bivens? Dat onery, good-fer-nothin’ ole half-strainer? Naw, sir; he ain’t no friend ob mine.”
“Well, what makes you so pressing and particular about attending his funeral?” asked Mr. Opp.
“’Ca’se I ’spise him so. I been hating dat nigger fer pretty nigh forty year, an’ I ain’t gwine lose dis chanst ob seein’ him buried.”
“But, Aunt Tish,” persisted Mr. Opp, impatiently, “I’ve got a very important[p276]and critical meeting this afternoon. The business under consideration may be wound up in the matter of a few minutes, and then, again, it may prolong itself into several consecutive hours. You’ll have to stay with Kippy till I get home.”
The old woman looked at him strangely. “See dis heah hole in my haid, honey? ’Member how you and Ben uster ast Aunt Tish what mek hit? Dat nigger Bunk Bivens mek hit. He was a roustabout on de ribber, an’ him an’ yer paw fell out, an’ one night when you was a baby he follow yer paw up here, an’ me an’ him had hit out.”
“But where was my father?” asked Mr. Opp.
“Dey was ’sputin’ right heah in dis heah kitchen where we’s standin’ at, an’ dat mean, bow-laigged nigger didn’t have no better manners den to ’spute wif a gentleman dat was full. An’ pore Miss she run in so skeered an’ white an’ she say, ‘Aunt Tish, don’t let him hurt him; he don’t know what he’s sayin’,’ she[p277]baig, an’ I tell her to keep yer paw outen de way an’ I tek keer ob Bunk.”
“And did he fight you?” asked Mr. Opp, indignantly.
“Naw, sir; I fit him. We put nigh tore up de floor ob de kitchen. Den he bust my haid open wif de poker, an’ looks lak I been losing my knowledge ever sence. From dat day I ’low I’s gwine to git even if it took me till I died, an’ now dat spiteful old devil done died fust. But I’s gwine see him buried. I want to see ’em nail him up in a box and th’ow dirt on him.”
Aunt Tish ended the recital in a sing-song chant, worked up to a state of hysteria by the recital of her ancient wrong.
Mr. Opp sighed both for the past and the present. He saw the futility of arguing the case.
“Well, you’ll stay until the boat whistles?” he asked. “Sometimes it is two hours late.”
“Yas, sir; but when dat whistle toots I’s gwine. Ef you is heah, all right; ef you ain’t, all right: I’sgwine!”
[p278]As Mr. Opp passed through the hall he saw Miss Kippy slip ahead of him and conceal herself behind the door. She carried something hidden in her apron.
“Have you learned your reading lesson to say to brother D. to-night?” he asked, ignoring her behavior. “You are getting so smart, learning to read handwriting just as good as I can!”
But Miss Kippy only peeped at him through the crack in the door and refused to be friendly. For several days she had been furtive and depressed, and had not spoken to either Aunt Tish or himself.
On the way to his office Mr. Opp was surprised to see Mr. Gallop leaning out of the window of his little room beckoning frantically. It was evident that Mr. Gallop had a secret to divulge, and Mr. Gallop with a secret was as excited as a small bird with a large worm.
“Just come in a minute and sit down,” he fluttered; “you’ll have to excuse the looks of things. Having just this one[p279]room for telegraph office and bedroom and everything crowds me up awful. I’ve been trying to fix my lunch for half an hour, but the telephone just keeps me busy. Then, besides, Mr. Mathews was here; he came down on the launch at twelve o’clock. Now, of course I know it ain’t right to repeat anything I hear over the long-distance wire, but being such a good friend of yours, and you being such a friend of mine—why, Mr. Opp there ain’t anybody in the world I owe more to than I do to you, not only the money you’ve lent me from time to time, but your standing up for me when everybody was down on me—and—”
“Yes; but you was remarking about Mr. Mathews?” Mr. Opp interrupted.
“Yes; and I was saying I never make a practice of repeating what I hear, but he was talking right here in the room, and I was mixing up a little salad dressing I promised Mrs. Fallows for the social,—it’s to be over at Your Hotel this evening—there’s the telephone!”
[p280]Mr. Opp sat on the edge of the sofa, the rest of it being occupied with gaily embroidered sofa pillows, specimens, the town declared, of Mr. Gallop’s own handiwork. In fact, the only unoccupied space in the room was on the ceiling, for between his duties as operator and housekeeper Mr. Gallop still found time to cultivate the arts, and the result of his efforts was manifest in every nook and corner.
“It was Mrs. Gusty getting after Mr. Toddlinger for sending vanilla extract instead of lemon,” explained Mr. Gallop, who had stopped to hear the discussion.
“Well, as I was saying, Mr. Mathews called up somebody in the city almost as soon as he got here—Now you’ve got to promise me you won’t tell a living soul about this.”
Mr. Opp promised.
“He said to telegraph New York party that terms were agreed on, and to mail check at once to Clark, and tell him to keep his mouth shut. Then the other end said something, and Mr. Mathews[p281]said: ‘We can’t afford to wait. You telegraph at once; I’ll manipulate the crowd down here.’ They talked a lot more, then he said awful low, but I heard him: ‘Well, damn it! they’ve got to. There’s too much at stake.’”
The editor sat with his hat in his hand, and blinked at the operator: “Manipulate,” he said in a puzzled tone, “did he use that particular word?”
Mr. Gallop nodded.
“He may have been referring to something else,” said Mr. Opp, waiving aside any disagreeable suspicion. “Mr. Mathews is a business gentleman. He’s involved in a great many ventures, something like myself. You wouldn’t think from what you heard that—er—that he was contemplating not acting exactly—fair with us, would you?”
Mr. Gallop, having delivered himself of his information, did not feel called upon to express a personal opinion.
“If you ever say I told you a word of this, I’ll swear I didn’t,” he said. “It was just because you were such a good[p282]friend, and—there’s that ’phone again!”
During the early hours of the afternoon, Mr. Opp was oppressed with a vague uneasiness. He made several attempts to see Mr. Mathews, but that gentleman was closeted with his stenographer until five o’clock, the hour named for the meeting.
All feeling of distrust was banished, however, when Mr. Mathews made his way through the crowd of stock-holders that filled the office of Your Hotel, and took his stand by the desk. He was so bland and confident, so satisfied with himself and the world and the situation, that, as Jimmy Fallows remarked, “You kinder looked for him to purr when he wasn’t talking.”
He set forth at great length the undoubted oil wealth of the region, he complimented them on their sagacity and foresight in buying up the Turtle Creek ground, he praised the Cove in general and that distinguished citizen, the editor of “The Opp Eagle,” in particular. The[p283]enterprise upon which they had embarked, he said, had grown to such proportions that large capital was required to carry it on. Owing to the recent depression in the money market, the Kentucky company did not feel able properly to back the concern, so it had been agreed that if a good offer was made to buy it, it should be accepted. It was with such an offer, Mr. Mathews said, that he had come to them to-day.
A stir of excitement met this announcement, and Miss Jim Fenton waved her lace scarf in her enthusiasm.
“Some time ago,” went on Mr. Mathews, graciously acknowledging the applause, “the Union Syndicate of New York sent an expert, Mr. Clark, down here to report on the oil conditions in this region.” Mr. Opp’s eyes became fixed on Mr. Mathews’s face, and his lips parted. “The report was so entirely satisfactory,” continued Mr. Mathews, “that the following offer has been made.”
Mr. Opp rose immediately. “Excuse[p284]me, sir, there is—er—rather, there must be some little mistake just at this juncture.”
All eyes were turned upon him, and a murmur of dissent arose at an interruption at such a critical point.
Mr. Mathews gave him permission to proceed.
“You see—I—Mr. Clark, that is,”—Mr. Opp’s fingers were working nervously on the back of the chair before him,—“him and myself went over the ground together, and—I—well, I must say I don’t consider him a competent judge.”
Mr. Mathews smiled. “I am afraid, Mr. Opp, that your opinion is overruled. Mr. Clark is a recognized authority, although,” he added significantly, “of course the most expert make mistakes at times.”
“That ain’t the point,” persisted Mr. Opp; “it’s the conflicting difference in what he said to me, and what he’s reported to them. He told me that he didn’t consider our prospects was worth[p285]a picayune, and if the wells were drilled, they probably wouldn’t run a year. I didn’t believe him then; but you say now that he is a expert and that he knows.”
Mr. Mathews’s tolerance seemed limitless. He waited patiently for Mr. Opp to finish, then he said smoothly:
“Yes, yes; I understand your point perfectly, Mr. Opp. Mr. Clark’s remarks were injudicious, but he was looking at all sides of the question. He saw me after he saw you, you know, and I was able to direct his attention to the more favorable aspects of the case. His report was entirely favorable, and I guess that is all that concerns us, isn’t it?” He embraced the room with his smile.
During the next quarter of an hour Mr. Opp sat with his arms folded and his eyes bent on the floor and bit his lips furiously. Something was wrong. Again and again he fought his way back to this conclusion through the enveloping mazes of Mr. Mathews’s plausibility. Why[p286]had they waited so long after drilling that first well? Why, after making elaborate plans and buying machinery, had they suddenly decided to sell? Why had Mr. Clark given such contradictory opinions? What did Mr. Mathews mean by that message from Mr. Gallop’s office? Mr. Opp’s private affairs, trembling in the balance, were entirely lost sight of in his determination for fair play.
Covering his eyes with his hand, and trying not to hear the flood of argument which Mr. Mathews was bringing to bear upon his already convinced audience, Mr. Opp attempted to recall all that Mr. Gallop had told him.
“He said ‘manipulate,’” repeated Mr. Opp to himself. “I remember that, and he said ‘telegraph New York party that terms were agreed on.’ Then he said ‘mail check to Clark; tell him to keep his mouth shut.’ What’shepaying Clark for? Why—”
“The motion before the house,” Mr. Tucker’s piping voice broke in upon his agitated reasoning, “is whether the[p287]stock-holders of the Turtle Creek Land Company is willing to sell out at a rate of seven to one to the Union Syndicate.”
In the buzz of delight that ensued, Mr. Opp found himself standing on a chair and demanding attention.
“Listen here,” he cried, pounding on the wall with his hand, “I’ve got important information that’s got to be told: that man Clark is a rascal. He’s—he’s deceiving his company. He’s been paid to make a good report of our ground. I can’t prove it, but I know it. We’re taking part in a fraud; we’re—we’re being manipulated.”
Mr. Opp almost shrieked the last word in his agony of earnestness; but before the crowd could fully apprehend his meaning, Mr. Mathews rose and said somewhat sharply:
“What the representative of the Union Syndicate is, or is not, doesn’t concern us in the least. I come to you with a gilt-edged proposition; all I ask you is to sit tight, and take my advice, and I guarantee you an immediate[p288]return of seven dollars to every one you put into this concern. Mr. Chairman, will you put it to the vote?”
But Mr. Opp again stopped proceedings. “As a director in this company I won’t stand for what’s going on. I’ll telegraph the syndicate. I’ll advertise the whole matter!”
Mat Lucas pulled at his sleeve, and the preacher put a restraining arm about his shoulder. The amazing rumor had become current that the Cove’s stanchest advocate for temperance had been indulging in drink, and there was nothing in the editor’s flushed face and excited manner to contradict the impression.
“If by any chance,” Mr. Mathews went on in a steady voice, “there should be a stock-holder who is unwilling to take advantage of this magnificent offer, we need hardly say that we are prepared to buy his stock back at the amount he gave for it.” He smiled, as if inviting ridicule at the absurdity of the proposition.
“I am unwilling,” cried Mr. Opp,[p289]tugging at the restraining hands. “I have never yet in all the length and breadth of my experience been associated with a dishonest act.”
“Don’t! Mr. Opp, don’t!” whispered Mat Lucas. “You’re acting like a crazy man. Don’t you see you are losing the chance to make three thousand dollars?”
“That hasn’t nothing to do with it,” cried Mr. Opp, almost beside himself. “I’ll not be a party to the sale. I’ll—”
Mr. Mathews turned to his secretary. “Just fix up those papers for Mr. Opp, and give him a check for what is coming to him. Now, Mr. Chairman, will you put the matter to the vote?”
Amid the hilarious confusion that succeeded the unanimous vote, and the subsequent adjournment of the meeting, Mr. Opp pushed his way through the crowd that surrounded Mr. Mathews.
“You know what I was alluding at,” he shouted through his chattering teeth. “You’ve carried this through, but I’ll blockade you. I am going to tell the truth to the whole community. I am[p290]going to telegraph to the syndicate and stop the sale.”
Mr. Mathews lifted his brows and smiled deprecatingly.
“I am sorry you have worked yourself up to such a pitch, my friend,” he said. “Telegraph, by all means if it will ease your mind; but the fact is, the deal was closed at noon to-day.”
The long, low whistle of the packet sounded, but Mr. Opp heeded it not. He was flinging his way across to the telegraph office in a frenzy of Quixotic impatience to right the wrong of which he had refused to be a part.
Halfan hour later, Mr. Opp dragged himself up the hill to his home. All the unfairness and injustice of the universe seemed pressing upon his heart. Every muscle in his body quivered in remembrance of what he had been through, and an iron band seemed tightening about his throat. His town had refused to believe his story! It had laughed in his face!
With a sudden mad desire for sympathy and for love, he began calling Kippy. He stumbled across the porch, and, opening the door with his latch-key, stood peering into the gloom of the room.
The draft from an open window blew a curtain toward him, a white spectral,[p292]beckoning thing, but no sound broke the stillness.
“Kippy!” he called again, his voice sharp with anxiety.
From one room to another he ran, searching in nooks and corners, peering under the beds and behind the doors, calling in a voice that was sometimes a command, but oftener a plea: “Kippy! Kippy!”
At last he came back to the dining-room and lighted the lamp with shaking hands. On the hearth were the remains of a small bonfire, with papers scattered about. He dropped on his knees and seized a bit of charred cardboard. It was a corner of the hand-painted frame that had incased the picture of Guinevere Gusty! Near it lay loose sheets of paper, parts of that treasured package of letters she had written him from Coreyville.
As Mr. Opp gazed helplessly about the room, his eyes fell upon something white pinned to the red table-cloth. He held it to the light. It was a portion of one of[p293]Guinevere’s letters, written in the girl’s clear, round hand:
Mother says I can never marry you until Miss Kippy goes to the asylum.
Mother says I can never marry you until Miss Kippy goes to the asylum.
Mr. Opp got to his feet. “She’s read the letter,” he cried wildly; “she’s learned out about herself! Maybe she’s in the woods now, or down on the bank!” He rushed to the porch. “Kippy!” he shouted. “Don’t be afraid! Brother D.’s coming to get you! Don’t run away, Kippy! Wait for me! Wait!” and leaving the old house open to the night, he plunged into the darkness, beating through the woods and up and down the road, calling in vain for Kippy, who lay cowering in the bottom of a leaking skiff that was drifting down the river at the mercy of the current.
Two days later, Mr. Opp sat in the office of the Coreyville Asylum for the Insane and heard the story of his sister’s wanderings. Her boat had evidently been[p294]washed ashore at a point fifteen miles above the town, for people living along the river had reported a strange little woman, without hat or coat, who came to their doors crying and saying her name was “Oxety,” and that she was crazy, and begging them to show her the way to the asylum. On the second day she had been found unconscious on the steps of the institution, and since then, the doctor said, she had been wild and unmanageable.
“Considering all things,” he concluded, “it is much wiser for you not to see her. She came of her own accord, evidently felt the attack coming on, and wanted to be taken care of.”
He was a large, smooth-faced man, with the conciliatory manner of one who regards all his fellow-men as patients in varying degrees of insanity.
“But I’m in the regular habit of taking care of her,” protested Mr. Opp. “This is just a temporary excitement for the time being that won’t ever, probably, occur again. Why, she’s been[p295]improving all winter; I’ve learnt her to read and write a little, and to pick out a number of cities on the geographical atlas.”
“All wrong,” exclaimed the doctor; “mistaken kindness. She can never be any better, but she may be a great deal worse. Her mind should never be stimulated or excited in any way. Here, of course, we understand all these things and treat the patient accordingly.”
“Then I must just go back to treating her like a child again?” asked Mr. Opp, “not endeavoring to improve her intellect, or help her grow up in any way?”
The doctor laid a kindly hand on his shoulder.
“You leave her to us,” he said. “The State provides this excellent institution for just such cases as hers. You do yourself and your family, if you have one, an injustice by keeping her at home. Let her stay here for six months or so, and you will see what a relief it will be.”
Mr. Opp sat with his elbow on the desk and his head propped in his hand,[p296]and stared miserably at the floor. He had not had his clothes off for two nights, and he had scarcely taken time from his search to eat anything. His face looked old and wizened and haunted from the strain. Yet here and now he was called upon to make his great decision. On the one hand lay the old, helpless life with Kippy, and on the other a future of dazzling possibility with Guinevere. All of his submerged self suddenly rose and demanded happiness. He was ready to snatch it, at any cost, regardless of everything and everybody—of Kippy; of Guinevere, who, he knew, did not love him, but would keep her promise; of Hinton, whose secret he had long ago guessed. And, as a running accompaniment to his thoughts, was the quiet, professional voice of the doctor urging him to the course that his heart prompted. For a moment the personal forces involved trembled in equilibrium.
After a long time he unknotted his fingers, and drew his handkerchief across his brow.
[p297]“I guess I’ll go up and see her now,” he said, with the gasping breath of a man who has been under water.
In vain the doctor protested. Mr. Opp was determined.
As the door to the long ward was being unlocked, he leaned for a moment dizzily against the wall.
“You’d better let me give you a swallow of whisky,” suggested the doctor, who had noted his exhaustion.
Mr. Opp raised his hand deprecatingly, with a touch of his old professional pride. “I don’t know as I’ve had occasion to mention,” he said, “that I am the editor and sole proprietor of ‘The Opp Eagle’; and that bird,” he added, with a forced smile, “is, as everybody knows, a complete teetotaler.”
At the end of the crowded ward, with her face to the wall, was a slight, familiar figure. Mr. Opp started forward; then he turned fiercely upon the attendant.
“Her hands aretied! Who dared to tie her up like that?”
“It’s just a soft handkerchief,”[p298]replied the matronly woman, reassuringly. “We were afraid she would pull her hair out. She wants its fixed a certain way; but she’s afraid for any of us to touch her. She has been crying about it ever since she came.”
In an instant Mr. Opp was on his knees beside her. “Kippy, Kippy darling, here’s brother D.; he’ll fix it for you! You want it parted on the side, don’t you, tied with a bow, and all the rest hanging down? Don’t cry so, Kippy. I’m here now; brother D.’ll take care of you.”
She flung her loosened arms around him and clung to him in a passion of relief. Her sobs shook them both, and his face and neck were wet with her tears.
As soon as they could get her sufficiently quiet, they took her into her little bedroom.
“You let the lady get you ready,” urged Mr. Opp, still holding her hand, “and I’ll take you back home, and Aunt Tish will have a nice, hot supper all waiting for us.”
[p299]But she would let nobody else touch her, and even then she broke forth into piteous sobs and protests. Once she pushed him from her and looked about wildly. “No, no,” she cried, “I mustn’t go; I am crazy!” But he told her about the three little kittens that had been born under the kitchen steps, and in an instant she was all a-tremble with eagerness to go home to see them.
An hour later, Mr. Opp and his charge sat on the river-bank and waited for the little launch that was to take them back to the Cove. A curious crowd had gathered at a short distance, for their story had gone the rounds.
Mr. Opp sat under the fire of curious glances, gazing straight in front of him, and only his flushed face showed what he was suffering. Miss Kippy, in her strange clothes and with her pale hair flying about her shoulders, sat close by him, her hand in his.
“D.,” she said once in a high, insistent voice, “when will I be grown up enough to marry Mr. Hinton?”
[p300]Mr. Opp for a moment forgot the crowd. “Kippy,” he said with all the gentle earnestness that was in him, “you ain’t never going to grow up at all. You are just always going to be brother D.’s little girl. You see, Mr. Hinton’s too old for you, just like—” he paused, then finished it bravely—“just like I am too old for Miss Guin-never. I wouldn’t be surprised if they got married with each other some day. You and me will just have to take care of each other.”
She looked at him with the quick suspicion of the insane, but he was ready for her with a smile.
“Oh, D.,” she cried, in a sudden rapture, “we are glad, ain’t we?”
Forthe next four weeks there was no issue of “The Opp Eagle.” When it did make its appearance, it contained the following editorial:
Ye editor has for several weeks been the victim of the La Grip which eventuated into a rising in our left ear. Although we are still in severe and continuous pain, we know that behind the clouds of suffering the blue sky of health is still shining, and that a brighter day is coming, as it were.
Ye editor has for several weeks been the victim of the La Grip which eventuated into a rising in our left ear. Although we are still in severe and continuous pain, we know that behind the clouds of suffering the blue sky of health is still shining, and that a brighter day is coming, as it were.
The night of Mr. Opp’s return from Coreyville, he had written a long letter to Guinevere Gusty telling her of his final decision in regard to Kippy, and releasing her from her promise. This having been accomplished, he ceased to[p302]fight against the cold and exhaustion, and went to bed with a hard chill.
Aunt Tish, all contrition for the disasters she thought she had brought upon the household, served him night and day, and even Miss Kippy, moved by the unusual sight of her brother in bed, made futile efforts to assist in the nursing.
When at last he was able to crawl back to the office, he found startling changes had taken place in the Cove. The prompt payment of the oil stock-holders by the Union Syndicate had brought about such a condition of prosperity and general satisfaction as had never before been known. The civic spirit planted and carefully nourished by “The Opp Eagle” burst into bloom under this sudden and unexpected warmth. Committees, formed the year before, were called upon for reports, and gratifying results were obtained. The Cove awoke to the fact that it had lamp-posts, and side-walks and a post-office, with a possibility, looming large, of a court house.
Nor did this ambition for improvement[p303]stop short with the town: it extended to individuals. Jimmy Fallows was going to build a new hotel; Mr. Tucker was going to convert his hotel into a handsome private residence, for which Mrs. Gusty had been asked to select the wall-paper; Mat Lucas was already planning to build a large store on Main Street, and had engaged Mr. Gallop to take charge of the dry-goods department. The one person upon whom prosperity had apparently had a blighting effect was Miss Jim Fenton. Soon after the receipt of her check, she had appeared in the Cove in a plain, black tailor suit, and a small, severe felt hat innocent of adornment. The French-heeled slippers had been replaced by heavy walking shoes, and the lace scarf was discarded for a stiff linen collar.
But the state of Miss Jim’s mind was not to be judged by the somberness of her raiment. The novelty of selecting her own clothes, of consulting her own taste, of being rid of the entangling dangers of lace ruffles and flying furbelows,[p304]to say nothing of unwelcome suitors, gave her a sense of exhilaration and independence which she had not enjoyed for years.
In the midst of all these tangible evidences of success, Mr. Opp found himself indulging in a hand-to-hand struggle with failure. As a hunter aims at a point well in advance of the flying bird, so he had aimed at possibilities ahead of the facts, and when events took an unexpected turn, he was left stranded, his ammunition gone, his judgment questioned, and his hands empty. He had been conducting his affairs not on the basis of his present income, but in reference to the large sums which he confidently believed would accrue from the oil-wells.
The circulation of “The Opp Eagle” was increasing steadily, but the growing bird must be fed, and the editor, struggling to meet daily pressing obligations, was in no condition to furnish the steady demand for copy.
All unnecessary diversions were[p305]ruthlessly foregone. He resigned with a pang the leadership of the Union Orchestra, he gave up his membership with the Odd Fellows. Even his more important duties, as president of the Town Improvement League, and director in the bank, were relinquished. For, in addition to his editorials, he had undertaken to augment his slender income by selling on subscription the “Encyclopedia of Wonder, Beauty, and Wisdom.”
It was at this low ebb of Mr. Opp’s fortunes that Willard Hinton returned to the Cove. He was still pale from his long confinement, but there was an unusual touch of animation about him, the half-surprised interest of one who has struck bottom, and found it not so bad as he had expected.
One dark afternoon in November he made his way over to the office of “The Opp Eagle,” and stood irresolute in the door.
“That you, Mr. Opp? Or is it Nick?” He blinked uncertainly.
“Why, it is me,” said Mr. Opp.[p306]“Come right in. I’ve been so occupied with engagements that I haven’t scarcely had occasion to see anything of you since you come back. You are getting improved all the time, ain’t you? I thought I saw you writing on a type-writer when I passed this morning.”
“Yes,” said Hinton; “it’s a little machine I got before I came down, with raised letters on the keyboard. If I progress at the rapid pace I have started, I’ll be an expert before long. Mrs. Gusty was able to read five words out of ten this morning!”
“Hope you’ll do us an article or two,” said Mr. Opp. “I don’t mind telling you that things has been what you might name as pressing ever since that trouble about the oil-wells. I’m not regretting any step that I taken, and I am endeavoring not to harbor any feelings against those that went on after I give my word it wasn’t a fair transaction. But if what that man Clark said is true, Mr. Hinton, the Union Syndicate will[p307]never open up another well in this community.”
“Your conscience proved rather an expensive luxury that time, didn’t it, Mr. Opp?” asked Hinton, who had heard as many versions of the affair as there were citizens in the Cove.
Mr. Opp shrugged his shoulders, and pursed his lips. “It’s a matter that I cannot yet bring myself to talk about. After a whole year and more of associating with me in business and social ways, to think they wouldn’t be willing to take my word for what I said.”
“But it wasn’t to their advantage,” said Hinton, smiling. “You forget the amount of money involved.”
“No,” declared Mr. Opp with some heat, “you do those gentlemen a injustice. There ain’t a individual of them that is capable of a dishonest act, any more than you or me. They just lacked the experience in dealing with a man like Mr. Mathews.”
Hinton’s smile broadened; he reached over and grasped Mr. Opp’s hand.
[p308]“Do you know you are a rattling good fellow? I am sorry things have gotten so balled up with you.”
“I’ll pay out,” said the editor. “It’ll take some time, but I’ve got a remarkable ability for work in me. I don’t mind telling you, though I’ll have to ask you not to mention the fact to no one at present, that I am considering inventing a patent. It’s a sort of improved type-setter, one of the most remarkable things you ever witnessed. I never knew till about six months ago what a scientific turn my mind could take. I’ve worked this whole thing out in my brain without the aid of a model of any sort.”
“In the meanwhile,” said Hinton, “I hear you will have to sell your paper.”
Mr. Opp winced, and the lines in his face deepened. “Well, yes,” he said, “I have about decided to sell, provided I keep the editorship, of course. After my patent gets on the market I will soon be in a position to buy it back.”
“Mr. Opp,” said Hinton, “I’ve got a[p309]proposition to make to you. I have a moderate sum of money in bank which I want to invest in business. How would you like to sell out the paper to me, lock, stock, and barrel?”
Mr. Opp, whose eyes had been resting on the bills that strewed his table, looked up eagerly.
“You to own it, and me to run it?” he asked hopefully.
“No,” said Hinton; “you would help me to run it, I hope, but I would be the editor. I have thought the matter over seriously, and I believe, with competent help, I can make the paper an up-to-date, self-supporting newspaper, in spite of my handicap.”
Mr. Opp sat as if stunned by a blow. He had known for some time that he must sell the paper in order to meet his obligations, but the thought of relinquishing his control of it never dawned upon him. It was the pride of his heart, the one tangible achievement in a wilderness of dreams. Life without Guinevere had seemed a desert; life without “The[p310]Opp Eagle” seemed chaos. He looked up bewildered.
“We’d continue on doing business here in the regular way?” he asked.
“No,” said Hinton; “I would build a larger office uptown, and put in new presses; we could experiment with your new patent type-setter as soon as you got it ready.”
But Mr. Opp was beyond pleasantries. “You’d keep Nick?” he asked. “I wouldn’t consider anything that would cut Nick out.”
“By all means,” said Hinton. “I’m counting on you and Nick to initiate me into the mysteries of the profession. You could be city editor, and Nick—well, we could make him foreman.”
One last hope was left to Mr. Opp, and he clung to it desperately, not daring to voice it until the end.
“The name,” he said faintly, “would of course remain ‘The Opp Eagle’?”
Hinton dropped his eyes; he could not stand the wistful appeal in the drawn face opposite.
[p311]“No,” he said shortly; “that’s a—little too personal. I think I should call my paper ‘The Weekly News.’”
Mr. Opp could never distinctly remember what happened after that. He knew that he had at first declined the offer, that he had been argued with, had reconsidered, and finally accepted a larger sum than he had asked for; but the details of the transaction were like the setting of bones after an accident.
He remembered that he had sat where Hinton left him, staring at the floor until Nick came to close the office; then he had a vague impression of crossing the fields and standing with his head against the old sycamore-tree where the birds had once whispered of love. After that he knew that he had met Hinton and Guinevere coming up the river road hand in hand, that he had gotten home after supper was over, and had built a bridge of blocks for Miss Kippy.
Then suddenly he had wakened to full consciousness, staggered out of the house to the woodshed, and shivered down into[p312]a miserable heap. There in the darkness he seemed to see things, for the first time in his life, quite as they were. His gaze, accustomed to the glittering promise of the future, peered fearfully into the past, and reviewed the long line of groundless hopes, of empty projects, of self-deceptions. Shorn of its petty shams and deceits, and stripped of its counterfeit armor of conceit, his life lay naked before him, a pitiful, starved, futile thing.
“I’ve just been similar to Kippy,” he sobbed, with his face in his hands, “continually pretending what wasn’t so. I acted like I was young, and good-looking, and—and highly educated; and look at me! Look at me!” he demanded fiercely of the kindling-wood.
Mr. Opp had been fighting a long duel—a duel with Circumstance, and Mr. Opp was vanquished. The acknowledgment of defeat, even to himself, gave it the final stamp of verity. He had fought valiantly, with what poor weapons he had, but the thrusts had been too many[p313]and too sure. He lay clothed in his strange new garment of humility, and wondered why he did not want to die. He did not realize that in losing everything else, he had won the greater stake of character for which he had been unconsciously fighting all along.
The kitchen door opened, and he saw Miss Kippy’s figure silhouetted against the light.
“Brother D.,” she called impatiently, “ain’t you coming back to play with me?”
He scrambled to his feet and made a hasty and somewhat guilty effort to compose himself.
“Yes, I’m a-coming,” he answered briskly, as he smoothed his scant locks and straightened his tie. “You go on ahead and gather up the blocks; I only stopped playing for a little spell.”
Themarriage of Guinevere Gusty and Willard Hinton took place in mid-winter, and the account of it, published in the last issue of “The Opp Eagle,” proved that the eagle, like the swan, has its death-song.
Like many of the masterpieces of literature, the article had been written in anguish of spirit; but art, like nature, ignores the process, and reckons only the result, and the result, in Mr. Opp’s opinion at least, more than justified the effort.
“In these strenuous, history-making meanderings of the sands of life,” it ran, “we sometimes overlook or neglect particulars in events which prove of larger importance than appears on the surface. The case to which we have[p315]allusion to is the wedding which was solemnized at eventide at the residence of the bride’s mother. The Gustys may be justly considered one of the best-furnished families in the county, and the parlors were only less beautiful than the only daughter there presiding. The collation served therein was of such a liberal nature that every guest, we might venture to say, took dinner enough home for supper. It has seldom been our fate to meet a gentleman of such intelligent attainments as Mr. Hinton, and his entire future existence, be it long or short, cannot fail of being thrice blessed by the companionship of the one who has confided her trust to him,—her choice, world-wide. Although a bachelor ourself, we know what happiness must be theirs, and with all our heart we vouchsafe them a joyful voyage across the uncertain billows of Time until their nuptial or matrimonial bark shall have been safely moored in the haven of everlasting bliss, where the storms of this life spread not their violence.”
[p316]Some men spend their lives in the valley, and some are born and die on the heights; but it was Mr. Opp’s fate to climb from the valley to his own little mountain-top of prosperity, only to have to climb down on the other side. It was evidence of his genius that in time he persuaded himself and his fellow-citizens that it was exactly what he wanted to do.
“That there life of managing and promoting was all right in its way,” he said one day to a group of men at the post-office, “but a man owes something to himself, don’t he? Now that the town has got well started, and Mr. Hinton is going to take main charge of the paper, I’ll be freer than I been for years to put some of my ideas into practice.”
“We are counting on getting you back in the orchestra,” said Mr. Gallop, whose admiration for Mr. Opp retained its pristine bloom.
Mr. Opp shook his head regretfully. “No, I’m going to give all my evenings over to study. This present enterprise I[p317]am engaged on requires a lot of personal application. I sometimes think that I have in the past scattered my forces too much, in a way.”
So persistently did Mr. Opp refer to the mysterious work that was engrossing him that he reduced Mr. Gallop’s curiosity to the saturation-point.
When he was no longer able to stand it, the telegraph operator determined upon a tour of investigation. The projected presentation of a new cornet by the Unique Orchestra to its erstwhile leader proved a slender excuse for a call, and while he knew that, with the exception of Willard Hinton, no visitor had ever been known to cross the Opp threshold, yet he permitted desire to overrule delicacy.
It was a blustery December night when he climbed the hill, and he had to pause several times during the ascent to gain sufficient breath to proceed. By the time he reached the house he was quite speechless, and he dropped on the steps to rest a moment before knocking. As he sat[p318]there trying to imagine the flying-machine or torpedo-boat upon which he felt certain Mr. Opp was engaged, he became aware of voices from within, and looking up, he saw the window above him was slightly raised. Overcome by his desire to see his friend at work upon his great invention, he cautiously tiptoed across the porch and peeped in.
The low-ceilinged old room was bright with firelight, and in the center of it, with his knees drawn up, his toes turned in, and his tongue thrust out, sat Mr. Opp, absorbed in an object which he held between his knees. Miss Kippy knelt before him, eagerly watching proceedings.
Mr. Gallop craned his neck to see what it was that held their interest, and at last discovered that they were fitting a dress on a large china doll.
Miss Kippy’s voice broke the silence. “You can sew nice,” she was saying; “you can sew prettier than Aunt Tish.”
[p319]“‘Can’t nobody beat me making skirts’”
“Can’t nobody beat me making skirts,” said Mr. Opp, and Mr. Gallop saw him push his needle through a bit of[p321]cloth, with the handle of the shovel; “but sleeves is a more particular proposition. Why, I’d rather thread three needles than to fix in one sleeve! Why don’t you make like it’s summer-time and let her go without any?”
Miss Kippy’s lips trembled. “I want sleeves, D.—two of them, and a lady’s hat, with roses on it. We can letherbe grown up, can’t we, D.?”
Mr. Gallop beat a hasty and shame-faced retreat. Though his idol had fallen from its pedestal, he determined to stand guard over the fragments, and from that night on, he constituted himself Mr. Opp’s loyal defender.
And Mr. Gallop was not the only one who came forth boldly in expressions of sympathy and respect for the ex-editor. It was especially easy for those who had prospered by the oil boom to express unbounded admiration for the conscientious stand he had taken in the late transaction. They had done him a grave injustice, they acknowledged. The wells had been reinvestigated and proved of[p322]small value. The fact that the truth was discovered too late to affect their luck deepened their appreciation of Mr. Opp.
Willard Hinton, seeing what balm these evidences of approval brought to Mr. Opp’s wounded spirit, determined to arrange for a banquet to the retiring editor, at which he planned to bring forth as many testimonials of friendship and good-will as was possible.
The affair was to take place New Year’s night, in the dining-room of Fallows’s new Your Hotel. The entire masculine contingent of the Cove was invited, and the feminine element prepared the supper. There had never been a social event of such an ambitious nature attempted in the Cove before, and each citizen took a personal pride in its success.
For a week in advance the town was in violent throes of speech-writing, cake-baking, salad-mixing, and decorating. Even Mrs. Fallows warmed to the occasion, and crocheted a candlestick, candle, flame, and all, to grace the table.
[p323]When the night arrived, Jimmy Fallows did the honors. He was resplendent in his dress-suit, which consisted of a black sateen shirt and a brown suit of clothes.
When the guests were all seated, Willard Hinton rose, and in a few brief, pointed remarks, called the attention of the town to the changes that had been wrought by the indefatigable efforts of one citizen in particular. He spoke of the debt of gratitude they owed, collectively and individually, to the late editor of “The Opp Eagle,” and added that after Mr. Opp’s response, the guests desired, each in turn, to voice his sentiments upon the subject.
Mr. Opp then rose amid a thunder of applause, and stood for a moment in pleased but overwhelming embarrassment. Then he put forward one foot inflated his chest, and began:
“Valued brother fellow-beings, I come before you to-night to express that which there is no words in the English vocabulary to express. Whatever you may[p324]have to say concerning me, or my part in the awakening of this our native city, I shall listen at with a grateful heart. I believe in a great future for Cove City. We may not live to see it, but I believe that the day will arrive when our city shall be the gateway to the South, when the river front will be not dissimilar to Main Street, New York. I predict that it reaches a pivot of prominence of which we wot not of. As for Mr. Hinton, one and all we welcome him amid our mongst. ‘The Opp Eagle’ strikes palms with ‘The Weekly News,’ and wishes it a lasting and eternal success.”
A burst of applause interrupted the flow of his eloquence, and as he glanced around the room, he saw there was some commotion at the door. A turbaned head caught his eye, then Aunt Tish’s beckoning hand.
Hastily excusing himself, he made his way through the crowd, and bent to hear her message.
“Hit’s Miss Kippy,” she whispered. “I hate to ’sturb you, but she done crack[p325]her doll’s head, an’ she’s takin’ on so, I can’t do nuffin ’t all wif her.”
“Couldn’t you contrive to get her quiet no way at all?” asked Mr. Opp, anxiously.
“Naw, sir. She mek like dat doll her shore ’nough baby, and she ’low she gwine die, too, furst chanct she gits. I got Val’s mother to stay wif her till I git back.”
“All right,” said Mr. Opp, hastily. “You go right on and tell her I’m coming.”
When he reëntered the dining-room, he held his hat in his hand.
“I find a urgent matter of business calls me back home; for only a few moments, I trust,” he said apologetically, with bows and smiles. “If the banquet will kindly proceed, I will endeavor to return in ample time for the final speeches.”
With the air of a monarch taking temporary leave of his subjects, he turned his back upon the gay, protesting crowd, upon the feast prepared in his honor,[p326]upon the speech-making, so dear to his heart. Tramping through the snow of the deserted street, through the lonely graveyard, and along the river road, he went to bind up the head of a china doll, and to wipe away the tears of a little half-crazed sister.
He wears the same checked suit as when we saw him first, worn and frayed, to be sure, but carefully pressed for the occasion, the same brave scarf and pin, and watch fob, though the watch is missing.
Passing out of sight with the sleet in his face, and the wind cutting through his finery, he whistles as he goes, such a plucky, sturdy, hopeful whistle as calls to arms the courage that lies slumbering in the hearts of men.
THE END