The old Opp House stood high on the river-bank and gazed lonesomely out
into the summer night. It was a shabby, down-at-heel, dejected-looking
place, with one side showing faint lights, above and below, but the
other side so nailed up and empty and useless that it gave the place the
appearance of being paralyzed down one side and of having scarcely
enough vitality left to sustain life in the other.
To make matters worse, an old hound howled dismally on the door-step,
only stopping occasionally to paw at the iron latch and to whimper for
the master whose unsteady footsteps he had followed for thirteen years.
In the front room a shaded lamp, turned low, threw a circle of light on
the table and floor, leaving the corners full of vague, uncertain
shadows. From the wide, black fireplace a pair of rusty and battered
andirons held out empty arms, and on the high stone shelf above the
opening, flanked on each side by a stuffed owl, was a tall, square-faced
clock, with the hour-hand missing. The minute-hand still went on its
useless round, and behind it, on the face of the clock, a tiny schooner
with all sail set rocked with the swinging of the pendulum.
The loud ticking of the clock, and the lamentations of the hound
without, were not the only sounds that disturbed the night. Before the
empty fireplace, in a high-backed, cane-bottomed chair, slept an old
negress, with head bowed, moaning and muttering as she slept. She was
bent and ashen with age, and her brown skin sagged in long wrinkles from
her face and hands. On her forehead, reaching from brow to faded turban,
was a hideous testimony to some ancient conflict. A large, irregular
hole, over which the flesh had grown, pulsed as sentiently and
imperatively as a naked, living heart.
A shutter slammed sharply somewhere in the house above, and something
stirred fearfully in the shadow of the room. It was a small figure that
crouched against the wall, listening and watching with the furtive
terror of a newly captured coyote--the slight figure of a woman dressed
as a child, with short gingham dress, and heelless slippers, and a
bright ribbon holding back the limp, flaxen hair from her strange,
pinched face.
Again and again her wide, frightened eyes sought the steps leading to
the room above, and sometimes she would lean forward and whisper in
agonized expectancy, "Daddy?" Then when no answer came, she would
shudder back against the wall, cold and shaking and full of dumb
terrors.
Suddenly the hound's howling changed to a sharp bark, and the old
negress stirred and stretched herself.
"What ails dat air dog?" she mumbled, going to the window, and shading
her eyes with her hand. "You'd 'low to hear him tell it he done heared
old master coming up de road."
That somebody was coming was evident from the continued excitement of
the hound, and when the gate slammed and a man's voice sounded in the
darkness, Aunt Tish opened the door, throwing a long, dim patch of light
out across the narrow porch and over the big, round stepping-stones
beyond.
Into the light came Mr. Opp, staggering under the load of his baggage,
his coat over his arm, his collar off, thoroughly spent with the events
of the day.
"Lord 'a' mercy!" said Aunt Tish, "if hit ain't Mr. D.! I done give you
up long ago. I certainly is glad you come. Miss Kippy's jes carrying on
like ever'thing. She ain't been to baid for two nights, an' I can't do
nothin' 't all wif her."
Mr. Opp deposited his things in a corner, and, tired as he was, assumed
an air of authority. It was evident that a man was needed, a person of
firmness, of decision.
"I'll see that she goes to bed at once," he said resolutely. "Where is
she at?"
"She's behind de door," said Aunt Tish; "she's be'n so skeered ever
sence her paw died I can't do nothin' wif her."
"Kippy," said Mr. Opp, sternly, "come out here this minute."
But there was no response. Going to the corner where his coat lay, he
took from the pocket a brown-paper parcel.
"Say, Kippy," he said in a greatly mollified tone, "I wish you would
come on out here and see me. You remember brother D., don't you? You
ought to see what I brought you all the way from the city. It's got blue
eyes."
At this the small, grotesque figure, distrustful, suspicious, ready to
take flight at a word, ventured slowly forth. So slight she was, and so
frail, and so softly she moved, it was almost as if the wind blew her
toward him. Every thought that came into her brain was instantly
reflected in her hypersensitive face, and as she stood before him
nervously plucking her fingers, fear and joy struggled for supremacy.
Suddenly with a low cry she snatched the doll from him and clasped it to
her heart.
Meanwhile Aunt Tish had spread a cloth on the table and set forth some
cold corn dodger, a pitcher of foaming butter-milk, and a plate of cold
corned beef. The milk was in a battered pewter pitcher, but the dish
that held the corn bread was of heavy silver, with intricate chasings
about the rim.
Mr. Opp, with his head propped on his hand, ate wearily. He had been up
since four o'clock that morning, and to-morrow he must be up at daybreak
if he was to keep his engagements to supply the dealers with the
greatest line of shoes ever put upon the market. Between now and then he
must decide many things: Kippy must be planned for, the house gone over,
and arrangements made for the future. Being behind the scenes, as it
were, and having no spectator to impress, he allowed himself to sink
into an attitude of extreme dejection. And Mr. Opp, shorn of the
dignity of his heavily padded coat, and his imposing collar and tie, and
with even his pompadour limp upon his forehead, failed entirely to give
a good imitation of himself.
As he sat thus, with one hand hanging limply over the back of the chair,
he felt something touch it softly, dumbly, as a dog might. Looking down,
he discovered Miss Kippy sitting on the floor, close behind him,
watching him with furtive eyes. In one arm she cradled the new doll, and
in the other she held his coat.
Mr. Opp patted her cheek: "Whatever are you doing with my coat?" he
asked.
Miss Kippy held it behind her, and nodded her head wisely: "Keeping it
so you can't go away," she whispered. "I'll hold it tight all night.
To-morrow I'll hide it."
"But I'm a business man," said Mr. Opp, unconsciously straightening his
shoulders. "A great deal of responsibility depends on me. I've got to be
off early in the morning; but I'm coming back to see you real
often--every now and then."
Miss Kippy's whole attitude changed. She caught his hand and clung to
it, and the terror came back to her eyes.
"You mustn't go," she whispered, her body quivering with excitement.
"It'll get me if you do. Daddy kept It away, and you can keep It away;
but Aunt Tish can't: she's afraid of It, too! She goes to sleep, and
then It reaches at me through the window. It comes down the chimney,
there--where you see the brick's loose. Don't leave me, D. Hush, don't
you hear It?"
Her voice had risen to hysteria, and she clung to him, cold and shaken
by the fear that possessed her.
Mr. Opp put a quieting arm about her. "Why, see here, Kippy," he said,
"didn't you know It was afraid of me? Look how strong I am! I could kill
It with my little finger."
"Could you?" asked Miss Kippy, fearfully.
"Yes, indeed," said Mr. Opp. "Don't you ever be scared of anything
whatsoever when Brother D.'s round. I'm going to take care of you from
now on."
"This me is bad," announced Miss Kippy; "the other me is good. Her name
is Oxety; she has one blue eye and one brown."
"Well, Oxety must go to bed now," said Mr. Opp; "it must be getting
awful late."
But Miss Kippy shook her head. "You might go 'way," she said.
Finding that he could not persuade her, Mr. Opp resorted to strategy:
"I'll tell you what let's me and you do. Let's put your slippers on your
hands."
This proposition met with instant approval. It appealed to Miss Kippy as
a brilliant suggestion. She assisted in unbuttoning the single straps
and watched with glee as they were fastened about her wrists.
[Illustration: "'Don't leave me'"]
"Now," said Mr. Opp, with assumed enthusiasm, "we'll make the slippers
walk you up-stairs, and after Aunt Tish undresses you, they shall walk
you to bed. Won't that be fun?"
Miss Kippy's fancy was so tickled by this suggestion that she put it
into practice at once, and went gaily forth up the steps on all fours.
At the turn she stopped, and looked at him wistfully:
"You'll come up before I go to sleep?" she begged; "Daddy did."
Half an hour later Aunt Tish came down the narrow stairway: "She done
gone to baid now, laughin' an' happy ag'in," she said; "she never did
have dem spells when her paw was round, an' sometimes dat chile jes as
clear in her mind as you an' me is."
"What is it she's afraid of?" asked Mr. Opp.
Aunt Tish leaned toward him across the table, and the light of the lamp
fell full upon her black, bead-like eyes, and her sunken jaws, and on
the great palpitating scar.
"De ghosties," she whispered; "dey been worriting dat chile ever' chance
dey git. _I_ hear 'em! Dey wait till I take a nap of sleep, den dey
comes sneakin' in to pester her. She says dey ain't but one, but I hears
heaps ob 'em, some ob 'em so little dey kin climb onder de crack in de
door."
"Look a-here, Aunt Tish," said Mr. Opp, sternly, "don't you ever talk a
word of this foolishness to her again. Not one word, do you hear?"
"Yas, sir; dat's what Mr. Moore allays said, an' I _don't_ talk to her
'bout hit, I don't haf to. She done knows I know. I been livin' heah
goin' on forty years, sence 'fore you was borned, an' you can't fool me,
chile; no, sir, dat you can't."
"Well, you must go to bed now," said Mr. Opp, looking up at the clock
and seeing that it was half-past something though he did not know what.
"I never goes to baid when I stays here," announced Aunt Tish; "I sets
up in de kitchen an' sleeps. I's skeered dat chile run away; she 'low
she gwine to some day. Her paw ketched her oncet gittin' in a boat down
on de river-bank. She ain't gwine, while I's here, no sir-ee! I never
leaves her in de daytime an' her paw never leaves her at night, dat is,
when he's livin'."
After she had gone, Mr. Opp ascended the stairway, and entered the room
above. A candle sputtered on the table, and in its light he saw the
wide, four-poster bed that had been his mother's, and in it the frail
figure of little Miss Kippy. Her hair lay loose upon the pillow, and on
her sleeping face, appealing in its helplessness, was a smile of perfect
peace. The new doll lay on the table beside the candle, but clasped
tightly in her arms was the coat of many checks.
For a moment Mr. Opp stood watching her, then he drew his shirt-sleeve
quickly across his eyes. As he turned to descend, his new shoes creaked
painfully and, after he had carefully removed them, he tiptoed down,
passed through the sitting-room and out upon the porch, where he sank
down on the step and dropped his head on his arms.
The night was very still, save for the croaking of a bullfrog, and the
incessant scraping of a cedar-tree against the corner of the roof. From
across the river, faint sparks of light shone out from cabin windows,
and, below, a moving light now and then told of a passing scow. Once a
steamboat slipped weirdly out of the darkness, sparkling with lights,
and sending up faint sounds of music; but before the waves from the
wheel had ceased to splash on the bank below, she was swallowed up in
the darkness, leaving lonesomeness again.
Mr. Opp sat staring out into the night, outwardly calm, but inwardly
engaged in a mortal duel. The aggressive Mr. Opp of the gorgeous raiment
and the seal ring, the important man of business, the ambitious
financier, was in deadly combat with the insignificant Mr. Opp, he of
the shirt-sleeves and the wilted pompadour, the delicate, sensitive,
futile Mr. Opp who was incapable of everything but the laying down of
his life for the sake of another.
A dull line of light hovered on the horizon, and gradually the woods on
the opposite shore took shape, then the big river itself, gray and
shimmering, with streaks on the water where a snag broke the swift
current.
"Mr. D.," he heard Aunt Tish calling up the back stairs, "you better git
out of baid; hit's sun-up."
He rose stiffly and started back to the kitchen. As he passed through
the front room, his eyes fell upon his new suit-case full of the
treasured drummers' samples. Stooping down, he traced the large black
letters with his finger and sighed deeply.
Then he got up resolutely and marched to the kitchen door.
"Aunt Tish," he said with authority, "you needn't mind about hurrying
breakfast. I find there's very important business will keep me here in
the Cove for the present."
V
There were two methods of communication in Cove City, both of which were
equally effective. One was the telephone, which from a single, isolated
case had developed into an epidemic, and the other, which enjoyed the
dignity of precedence and established custom, was to tell Jimmy Fallows.
Both of these currents of information soon overflowed with the news that
Mr. D. Webster Opp had given up a good position in the city, and
expected to establish himself in business in his native town. The nature
of this business was agitating the community at large in only a degree
less than it was agitating Mr. Opp himself.
One afternoon Jimmy Fallows stood with his back to his front gate,
suspended by his armpits from the pickets, and conducted business after
his usual fashion. As a general retires to a hill-top to organize his
forces and issue orders to his subordinates, so Jimmy hung upon his
front fence and conducted the affairs of the town. He knew what time
each farmer came in, where the "Helping Hands" were going to sew, where
the doctor was, and where the services would be held next Sunday. He was
coroner, wharf-master, undertaker, and notary, and the only thing in the
heavens above or the earth below concerning which he did not attempt to
give information was the arrival of the next steamboat.
As he stood whittling a stick and cheerfully humming a tune of other
days, he descried a small, alert figure coming up the road. The pace was
so much brisker than the ordinary slow gait of the Cove that he
recognized the person at once as Mr. Opp. Whereupon he lifted his voice
and hailed a boy who was just vanishing down the street in the opposite
direction:
"Nick!" he called. "Aw, Nick Fenny! Tell Mat Lucas that Mr. Opp's
uptown."
Connection being thus made at one end of the line, he turned to effect
it at the other. "Howdy, Brother Opp. Kinder dusty on the river, ain't
it?"
"Well, we _are_ experiencing considerable of warm weather at this
juncture," said Mr. Opp, affably.
"Mat Lucas has been hanging round here all day," said Jimmy. "He wants
you to buy out a half-interest in his dry-goods store. What do you think
about it?"
"Well," said Mr. Opp, thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his
waistcoat, "I am considering of a great variety of different things. I
been in the dry-goods business twice, and I can't say but what it ain't
a pretty business. Of course," he added with a twinge, "my specialty are
shoes."
"Yes," said Jimmy; "but the folks here all gets their shoes at the drug
store. Mr. Toddlinger's been carrying a line of shoes along with his
pills and plasters ever sence he went into business."
Mr. Opp looked up at the large sign overhead. "If you and Mr. Tucker
wasn't both in the hotel business, I might be thinking of considering
that."
This proposition tickled Jimmy immensely. Chuckles of amusement agitated
his rotund figure.
"Why don't you buy us both out?" he asked. "We could sell out for
nothing and make money."
"Why, there's three boarders sitting over at Our Hotel now," said Mr.
Opp, who rather fancied himself in the role of a genial host.
"Yes," said Jimmy. "Old man Tucker's had 'em hanging out on the line all
morning. I don't guess they got strength enough to walk around much
after the meals he give 'em."
"Of course," said Mr. Opp, wholly absorbed in his own affairs, "this is
just temporarily for the time being, as it were. In a year or so, when
my financial condition is sorter more established in a way, I intend to
put through that oil-wells proposition. The fact that I am aiming at
arriving to is what would you think the Cove was at present most in need
of?"
"Elbow-grease," said Jimmy, promptly. "The only two things that we ain't
got that a city has, is elbow-grease and a newspaper."
For a moment there was a silence, heavy with significance. Mr. Fallows's
gaze penetrated the earth, while Mr. Opp's scanned the heavens; then
they suddenly looked at each other, and the great idea was born.
An editor! Mr. Opp's whole being thrilled responsive to the call. The
thought of dwelling above the sordid bartering of commercial life, of
being in a position to exercise those mental powers with which he felt
himself so generously endowed, almost swept him off his feet. He had
been a reporter once; for two golden weeks he had handed in
police-court reports that fairly scintillated with verbal gems plucked
at random from the dictionary. But the city editor had indicated as
kindly as possible that his services were no longer required, vaguely
suggesting that it was necessary to reduce the force; and Mr. Opp had
assured him that he understood perfectly, and that he was ready to
return at any future time. That apprenticeship, brief though it was,
served as a foundation upon which Mr. Opp erected a tower of dazzling
possibilities.
"What's the matter with you takin' Mr. Gusty's old printin'-shop and
startin' up business for yourself?" asked Jimmy.
"Do you reckon she'd sell it?" asked Mr. Opp, anxiously.
"Sell it?" said Jimmy. "Why, she's 'most ready to give it away to keep
from having to pay Pete Aker's rent for the shop. Say--Mr. Gall--up," he
called up the street to a man who was turning the corner, "is Mrs. Gusty
at home?"
The man, thus accosted, turned and came toward them.
"Who is Mr. Gallop?" asked Mr. Opp.
"He's the new telephone girl," said Jimmy, with relish; "ain't been here
but a month, and he's doing the largest and most profitable trade in
tending to other folks's business you ever seen. Soft! Why, he must 'a'
been raised on a pillow--He always puts me in mind of a highly educated
pig: it sorter surprises and tickles you to see him walkin' round on his
hind legs and talking like other people. Other day one of the boys, just
to devil him, ast him to drive his team out home. I liked to 'a' died
when I seen him tryin' to turn the corner, pullin' 'Gee' and hollerin'
'Haw' with every breath. Old mules got their legs in a hard knot trying
to do both at once, and the boys says when Gallop got out in the country
he felt so bad about it he got down and 'pologized to the mules. How
'bout that, Gallop--did you!" he concluded as the subject of the
conversation arrived upon the scene.
The new-comer, a plump, fair young man, who held one hand clasped
affectionately in the other, blushed indignantly, but said nothing.
"This here is Mr. Opp," went on Jimmy; "he wants to see Mrs. Gusty. Do
you know whether he will ketch her at home or not?"
Mr. Gallop was by this time paying the tribute of many an admiring
glance to every detail of Mr. Opp's costume, and Mr. Opp, realizing
this, assumed an air of cosmopolitan nonchalance, and toyed
indifferently with his large watch-fob.
When Mr. Gallop's admiration and attention had become focused upon Mr.
Opp's ring, he suddenly turned on the faucet of his conversation, and
allowed such a stream of general information to pour forth that Mr. Opp
quite forgot to look imposing.
"Mrs. Gusty telephoned early this morning to Mrs. Dorsey that she would
come over and help her make preserves. Mrs. Dorsey got a big load of
peaches from her father across the river. He's been down with the
asthma, and had to call up the doctor twice in the night. And the doctor
couldn't get the right medicine in town, and had me call up the city.
They are going to send it down on the _Big Sandy_, but she's stuck in
the locks, and goodness knows when she'll get here. She's--"
"Excuse me," interrupted Mr. Opp, politely but firmly, "I've got to see
Mrs. Gusty on very important business. Have you any idea whatsoever of
when she will return back home?"
"Yes," said Mr. Gallop, eager to oblige. "She's about home by this time.
Miss Lou Diker is making her a dress, and she telephoned she'd be by to
try it on 'bout four o'clock. I'll go up there with you, if you want me
to."
"Why don't you drive him!" suggested Jimmy. "You can borrow a pair of
mules acrost the street."
"Mr. Opp," said Mr. Gallop, feelingly, as they walked up Main Street, "I
wouldn't treat a' insect like he treats me."
"Oh, you mustn't mind Jimmy," said Mr. Opp, kindly; "he always sort of
enjoys a little joke as he goes along. Why, I wouldn't be at all
surprised if he even made a joke on me sometime. How long have you been
in Cove City?"
"Just a month," said Mr. Gallop. "It must look awful little to you,
after all the big cities you been used to."
Mr. Opp lengthened his stride. "Yes," he said largely; "quite small,
quite little, in fact. No place for a business man; but for a
professional man, a man that requires leisure to sort of cultivate his
brain and that means to be a influence in the community, it's a good
place, a remarkably good place."
A hint, however vague, dropped into the mind of Mr. Gallop, caused
instant fermentation. From long experience he had become an adept at
extracting information from all who crossed his path. A preliminary
interest, a breath or two of flattery by way of anesthetic, and his
victim's secret was out before he knew it.
"Reckon you are going up to talk insurance to Mrs. Gusty," he ventured
tentatively.
"No; oh, no," said Mr. Opp. "I formerly was in the insurance business,
some time back. Very little prospects in it for a man of my nature. I
have to have a chance to sorter spread out, you know--to use my own
particular ideas about working things out."
"What is your especial line?" asked Mr. Gallop, deferentially.
"Shoe--" Mr. Opp began involuntarily, then checked
himself--"journalism," he said, and the word seemed for the moment
completely to fill space.
At Mrs. Gusty's gate Mr. Gallop stopped.
"I guess I ought to go back now," he said regretfully; "the telephone
and telegraph office is right there in my room, and I never leave them
day or night except just this one hour in the afternoon. It's awful
trying. The farmers begin calling each other up at three o'clock in the
morning. Say, I wish you'd step in sometime. I'd just love to have you.
But you are so busy and got so many friends, you won't have much time
for me, I guess."
Mr. Opp thought otherwise. He said that no matter how pressed he was by
various important duties, he was never too busy to see a friend. And he
said it with the air of one who confers a favor, and Mr. Gallop received
it as one who receives a favor, and they shook hands warmly and parted.