For the 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 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 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 The French-heeled slippers had been
replaced by heavy walking shoes, and the lace scarf was discarded for a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, 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 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. "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
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.
"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 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 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.
"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 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 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."