Chapter 6

He was, moreover, a bit bruised and stiff from the unusual performances of the previous day, and any sudden motion caused him to wince. But the pain brought recollection, and recollection was instant balm.

It was hardly to be expected that things would deviate from their usual custom of becoming involved at a critical time, so Mr. Opp was not surprised when Nick was late and had to be spoken to, a task which the editor always achieved with great difficulty. Then the printing-press had an acute attack of indigestion, and no sooner was that relieved than the appalling discovery was made that there were no more good "S's" in the type drawer.

"Use dollar-marks for the next issue," directed Mr. Opp, "and I'll wire immediate to the city."

"We're kinder short on 'I's' too," said Nick. "You take so many in your articles."

Mr. Opp looked injured. "I very seldom or never begin on an 'I,'" he said indignantly.

"You get 'em in somehow," said Nick. "Why, the editor over at Coreyville even said 'Our Wife.'"

"Yes," said Mr. Opp, "I will, too,--that is--er--"

The telephone-bell covered his retreat.

"Hello!" he answered in a deep, incisive voice to counteract the effect of his recent embarrassment, "Office of 'The Opp Eagle.' Mr. Toddlinger? Yes, sir. You say you want your subscription stopped! Well, now, wait a minute--see here, I can explain that--" but the other party had evidently rung off.

Mr. Opp turned with exasperation upon Nick:

"Do you know what you went and did last week?" He rose and, going to the file, consulted the top paper. "There it is," he said, "just identical with what he asserted."

Nick followed the accusing finger and read:

"Mr. and Mrs. Toddlinger moved this week into their new horse and lot."

Before explanations could be entered into, there was a knock at the door. When it was answered, a very small black boy was discovered standing on the step. He wore a red shirt and a pair of ragged trousers, between which strained relations existed, and on his head was the brim of a hat from which the crown had long since departed. Hanging on a twine string about his neck was a large onion.

He opened negotiations at once.

"Old Miss says fer you-all to stop dat frowin' papers an' sech like trash outen de winder; dey blows over in our-all's yard."

He delivered the message in the same belligerent spirit with which it had evidently been conveyed to him, and rolled his eyes at Mr. Opp as if the offense had been personal.

Mr. Opp drew him in, and closed the door. "Did--er--did Mrs. Gusty send you over to say that?" he asked anxiously.

"Yas, sir; she done havin' a mad spell. What's dat dere machine fer?"

"It's a printing-press. Do you think Mrs. Gusty is mad at me?"

"_Yas, sir_," emphatically; "she's mad at ever'body. She 'lows she gwine lick me ef I don't tek keer. She done got de kitchen so full o' switches hit looks jes lak outdoors."

"I don't think she would really whip you," said Mr. Opp, already feeling the family responsibility.

"Naw, sir; she jes 'low she gwine to. What's in dem dere little drawers?"

"Type," said Mr. Opp. "You go back and tell Mrs. Gusty that Mr. Opp says he's very sorry to have caused her any inconvenience, and he'll send over immediate and pick up them papers."

"You's kinder skeered of her, too, ain't you?" grinned the ambassador, holding up one bare, black foot to the stove. "My mammy she sasses back, but I runs."

"Well, you'd better run now," said Mr. Opp, who resented such insight; "but, see here, what's that onion for?"

"To 'sorb disease," said the youth, with the air of one who is promulgating some advanced theory in therapeutics; "hit ketches it 'stid of you. My pappy weared a' onion fer put-near a whole year, an' hit 'sorbed all de diseases whut was hangin' round, an' nary a one never teched him. An' one day my pappy he got hongry, an' he et dat dere onion, an' whut you reckon? He up an' died!"

"Well, you go 'long now," said Mr. Opp, "and tell Mrs. Gusty just exactly verbatim what I told you. What did you say was your name?"

"Val," said the boy.

Mr. Opp managed to slip a nickel into the dirty little hand without Nick's seeing him. Nick was rather firm about these things, and disapproved heartily of Mr. Opp's indiscriminate charities.

"Gimme nudder one an' I'll tell you de rest ob it," whispered Val on the door-step.

Mr. Opp complied.

"Valentine Day Johnson," he announced with pride; then pocketing his prize, he vanished around the corner of the house, forgetting his office of plenipotentiary in his sudden accession of wealth.

Once more peace settled on the office, and Mr. Opp was engrossed in an article on "The Greatest Petroleum Proposition South of the Mason and Dixon Line," when an ominous, wheezing cough announced the arrival of Mr. Tucker. This was an unexpected catastrophe, for Mr. Tucker's day for spending the morning at the office was Saturday, when he came in to pay for his paper. It seemed rather an unkind trick of Fate's that he should have been permitted to arrive a day too soon.

The old gentleman drew up a chair to the stove, then deliberately removed his overcoat and gloves.

It was when he took off his overshoes, however, that Mr. Opp and Nick exchanged looks of despair. They had a signal code which they habitually employed when storms swept the office, but in a calm like this they were powerless.

"Mighty sorry to hear about that uprisin' in Guatemala," said Mr. Tucker, who took a vivid interest in foreign affairs, but remained quite neutral about questions at home.

Mr. Opp moved about the office restlessly, knowing from experience that to sit down in the presence of Mr. Tucker was fatal. The only chance of escape lay in motion. He sharpened his pencils, straightened his desk, and tied up two bundles of papers while Mr. Tucker's address on the probable future of the Central American republics continued. Then Mr. Opp was driven to extreme measures. He sent himself a telegram. This ruse was occasionally resorted to, to free the office from unwelcome visitors without offending them, and served incidentally to produce an effect which was not unpleasant to the editor.

Scribbling a message on a telegraph-blank procured for the purpose from Mr. Gallop, Mr. Opp handed it secretly to Nick, who in turn vanished out of the back door only to reappear at the front. Then the editor, with much ostentation, opened the envelop, and, after reading the contents, declared that he had business that would require immediate action. Would Mr. Tucker excuse him? If so, Nick would hold his coat.

"But," protested Mr. Tucker, resisting the effort to force him into his overcoat, "I want to talk over this oil business. We don't want to take any risks with those fellows. As I was a-saying to Mr. Hager--"

"Yes," said Mr. Opp, taking his own hat from a nail, and apparently in great haste, "I know, of course. You are exactly right about it. We'll just talk it over as we go up-street," and linking his arm through Mr. Tucker's, he steered him up the muddy channel of Main Street, and safely into the harbor of Our Hotel, where he anchored him breathless, but satisfied.

Having thus disposed, to the best of his ability, of his business for the week, Mr. Opp turned his attention to his yet more arduous domestic affairs. The menu for the guest's dinner had weighed rather heavily upon him all day, for he had never before entertained in his own home. His heart had been set on turkey; but as that was out of the question, he compromised on a goose, adhering tenaciously to the cranberry sauce.

It was easier to decide on the goose than it was to procure it, and some time was consumed in the search. Mr. Opp brought all his mental powers to bear on the subject, and attacked the problem with a zeal that merited success.

When he reached home at noon with his arm full of bundles, Aunt Tish met him with lamentations.

"Dey ain't but one clean table-cloth, an' hit's got a hole in hit, an' I can't find no sheets to put on de company baid, an' dere ain't three cups an' saucers in de house what belongs to theyselves. I shorely doan know what you thinkin' 'bout, Mr. D., to go an' ast company fer. We-all never does hab company. An' Miss Kippy she be'n habin' a sort er spell, too, cryin' to herself, an' won't tell me whut's de matter."

Mr. Opp shook the raindrops from his hat-brim, and laid the goose tenderly on the table; then he stepped inside the dining-room door, and stood watching the childish figure that sat on the floor before the fire. She was putting artificial flowers on her head, and every time they fell off, she dropped her head on her knees and sobbed softly to herself. Again and again she made the experiment, and again and again the faded roses came tumbling into her lap.

"I'll fix 'em," said Mr. Opp, coming up behind her; "don't you cry about it, Kippy; I can make them stay, easy." He searched around in the clothes-press until he found a paper box, which he tied securely upon Miss Kippy's head.

"Now try it," he cried; "put the flowers on your head; they'll stay."

Timidly, as if afraid of another disappointment, she tried, and when the flowers were caught in the box, she gave a sigh of satisfaction and delight.

"Well, sence I j'ined de church!" exclaimed Aunt Tish, who had been watching proceedings from the doorway; then she added, as Mr. Opp came into the hall: "Hit beats my time de way you handles dat pore chile. Sometimes she got jes good sense as you an' me has. She ast me t'other day if she wasn't crazy. I 'lowed no indeedy, dat crazy folks was lock up in a lunatic asylum. An' she says 'Where?' 'Up at Coreyville,' I say. She went on playin' jes as nice and happy. De chile's all right ef she don't git a fool notion; den dey ain't nobody kin make out what she wants inceptin' you. She been cryin' over dem flowers ever sence breakfast."

"Why didn't you come after me?" demanded Mr. Opp.

"Jes to tie a box on her haid?" asked Aunt Tish. "Lor', I thought you was busy makin' dem newspapers."

"So I am," said Mr. Opp, "but whenever Miss Kippy gets to crying, I want you to come direct after me, do you hear? There ain't anything more important than in keeping her from getting worried. Now, let's have a look at that there table-cloth."

All afternoon Mr. Opp encountered difficulties that would have disheartened a less courageous host. With the limited means at hand it seemed impossible to entertain in a manner befitting the dignity of the editor of "The Opp Eagle." But Mr. Opp, though sorely perplexed, was not depressed, for beneath the disturbed surface of his thoughts there ran an undercurrent of pure joy. It caused him to make strange, unnatural sounds in his throat which he meant for song; it made him stop every now and then in his work to glance tenderly and reminiscently at the palm of his right hand, once even going so far as to touch it softly with his lips. For since the last sun had set there had been no waking moment but had held for him the image of a golden world inhabited solely by a pair of luminous eyes, one small hand, and, it must be added, a band-box.

Through the busy afternoon Mr. Opp referred constantly to his watch, and in spite of the manifold duties to be performed, longed impatiently for evening to arrive. At five o'clock he had moved the furniture from one bedroom to another, demonstrated beyond a possibility of doubt that a fire could not be made in the parlor grate without the chimney smoking, mended two chairs, hung a pair of curtains, and made three errands to town. So much accomplished, he turned his attention to the most difficult task of all.

"Kippy," he said, going to the window where she was gleefully tracing the course of the raindrops as they chased down the pane. "Stop a minute, Kippy. Listen; I want to talk to you."

Miss Kippy turned obediently, but her lips continued the dumb conversation she was having with the rain.

"How would you like," said Mr. Opp, approaching the subject cautiously, "to play like you was a grown-up lady--just for to-night, you know?"

Miss Kippy looked at him suspiciously, and her lips stopped moving. Heretofore she had resisted all efforts to change her manner of dress.

"There's a gentleman a-coming," continued Mr. Opp, persuasively; "he's going to remain over till to-morrow, and Aunt Tish is cooking that large goose for him, and I've been fixing up the spare room. We are all endeavoring to give him a nice time. Don't you want to dress up for him?"

"Will it make him glad?" asked Miss Kippy.

Mr. Opp expiated on the enjoyment it would give the unknown guest to see Kippy in the blue merino dress which Aunt Tish had gotten out of Mrs. Opp's old trunk up-stairs.

"And you'll let Aunt Tish arrange your hair up like a lady?" went on Mr. Opp, pushing the point.

"Yes," said Miss Kippy, after a moment, "Oxety will. She will make him glad."

"Good!" said Mr. Opp. "And if you will sit nice and quiet and never say a word all through supper, I'll get you a book with pictures in it, representing flowers and things."

"Roses?" asked Miss Kippy, drawing a quick breath of delight; and when Mr. Opp nodded, she closed her eyes and smiled as if heaven were within sight. For Miss Kippy was like a harp across which some rough hand had swept, snapping all the strings but two, the high one of ecstasy and the low one of despair.

At six o'clock Mr. Opp went up to make his toilet. The rain, which had been merely rehearsing all day, was now giving a regular performance, and it played upon the windows, and went trilling through the gutters on the roof, while the old cedar-tree scraped an accompaniment on the corner of the porch below. But, nothing daunted, Mr. Opp donned his bravest attire. Cyclones and tornadoes could not have deterred him from making the most elaborate toilet at his command. To be sure, he turned up the hem of his trousers and tied a piece of oilcloth securely about each leg, and he also spread a handkerchief tenderly over his pink necktie; but these could be easily removed after he heard the boat whistle.

He dressed by the light of a sputtering candle before a small mirror the veracity of which was more than questionable. It presented him to himself as a person with a broad, flat face, the nose of which appeared directly between his eyes, and the mouth on a line with the top of his ears. But he made allowances for these idiosyncrasies on the part of the mirror; in fact, he made such liberal allowances that he was quite satisfied with the reflection.

"I'll procure the hack to bring the company back in," he said to Aunt Tish rather nervously as he passed through the kitchen. "You assist Miss Kippy to get arranged, and I'll carry up the coal and set the table after I return back home. I can do it while the company is up in his room."

All the way into town, as he splashed along the muddy road, he was alternately dreading the arrival of one passenger, and anticipating joyfully, the arrival of another. For as the time approached the impending presence of the company began to take ominous form, and Mr. Opp grew apprehensive.

At the landing he found everything dark and quiet. Evidently the packet was unusually late, and the committee appointed to meet it and conduct the guests to their various destinations was waiting somewhere uptown, probably at Your Hotel. Mr. Opp paused irresolute: his soul yearned for solitude, but the rain-soaked dock offered no shelter except the slight protection afforded by a pile of empty boxes. Selecting the driest and largest of these, he turned it on end, and by an adroit adjustment of his legs, succeeded in getting inside.

Below, the river rolled heavily past in the twilight, sending up tiny juts of water to meet the pelting rain. A cold, penetrating mist clung to the ground, and the wind carried complaining tales from earth to heaven. Everything breathed discomfort, but Mr. Opp knew it not.

His soul was sailing sunlit seas of bliss, fully embarked at last upon the most magic and immortal of all illusions. Sitting cramped and numb in his narrow quarters, he peered eagerly into the darkness, watching for the first lights of the _Sunny South_ to twinkle through the gloom. And as he watched he chanted in a sing-song ecstasy:

"She is coming, my own, my sweet; Were it ever so airy a tread, My heart would hear her and beat, Were it earth in an earthy bed; My dust would hear her and beat, Had I lain for a century dead; Would start and tremble under her feet, And blossom in purple and red."

X

When Miss Guinevere Gusty tripped up the gang-plank of the _Sunny South_ late that afternoon, vainly trying to protect herself from the driving rain, she was met half-way by the gallant old captain.

Tradition had it that the captain had once cast a favorable eye upon her mother; but Mrs. Gusty, being cross-eyed, had looked elsewhere.

"We are a pudding without plums," he announced gaily, as he held the umbrella at an angle calculated to cause a waterspout in the crown of her hat--"not a lady on board. All we needed was a beautiful young person like you to liven us up. You haven't forgotten those pretty tunes you played for me last trip, have you?"

Guinevere laughed, and shook her head. "That was just for you and the girls," she said.

"Well, it'll be for me and the boys this time. I've got a nice lot of gentlemen on board, going down to your place, by the way, to buy up all your oil-lands. Now I know you are going to play for us if I ask you to."

"My goodness! are they on this boat?" asked Guinevere, in a flutter. "I am so glad; I just love to watch city people."

"Yes," said the captain; "that was Mr. Mathews talking to me as you came aboard--the one with the white beard. Everything that man touches turns to money. That glum-looking young fellow over there is his secretary. Hinton is his name; curious sort of chap."

Guinevere followed his glance with eager interest. "The solemn one with the cap pulled over his eyes?" she asked.

The captain nodded. "All the rest are inside playing cards and having a good time; but he's been moping around like that ever since they got on board. I've got to go below now, but when I come back, you'll play some for me, won't you?"

Guinevere protested violently, but something within her whispered that if the captain was very insistent she would render the selection which had won her a gold medal at the last commencement.

Slipping into the saloon, she dropped quietly into one of the very corpulent chairs which steamboats particularly affect, and, unobserved, proceeded to give herself up to the full enjoyment of the occasion. The journey from Coreyville to the Cove, in the presence of the distinguished strangers, had assumed the nature of an adventure. Giving her imagination free rein, Miss Gusty, without apology, transported the commonplace group of business men at the card-table into the wildest realms of romance. The fact that their language, appearance, and manner spoke of the city, was for her a sufficient peg upon which to hang innumerable conjectures. So deep was she in her speculations that she did not hear the captain come up behind her.

"Where have you been hiding?" he asked in stentorian tones. "I was afraid you'd gotten out on deck and the wind had blown you overboard. Don't you think it's about time for that little tune? We are forty minutes late now, and we'll lose another half-hour taking on freight at Smither's Landing. I've been banking on hearing that little dance-piece you played for me before."

"I can't play--before them," said Guinevere, nervously.

The captain laughed. "Yes, you can; they'll like it. Mr. Mathews said something mighty pretty about you when you came on board."

"He didn't--honest?" said Guinevere, blushing. "Oh, truly, Captain, I can't play!" But even as she spoke she unbuttoned her gloves. Her accomplishment was clamoring for an exhibition, and though her spirit failed her, she twirled the piano-stool and took her seat.

The group of men at the table, heretofore indifferent to proceedings, looked up when a thundering chord broke the stillness. A demure young girl, with gentle, brown eyes, was making a furious and apparently unwarranted attack upon the piano. Her one desire evidently was to get inside of the instrument. With insinuating persistence she essayed an entrance through the treble, and, being unable to effect it, fell upon the bass, and exhausted a couple of rounds of ammunition there. The assault on both flanks being unsuccessful, she resorted to strategy, crossing her hands and assailing each wing of the enemy from an unexpected quarter. When this move failed, she evidently became incensed, and throwing aside diplomacy, rallied all her forces, charging her artillery up to the highest note, then thundering down to the lowest, beating down the keys as fast as they dared to rise. In the midst of the carnage, when the clamor was at its height and victory seemed imminent, she suddenly paused, with one hand in air and her head gently inclined, and, tapping out two silvery bugle-notes of truce, raised the siege.

The appalling silence that ensued might have hung above a battle-field of slain and wounded. The captain bit his mustache.

"That wasn't exactly the one I meant," he said. "I want that little dance-tune with the jingle to it."

Miss Gusty, disappointed and surprised at the effect which her masterpiece had failed to produce, was insisting with flushed cheeks that she could play no more, when the gentleman who was called Mr. Mathews rose from the table and came toward her. His hair and pointed beard were white, but his eyes were still young, and he looked at her while he spoke to the captain.

"I beg your pardon, Captain," he was saying in smooth, even tones, "can't you persuade the young lady to sing something for us?"

"I never took vocal," said Guinevere, looking at him frankly. "I'm making a specialty of instrumental."

The gentleman looked sidewise at his companions and stroked his beard gravely. "But you _do_ sing?" he persisted.

"Just popular music," said Guinevere. "I was going to take 'The Holy City' and 'The Rosary' last year, but the vocal teacher got sick."

In response to a very urgent invitation, she took her seat again, and this time sang a sentimental ditty concerning the affairs of one "Merry Little Milly in the Month of May."

This selection met with prompt favor, and the men left their cards, and gathered about the piano, demanding an encore.

Miss Guinevere's voice was very small, and her accompaniment very loud, but, in her effort to please, she unconsciously became dramatic in her expression, and frowned and smiled and lifted her brows in sympathy with the emotions of the damsel in the song. And Miss Guinevere's eyes being expressive and her lips very red, the result proved most satisfactory to the audience.

One stout young man in particular expressed himself in such unrestrained terms of enthusiasm, that Guinevere, after singing several songs, became visibly embarrassed. Upon the plea of being too warm she made her escape, half-promising to return and sing again later on.

Flushed with the compliments and the excitement, and a little uncertain about the propriety of it all, she hurried through the swing-door and, turning suddenly on the deck, stumbled over something in the darkness.

It proved to be a pair of long legs that were stretched out in front of a silent figure, who shot a hand out to restore Miss Gusty to an upright position. But the deck was slippery from the rain, and before he could catch her, she went down on her knees.

"Did it hurt you?" a voice asked anxiously.

"It don't matter about me," answered Guinevere, "just so it didn't spoil my new dress. I'm afraid there's an awful tear in it."