"Yes," agreed Mr. Opp; "I could learn you to do the first draft, and I could put on the extra touches."

So engrossed did they become in these plans that they did not hear the click of the gate, or see the small, aggressive lady who came up the walk. She moved with the confident air of one who is in the habit of being obeyed. Her skirt gave the appearance of no more daring to hang wrong than her bonnet-strings would have presumed to move from the exact spot where she had tied them under her left ear. Her small, bright eyes, slightly crossed, apparently saw two ways at once, for on her brief journey from the gate to the porch, she decapitated two withered geraniums on the right, and picked up a stray paper and some dead leaves on the left.

"Guin-never!" she called sharply, not seeing the couple on the porch, "who's been tracking mud in on my clean steps?"

The girl rose hastily and came forward. "Mother," she said, "here's Mr.

Opp."

Mrs. Gusty glanced up from one to the other, evidently undecided how to meet the situation. But the hesitancy was not for long; Mr. Opp's watch-fob, glittering in the sunlight, symbolized such prosperity that she hastily extended a cordial hand of welcome.

"You don't mean to tell me Guin-never has been keeping you out here on the porch instead of taking you in the parlor? And hasn't she given you a thing to drink? Well, just wait till I get my things off and I'll fix a pitcher of lemonade."

"Let me do it, Mother," said Guinevere, eagerly; "I often do it at school."

"I'd hate to drink what you make," said Mrs. Gusty, waving her aside.

"You show Mr. Opp in the parlor. No; I'll open the shutters: you'd get your hands dirty." She bustled about with that tyrannical capability that reduces every one near it to a state of helpless dependence.

The parlor was cool and dark, and Mr. Opp felt around for a chair while the refractory shutter was being opened. When at last a shaft of light was admitted, it fell full upon a sable frame which hung above the horse-hair sofa, and inclosed a glorified certificate of the births, marriages, and deaths in the house of Gusty. Around these written data was a border realistically depicting the seven ages of man and culminating in a legend of gold which read

From the Cradle to the Grave.

While Mr. Opp was standing before this work of art, apparently deeply interested, he was, in reality, peeping through a crack in the shutter.

The sunlight was still filtering through the honeysuckle vines, making dancing, white patches on the porch, the bees were humming about the blossoms, and Miss Guinevere Gusty was still sitting in the hammock, her chin in her palms, gazing down the road.

When Mrs. Gusty returned, she bore a gla.s.s pitcher of lemonade, a plate of crisp gingersnaps, and a tumbler of crushed ice, all of which rested upon a tray which was covered with her strawberry centerpiece, a mark of distinction which, unfortunately, was lost upon her guest.

Mr. Opp, being a man of business, plunged at once into his subject, presenting the matter so eloquently and using so much more persuasion than was necessary that he overshot the mark. Mrs. Gusty was not without business sagacity herself, and when Mr. Opp met a possible objection before it had ever occurred to her, she promptly made use of the suggestion.

"Of course," said Mr. Opp, as a final inducement, "I'd be glad to run in some of Mr. Gusty's poetical pieces from time to time."

This direct appeal to her sentiment so touched Mrs. Gusty that she suggested they go over to the shop at once and look it over.

For a moment after the door of his future sanctum was thrown open Mr.

Opp was disconcerted. The small, dark room, cluttered with all manner of trash, the broken window-panes, the dust, and the cobwebs, presented a prospect that was far from encouraging; but after an examination of the presses, his courage revived.

After a great deal of talk on Mr. Opp's part, and some shrewd bargaining on Mrs. Gusty's, the stupendous transaction was brought to a close, to the eminent satisfaction of both parties.

It was late that night before Mr. Opp retired. He sat in the open window of his bedroom and looked out upon the river. The cool night air and the quiet light of the stars calmed the turmoil in his brain. Gradually the colossal schemes and the towering ambitions gave way to an emotion to which the editor-elect was by no means a stranger. It was a little white-faced Fear that lurked always in a corner of his heart, and could be kept down only by brave words and aggressive deeds.

He sat with his trembling knees hunched, and his arms awkwardly clasped about them, an absurd atom in the great cosmic order; yet the soul that looked out of his squinting, wistful eyes held all the potentialities of life, and embodied the eternal sadness and the eternal inspiration of human endeavor.

VII

It is no small undertaking to embark in an untried ship, upon unknown waters, in the teeth of opposing gales. But Mr. Opp sailed the sea of life as a valiant mariner should, self-reliant, independent, asking advice of n.o.body. He steered by the guidance of his own peculiar moral compa.s.s, regardless of the rough waters through which it led him.

Having invested the major portion of his savings in the present venture, it was necessary to begin operations at once; but events conspired to prevent him. Miss Kippy made many demands upon his time both by day and night; she had transferred her affection and dependence from her father to him, and he found himself sorely enc.u.mbered by this new responsibility. Moreover, the att.i.tude of the town toward the innovation of a newspaper was one of frank skepticism, and it proved a delicate and arduous task to create the proper public sentiment. In addition to these troubles, Mr. Opp had a yet graver matter to hinder him: with all his valor and energy he was suffering qualms of uncertainty as to the proper method of starting a weekly journal.

To be sure, he had achieved a name for the paper--a name so eminently satisfactory that he had already had it emblazoned upon a ream of office paper. "The Opp Eagle" had sprung full-syllabled from his teeming brain, and had been accepted over a hundred compet.i.tors.

But naming the fledgling was an easy matter compared with getting it out of the nest; and it was not until the instalment of his competent staff that Mr. Opp accomplished the task.

This important transaction took place one morning as he sat in his new office and struggled with his first editorial. The bare room, with the press in the center, served as news-room, press-room, publication office, and editorial sanctum. Mr. Opp sat at a new deal table, with one pen behind his ear, and another in his hand, and gazed for inspiration at the brown wrapping-paper with which he had neatly covered the walls.

His mental gymnastics were interrupted by the appearance at the door of Miss Jim Fenton and her brother Nick.

Miss Jim was an anomaly in the community, being by theory a spinster, and by practice a double gra.s.s-widow. Capable and self-supporting, she attracted the ne'er-do-wells as a magnet attracts needles, but having been twice induced to forego her freedom and accept the bonds of wedlock, she had twice escaped and reverted to her original type and name. Miss Jim was evidently a victim of one of Nature's most economical moods; she was spare and angular, with a long, wrinkled face surmounted by a scant fluff of pale, frizzled hair. Her mouth slanted upward at one corner, giving her an expression unjustly attributed to coquetry, when in reality it was due to an innocent and pardonable pride in an all-gold eye-tooth.

But it was her clothes that brought misunderstanding, misfortune, and even matrimony upon Miss Jim. They were sent her by the boxful by a cousin in the city, and the fact was unmistakable that they were clothes with a past. The dresses held an atmosphere of evaporated frivolity; flirtations lingered in every frill, and memories of old larks lurked in every furbelow. The hats had a jaunty list to port, and the colored slippers still held a dance within their soles. One old bird of paradise on Miss Jim's favorite bonnet had a chronic wink for the wickedness he had witnessed.

It was this wink that attracted Mr. Opp as he looked up from his arduous labors. For a disconcerting moment he was uncertain whether it belonged to Miss Jim or to the bird.

"Howdy, Mr. Opp," said the lady in brisk, businesslike tones. "I was taking a crayon portrait home to Mrs. Gusty, and I just stopped in to see if I couldn't persuade you to take my brother to help you on the newspaper. You remember Nick, don't you?"

Mr. Opp glanced up. A skeleton of a boy, with a shaven head, was peering eagerly past him into the office, his keen, ferret-like eyes devouring every detail of the printing-presses.

"He knows the business," went on Miss Jim, anxiously pulling at the fingers of her gloves. "He's been in it over a year at Coreyville. He wants to go back; but I ain't willing till he gets stronger. He ain't been up but two weeks."

Mr. Opp turned impressively in his revolving chair, the one luxury which he had deemed indispensable, and doubtfully surveyed the applicant. The mere suggestion of his leaning upon this broken reed seemed ridiculous; yet the boy's thin, sallow face, and Miss Jim's imploring eyes, caused him to hesitate.

"Well, you see," he said, with thumbs together and his lips pursed, after the manner of the various employers before whom he had stood in the past, "we are just making a preliminary start, and we haven't engaged our staff yet. I am a business man and a careful one. I don't feel justified in going to no extra expense until 'The Opp Eagle' is, in a way, on its feet."

"Oh, that's all right," said the boy; "I'll work a month for nothing.

Lots of fellows do that on the big papers."

Miss Jim plucked warningly at his sleeve, and Mr. Opp, seeing that Nick's enthusiasm had led him beyond his depth, went gallantly to the rescue.

"Not at all," he said hastily; "that ain't my policy. I think I might contrive to pay you a small, reasonable sum down, and increase it in ratio as the paper become more prosperous. Don't you think you better sit down?"

"No, sir; I'm all right," said the boy, impatiently. "I can do 'most anything about a paper, setting type, printing, reporting, collecting, 'most anything you put me at."

Such timely knowledge, in whatever guise it came, seemed Heaven-sent.

Mr. Opp gave a sigh of satisfaction.

"If you feel that you can't do any better than accepting the small sum that just at present I'll have to offer you, why, I think we can come to some arrangement."

"That's mighty nice in you," said Miss Jim, jerking her head forward in order to correct an undue backward gravitation of her bonnet. "If ever you want a crayon portrait, made from life or enlarged from a photograph, I'll make you a special price on it. I'm just taking this here one home to Mrs. Gusty; she had it done for Guin-never's birthday."

Miss Jim removed the wrappings and disclosed a portrait of Miss Guinevere Gusty, very large as to eyes and very small as to mouth. She handed it to Mr. Opp, and called attention to its fine qualities.

"Just look at the lace on that dress! Mrs. Fallows picked a whole pattern off on her needles from one of my portraits. And did you notice the eyelashes; you can actually count 'em! She had four b.u.t.tons on her dress, but I didn't get in but three; but I ain't going to mention it to Mrs. Gusty. Don't you think it's pretty?"

Mr. Opp, who had been smiling absently at the portrait, started guiltily. "Yes," he said confusedly; "yes, ma'am, I think she is." Then he felt a curious tingling about his ears and realized, to his consternation, that he was blushing.

"She's too droopin' a type for me," said Miss Jim, removing an ostrich tip from her angle of vision; then she continued in a side whisper: "Say, would you mind making Nick take this bottle of milk at twelve o'clock, and resting a little? He ain't as strong as he lets on, and he has sort of sinking spells 'long about noon."