Mr. Opp.
by Alice Hegan Rice.
I
"I hope your pa.s.senger hasn"t missed his train," observed the ferryman to Mr. Jimmy Fallows, who sat on the river bank with the painter of his rickety little naphtha launch held loosely in his hand.
"Mr. Opp?" said Jimmy. "I bet he did. If there is one person in the world that"s got a talent for missing things, it"s Mr. Opp. I never seen him that he hadn"t just missed gettin" a thousand dollar job, or inventin" a patent, or bein" hurt when he had took out a accident policy. If he did ketch a train, like enough it was goin" the wrong way."
Jimmy had been waiting since nine in the morning, and it was now well past noon. He was a placid gentleman of curvilinear type, short of limb and large of girth. His trousers, of that morose hue termed by the country people "plum," reached to his armpits, and his hat, large and felt and weather-beaten, was only prevented from eclipsing his head by the stubborn resistance of two small, k.n.o.b-like ears.
"Mr. Opp ain"t been back to the Cove for a long while, has he?" asked the ferryman, whose intellectual life depended solely upon the crumbs of information scattered by chance pa.s.sers-by.
"Goin" on two years," said Mr. Fallows. "Reckon he"s been so busy formin" trusts and buyin" out railways and promotin" things generally that he ain"t had any time to come back home. It"s his step-pa"s funeral that"s bringin" him now. The only time city folks seem to want to see their kin folks in the country is when they are dead."
"Ain"t that him a-comin" down the bank?" asked the ferryman, shading his eyes with his hands.
Mr. Fallows, with some difficulty, got to his feet.
"Yes, that"s him all right. Hustlin" to beat the band. Wonder if he takes me for a street car."
Coming with important stride down the wharf, and whistling as he came, was a small man of about thirty-five. In one hand he carried a large suit-case, and in the other a new and shining grip. On both were painted, in letters designed to be seen, "D. Webster Opp, Kentucky."
In fact, everything about him was evidently designed to be seen. His new suit of insistent plaid, his magnificent tie sagging with the weight of a colossal scarf-pin, his brown hat, his new tan shoes, all demanded individual and instant attention.
The only insignificant thing about Mr. Opp was himself. His slight, undeveloped body seemed to be in a chronic state of apology for failing properly to set off the glorious raiment wherewith it was clothed. His pock-marked face, wide at the temples, sloped to a small, pointed chin, which, in turn, sloped precipitously into a long, thin neck. It was Mr.
Opp"s eyes, however, that one saw first, for they were singularly vivid, with an expression that made strangers sometimes pause in the street to ask him if he had spoken to them. Small, pale, and red of rim, they nevertheless held the look of intense hunger--hunger for the hope or the happiness of the pa.s.sing moment.
As he came bustling down to the water"s-edge he held out a friendly hand to Jimmy Fallows.
"How are you, Jimmy?" he said in a voice freighted with importance.
"Hope I haven"t kept you waiting long. Several matters of business come up at the last and final moment, and I missed the morning train."
Jimmy, who was pouring gasolene into a tank in the launch, treated the ferryman to a prodigious wink.
"Oh, not more"n four or five hour," he said, casting side glances of mingled scorn and admiration at Mr. Opp"s attire. "It is a good thing it was the funeral you was tryin" to get to instid of the death-bed."
"Oh, that reminds me," said Mr. Opp, suddenly exchanging his air of cheerfulness for one of becoming gravity--"what time is the funeral obsequies going to take place?"
"Whenever we git there," said Jimmy, pushing off the launch and waving his hand to the ferryman. "You"re one of the chief mourners, and I"m the undertaker; there ain"t much danger in us gettin" left."
Mr. Opp deposited his baggage carefully on the seat, and spread his coat across the new grip to keep it from getting splashed.
"How long was Mr. Moore sick?" he asked, fanning himself with his hat.
"Well," said Jimmy, "he was in a dangerous and critical condition for about twenty-one years, accordin" to his own account. I been seein" him durin" that time on a average of four times a day, and last night when I seen him in his coffin it was the first time the old gentleman failed to ask me to give him a drink on account of his poor health."
"Is Ben there?" asked Mr. Opp, studying a time-table, and making a note in his memorandum-book.
"Your brother Ben? Yes; he come this mornin" just before I left. He was cussin" considerable because you wasn"t there, so"s they could go on and git through. He wants to start back to Missouri to-night."
"Is he out at the house?"
"No; he"s at Your Hotel."
Mr. Opp looked up in surprise, and Jimmy chuckled.
"That there"s the name of my new hotel. Started up sence you went away.
Me and old man Tucker been running boardin"-houses side by side all these years. What did he do last summer but go out and git him a sign as big as the side of the house, and git Nick Fenny to paint "Our Hotel" on it; then he put it up right across the sidewalk, from the gate clean out to the road. I didn"t say nothin", but let the boys keep on a-kiddin" me till the next day; then I got me a sign jus" like his, with "Your Hotel" on it, and put it up crost my sidewalk. He"d give a pretty if they was both down now; but he won"t take his down while mine is up, and I ain"t got no notion of taking it down."
"Yes," said Mr. Opp, absently, for his mind was still on the time-table; "I see that there"s an accommodation that departs out of Coreyville in the neighborhood of noon to-morrow. It"s a little unconvenient, I"m afraid, but do you think you could get me back in time to take it?"
"Why, what"s yer hurry?" asked Jimmy, steering for mid-stream. "I thought you"d come to visit a spell, with all them bags and things."
Mr. Opp carelessly tossed back the sleeve of the coat, to display more fully the name on the suit-case. "Them"s drummers" samples," he said almost reverently--"the finest line of shoes that have ever been put out by any house in the United States, bar none."
"Why, I thought you was in the insurance business," said Jimmy.
"Oh, no; that was last year, just previous to my reporting on a newspaper. This"--and Mr. Opp tried to spread out his hands, but was slightly deterred by the size of his cuffs--"this is the chance I been looking for all my life. It takes brains and a" educated nerve, and a knowledge of the world. I ought to create considerable capital in the next few years. And just as soon as I do"--and Mr. Opp leaned earnestly toward Jimmy, and tapped one finger upon the palm of his other hand--"just as soon as I do, I intend to buy up all the land lying between Turtle Creek and the river. There"s enough oil under that there ground to ca"m the troubled waters of the Pacific Ocean. You remember old Mr. Beeker? Well, he told me, ten years ago, that he bored a well for brine over there, and it got so full of black petroleum he had to abandon it. Now, I"m calculating on forming a stock company,--you and Mr. Tucker, I and old man Hager, and one or two others,--and buying up that ground. Then we"ll sink a test well, get up a derrick and a"
engine, and have the thing running in no time. The main thing is a competent manager. You know I"m thinking seriously of taking it myself?
It"s too big a proposition to run any risks with."
"Here, say, wait a minute; how long have you had this here shoe job?"
Jimmy caught madly at the first fact in sight to keep him from being swept away by the flood of Mr. Opp"s oily possibilities.
"I taken it last week," said Mr. Opp; "had to go all the way to Chicago to get my instructions, and to get fitted out. My territory is a specially important one; four counties, all round Chicago."
"I was in Chicago oncet," said Jimmy, his eyes brightening at the memory. "By golly! if the world is as big in every direction as it is in that, she"s a whopper!"
The wind, freshening as they got under way, loosened the canvas overhead, and Mr. Opp rose to buckle it into place. As he half knelt in the bow of the boat, he lifted his face to the cool breeze, and took a deep breath of satisfaction. The prosaic river from Coreyville to the Cove was the highway he knew best in the world. Under the summer sunshine the yellow waters lost their sullen hue, and reflected patches of vivid red and white from the cottages and barns that dotted the distant sh.o.r.e.
"I don"t consider there"s any sceneries in the country that"ll even begin to compare with these here," Mr. Opp announced, out of the depths of his wide experience. "Just look at the sunshine pouring forth around the point of the island. It spills through the trees and leaks out over the water just like quicksilver. Now, that"s a good thought! It"s perfectly astounding, you might say surprising, how easy thoughts come to me. I ought to been a writer; lots of folks have said so. Why, there ain"t a day of my life that I don"t get a poem in my head."
"Shucks!" observed Jimmy Fallows. "I"d as lief read figgers on a tow-boat as to read poetry. Old man Gusty used to write poetry, but he couldn"t get n.o.body to print it, so he decided to start a newspaper at the Cove and chuck it full of his own poems. He bought a whole printin"
outfit, and set it up in Pete Aker"s old carpenter shop out there at the edge of town, opposite his home. But "fore he got his paper started he up and died. Yes, sir; and the only one of his poems that he ever did git in print was the one his wife had cut on his tombstone."
Mr. Opp was not listening. With his head bared and his lips parted he was indulging in his princ.i.p.al weakness. For Mr. Opp, it must be confessed, was given to violent intoxication, not from an extraneous source, but from too liberal draughts of his own imagination. In extenuation, the claims of genius might be urged, for a genius he unquestionably was in that he created something out of nothing. Out of an abnormal childhood, a lonely boyhood, and a failure-haunted manhood, he had managed to achieve an absorbing career. Each successive enterprise had loomed upon his horizon big with possibilities, and before it sank to oblivion, another scheme, portentous, significant, had filled its place. Life was a succession of crises, and through them he saw himself moving, now a shrewd merchant, now a professional man, again an author of note, but oftenest of all a promoter of great enterprises, a financier, and man of affairs.
While he was thus mentally engaged in drilling oil-wells, composing poetry, and selling shoes, Jimmy Fallows was contemplating with fascinated wonder an object that floated from his coat pocket. From a brown-paper parcel, imperfectly wrapped, depended a curl of golden hair, and it bobbed about in the breeze in a manner that reduced Mr. Fallows to a state of abject curiosity.
So intent was Jimmy upon his investigation that he failed to hold his course, and the launch swung around the end of the island with such a sudden jerk that Mr. Opp took an unexpected seat.
As he did so, his hand touched the paper parcel in his pocket, and realizing that it was untied, he hastily endeavored, by a series of surrept.i.tious manoeuvers, to conceal what it contained. Feeling the quizzical eye of his shipmate full upon him, he a.s.sumed an air of studied indifference, and stoically ignored the subterranean chuckles and knowing winks in which Mr. Fallows indulged.
Presently, when the situation had become poignant, Mr. Opp observed that he supposed the funeral would take place from the church.
"I reckon so," said Jimmy, reluctantly answering to the call of the conversational rudder. "I told the boys to have a hack there for you and Mr. Ben and Miss Kippy."