Chapter 5

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.”